We all have our 9/11 memories, and this is mine: turning the corner onto Fifth Avenue on that crisp morning in New York, to find cars stopped in the street and stock-still pedestrians gaping at the scene downtown. There, against a perfect blue sky, the towers belched red hellfire and black smoke from sinister gashes. “Two planes?” I asked a cop. “Two,” he said. We nodded in recognition of what this meant: This was no accident, and everything would now change. And it did. Now the man who conjured up that dark day is finally gone, but we must give the devil his due. Like Stalin and Mao and Hitler before him, Osama bin Laden was a one-man pivot point in history. It is not yet possible to tally up, or fully comprehend, how the power of his fanaticism and magnetic personality changed the world.
Consider first the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, which have killed 6,000 Americans and more than 100,000 Iraqis and Afghans, and wounded tens of thousands more. The final cost of the wars may exceed $4 trillion. Add another $1 trillion for the added security in the U.S. alone. Since the attacks deepened the 2001 recession, the Fed dropped interest rates to nearly zero, which fueled the housing bubble that led to the 2008 Wall Street collapse. If national security were not the primary issue in 2004, George W. Bush may not have been re-elected. Had a Democrat won that year, Barack Obama would still be a senator from Illinois. The ripples and reverberations go on and on. In the end, bin Laden failed to realize his monstrous vision; he sleeps with the fishes. But he left an imprint—a scar—on all of our lives.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
India elections start amid violence, hate speech accusationsTalking Points Narendra Modi seeks a third term while critics worry about the future of the country's democracy
-
'Biden is smart to keep the border-security pressure on'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Bird flu worries mount as virus found in milk, cowsSpeed Read The FDA found traces of the virus in pasteurized grocery store milk
-
Editor's letterfeature
-
Editor's letter: Are college athletes employees?
feature The National Labor Relations Board's decision deeming scholarship players “employees” of Northwestern University has many worrying that college sports itself will soon be history.
-
Editor's letter
feature
-
Editor's letter: When a bot takes your job
feature Now that computers can write news stories, drive cars, and play chess, we’re all in trouble.
-
Editor's letter: Electronic cocoons
feature Smartphones have their upside, but city streets are now full of people walking with their heads down.
-
Editor's letter: The real cause of income inequality
feature When management and stockholders pocket all the profits, the middle class falls further behind.
-
Editor's letter: The real reason you’re so forgetful
feature When you consider how much junk we’ve stored in our brains, it’s no surprise we can’t remember our PINs.
-
Editor's letter: Ostentatious politicians
feature The McDonnells’ indictment for corruption speaks volumes about the company elected officials now keep.