You're a downy old bird, and you know as well as I that terrorists are not particularly interested in their personal survival, the cause is far more important than their life. Terror is intended to create oppression by encouraging the government to crack down in the fruitless attempt to "fight" terror. As the US passed bills like the Patriot Act and associated legislation, and began openly denying enemies any rights of due process, for the specious reasons that they were "terrorists" (alleged), or not subject to the conditions of the US Constitution because they weren't citizens, I told everybody who would listen (and a few who would not), "Well, the terrorists won." Lost quite a few friends over it.
Now, something like "The End of the United States" is rather too large an event to be evaluated from the inside, while it's happening. Reports of the "End" are exaggerated, as Mr Twain might say. But we're well on the road, and have been this whole century. And as opportunistic authoritarians use "terror" and made-up "crises" to accumulate more power and authority, it can be seen that we as a nation are willingly handing over our freedoms to gangsters who promise some chimerical "safety" in return for us donning our own shackles.
Mr Bin-Laden could not have been more pleased at the way the US reacted to his spectacular attack.
You may recall the war in Vietnam, and how we threatened to bomb the North back to the Stone Age if they didn't come to the table and agree to our demands. You may recall that we did bomb them back to the Stone Age, and it made not one whit of difference. You may also recall the things Võ Nguyên Giáp is reported to have said about the conflict, particularly "You will kill ten of us for each one of you we kill, and in the end it is you who will grow tired of it," and his reaction to a US officer who told him that the US forces won every battle from the military standpoint: "That is true. It is also irrelevant." Yeah, we sure taught them a lesson.
-- Mal
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