25 years after 9/11, Bin Laden has achieved one of his major goals

On Sept. 10, 2001, I got into an argument with one of my friends about our planned day trip to the World Trade Center the next day . He told me he did not want to wake up early. I argued that we should get there as soon as possible, so that we could maximize our time both at the top of the towers and in downtown Manhattan.

He won the argument. The next day, instead of being in downtown Manhattan, we stood on Garret Mountain in Clifton, N.J. and watched the towers come down.

Like millions of Americans, I struggled with what I saw. I joined the thousands who enlisted in the military out of a sense of duty. I also felt an immense amount of hatred in my heart. I hated Osama Bin Laden, terrorists, people who made excuses for what happened, and those who thought we should not have plunged headfirst into what we called an expanding “War on Terror.” I told myself that going into Iraq (where I went as a Marine) was a mistake, but that the larger goal of fighting terrorism justified our expanding military operations around the world. And boy, did we expand the fight to include a litany of countries bombed and trillions of dollars spent.

But we accomplished our goals, right? Well, 25 years later, it has become apparent that we have not defeated terrorism. The world is a less safe place despite our actions, and Bin Laden achieved one of his main goals: to bleed America dry and force its economy to buckle.

Although he initially wanted the U.S. to withdraw its forces and influence from the Middle East, he realized rather quickly that the U.S. had made a huge blunder by expanding the war into Iraq. In 2004, he released a video that then sounded like a madman yelling nonsense on the street corner. The truth is, it hit very close to home then — we just didn’t want to admit it because of pride. As of 2026, the late terrorist’s rantings are now backed by facts and figures.

“ We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy ” was a claim that Bin Laden made in his 2004 video. He likened the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that lasted through the 1980s. He studied the U.S. and its actions in Vietnam trying to rely on military spending, body counts and struggling with insurgency groups. American politicians could not afford to look weak on terror, so they expanded operations all over the Middle East and the world.

And it wasn’t just one political party, either. Many Democrats railed against President Bush’s invasion of Iraq and the blunder of Bin Laden’s escape at Tora Bora, only to make excuses when President Obama decided that drone strikes were the new norm and that we needed to keep troops in Afghanistan after Bin Laden was killed in 2011.

In short, Bin Laden knew in 2004 that we would continue the war even after his body was dropped into the ocean’s abyss.

We saw Al Qaeda’s soldiers and other Islamists branch off and form other groups with their own intentions. The Islamic State grew out of the Al Qaeda in Iraq organization and quickly capitalized on the Syrian civil war. Iran took notes on U.S. actions and ramped up operations and spending involving Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Shiite militias in Iraq. We have seen Islamist cells strike in Kenya, Nigeria, India, France and dozens of other countries.

As these groups have grown, so has our spending to combat every real or perceived threat. In 2004, the national debt was $7 trillion dollars. Since 2001, military spending has added $8 trillion to our national debt which is now $40 trillion. Post 9/11 military spending is now at $18 trillion. And that doesn’t even include money we spend domestically. The Department of Homeland Security alone cost us $1.2 trillion. The interest on the borrowing is $1.1 trillion, more than twice the amount spent on all the Veterans Affairs medical and disability expenses that these wars have trebled.

We are now told that we need to spend $1.5 trillion annually to keep us safe. We are dangerously low on missiles because of the war with Iran. We are spending billions on military contractors who do not deliver the weapons to keep us safe . We fought and engaged in war games with Ukraine to see if we could handle modern warfare, and it turns out that we can’t . We are sending troops out over and over again to the point where they are breaking not just when they come home but while out on deployment .

Bin Laden once blasted Bush for his greed for oil and his corporate cronyism. After all, companies like Halliburton did well while our country did not. “The darkness of black gold (oil) blurred his vision and insight, and he gave priority to private interests over the public interests of America,” said Bin Laden .

You could use the same sentence now when it comes to Iran. At the conflict’s inception, we were spending millions of dollars to combat Iranian drones that cost thousands. This was something Bin Laden bragged about in 2004. “Every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million [U.S.] dollars.”

Former CIA agent John Kiriakou recently claimed that if the U.S. stopped fighting wars, we would enter a recession . That is perhaps dramatic, but the ever-growing defense budget and national debt should make us wonder whether we are on the right course.

Should we wave the white flag when it comes to Islamic terror? Absolutely not. But we really need to take stock of the lives lost, trillions spent, and freedoms surrendered in the war on terror and realize that our actions are creating exactly what Bin Laden wanted.

As a veteran of Iraq who watched the Twin Towers fall with my own eyes, I think it is past time to go back to the drawing board on our war on terror. Because at this point, Bin Laden seems to have won.

Joslin Joseph is a recipient of the Military Reporters and Editors award for Best Commentary / Opinion. A graduate of Harvard and Ohio State, he is a Marine veteran who served in Iraq. He currently lives in Anaheim, Calif.