As we mark Osama bin Laden's death, what's striking is how much he cost our nation - and how little we've gained from our fight against him. By conservative estimates, bin Laden cost the United States at least $3 trillion over the past 15 years, counting the disruptions he wrought on the domestic economy, the wars and heightened security triggered by the terrorist attacks he engineered, and the direct efforts to hunt him down.
What do we have to show for that tab? Two wars that continue to occupy 150,000 troops and tie up a quarter of our defense budget; a bloated homeland-security apparatus that has at times pushed the bounds of civil liberty; soaring oil prices partially attributable to the global war on bin Laden's terrorist network; and a chunk of our mounting national debt, which threatens to hobble the economy unless lawmakers compromise on an unprecedented deficit-reduction deal.
Comment: Indeed, we need to ask the question: 'Who benefits?' Considering that bin Laden has been dead for years, and that he had nothing to do with the September 11th false flag attacks, '"he" has wrought nothing. The cost that our blinkered authors are about to describe is the fruit of a plan of action. A plan not born of the long dead bogey man, but of those in positions of economic and political power who are the real beneficiaries. What is a $3 trillion cost to the American tax payer, is a $3 trillion profit for the military industrial complex and the psychopathic forces that drive it.
© Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
The crash: The 9/11 attacks alone cost the U.S. economy $50 billion to $100 billion.
The crash: The 9/11 attacks alone cost the U.S. economy $50 billion to $100 billion.
Comment: Just when the world thought it safe to look under the bed..