I got a short piece of mail from Art Protin in New Zealand:

I just read an article in the Dominion Post from 22 Jan. 2010 where they quote from an interview with Omar bin Laden, son of Osama bin Laden. "As soon as America went to Afghanistan, [Osama bin Laden's] plan worked. He has already won." I said the same thing back in 2001 but nobody quoted then.

Art was still in New Jersey at the time. I drove to New York the first week of September, 2001, and dropped my car off at his house in Madison for safekeeping (and cheap parking) before taking the train into the city. I had stopped to see friends on the way out, and expected to see more on the way back, but my main purpose was to hook up with Robert Christgau and build his website. Laura flew to New York for a short rendez-vous. We did some sightseeing, and she was scheduled to fly back to Wichita on the 11th. Didn't happen, as you know. We were staying with a friend in Brooklyn when the planes hit the World Trade Center. From our perch above Grand Army Plaza, we could see the flaming towers and an endless parade of shocked people trudging home. Laura eventually got out, as did our host, Liz, leaving me alone in the apartment. We spent the first few days largely glued to the TV, an indication of the horrors to come. I recall John Major pointing out that Britain could teach America a few things about terrorism, and a smiling Benjamin Netanyahu who couldn't help but opine that this was good news for Israel. I recall Hillary Clinton standing on the Capitol steps daring them to come back and finish her off. I recall clips of Palestinians celebrating, and grainy black/white of a rocket attack in Kabul fueling speculation that Bush had already started to strike back: "America Strikes Back" replaced "America Under Attack" as the theme script on the bottom of the television screen.

After Laura and Liz left, I shut the TV down. I spent two, maybe three weeks in New York: wandering the streets and bookstores -- remarkably empty of any relevant books; I went to some worried peace demonstrations; I hacked the website together; I saw friends and attended to some family matters -- my niece, Lucy Fishman, was killed at work in the WTC, and we were all shocked and despondent over that. Still, it was probably the least worst place to be at the time. It was, after all, real -- unlike the hysterical war fever whipped up all over the rest of America.

When I finally left New York, I took the train to Jersey City, and Art drove in and picked me up. He asked me what my thoughts were on "9-1-1" -- the first time I had ever heard it referred to as that. I don't remember what I said, but recall that he saw sending troops to Afghanistan as falling into a trap. It wasn't inevitable at the time, although we now know that Bush never considered not going to war -- that he was itching to play his commander-in-chief role for all the political capital, not to mention glory, he could muster. And the preëmptive attacks on peaceniks and pragmatists had already begun, so relentless and dogmatic that Susan Sontag got trampled for wondering whether the definition of "cowardice" really was hijacking planes and smashing them into buildings.

That Bin Laden saw 9/11 as a trap to lure the US into war in Afghanistan isn't surprising. The notion of Afghanistan as the "graveyard of empires" is a little overworked. Britain and the Soviet Union failed mostly due to internal rot -- the economic folly of empire did them more harm than the nicks and bruises of primitive arms wielded by desperate fighters. The more apt formulation is Jonathan Schell's "unconquerable world." Still, the US is only slightly less vulnerable to the same rot -- the net effect of being able to hand on longer is that we wind up suffering more in the end. Even before I got Art's mail, I had planned on posting a similar extract from Omar Bin Laden's PR tour, this one published in the Feb. 4, 2010 issue of Rolling Stone (p. 70):

Alone for the first time in his life, Omar took a car to the Pakistan border. A few months later, his father destroyed the World Trade Center, killing thousands. "I never thought the attack would be civilian buildings," Omar says. "I thought it would be a ship, like the USS Cole. My father's dream was to bring the Americans to Afghanistan. He would do the same thing he did to the Russians. I was surprised the Americans took the bait. I so much respected the mentality of President Clinton. He was the one who was smart. When my father attacked his places, he sent a few cruise missiles to my father's training camp. He didn't get my father, but after all the war in Afghanistan, they still don't have my father. They have spent hundreds of billions. Better for America to keep the money for its economy. In Clinton's time, America was very, very smart. Not like a bull that runs after the red scarf.

"I was still in Afghanistan when Bush was elected," he continues. "My father was so happy. This is the kind of president he needs -- one who will attack and spend money and break the country. Even Bush's own mother says he is the biggest idiot boy of the family. I am sure my father wanted McCain more than Obama. McCain has the same mentality as Bush. My father would be disappointed because Obama get the position."

Osama bin Laden is probably less disappointed with Obama these days, for while he isn't as knee-jerk trigger-happy as McCain, he reasons his way to the same insane conclusions. There are people who would argue that Obama is the "same as he ever was" -- Paul Krugman used that title for a post -- but I wonder whether that Somali pirate incident early in his term wasn't a turning point. Obama approved sniper attacks that killed pirates holding a ship captain. In all likelihood, that was the first time Obama got so close to blood on his hands, and it played well in the press -- made him hero of the day. Since then his favored weapon has been the only slightly less intimate drone-fired rockets, which he has used even more promiscuously than Bush did. Regardless of immediate satisfactions, the one thing Obama can rest assured of is that he will never be criticized by Republicans for digging a deeper hole in Afghanistan. After all, they are the party that wants to see the US government fail, and nothing the state can do is more guaranteed of wasteful failure than war in Afghanistan.

In a follow-up note, Art added:

In summary, the response of the USA to the attacks of 11 Sept. serves as anything other than a deterrent against future attacks of a similar nature. It has shown itself to be vulnerable, clumsy, ignorant, arrogant, and, in this global conflict, inept. The USA has insured that terrorism will remain an important tool for generations to come. A complete absence of response would have better served the interests of the USA than what it did.

Art just emigrated to New Zealand, a rather extreme move that is certainly not a vote of confidence in the future of the USA.

Some useful links on the US military budget (and related topics):

• Fred Kaplan: Too Big to Fail? Actually, they do nothing but fail, but the numbers add up to an immovable object.
• Tom Engelhardt: Movie Favorites From the Secretary of Defense: On a trip to and from Pakistan.
• WarInContext: Covering Up Homicide: "He could have said 'we have killed . . .' just to make it clear that he includes himself as an actor, not an observer, in the killing process. And he could also have said 'and we killed a bunch of innocent bystanders as well.'"

PS: Juan Cole links to this piece about how Osama bin Laden dreamed of enticing the US to fight him in Afghanistan, and how he welcomed the US invasion of Iraq.