I don’t know if Osama Bin Laden and those who aided him attacked the United States 20 years ago with hopes that the military-industrial immune system of the country would go into overdrive and start destroying the country from within, and attacking imagined enemies abroad. But that’s exactly what happened. And from where I stand, even though Bin Laden paid dearly for his actions, he won. After September 11, 2001, no ideal was so noble, no objective so necessary, that it couldn’t take second stage to the war on terror. And because terrorism is a symptom of the disease of colonialism/warfare instead of the source, the US wasted countless lives and resources to attack a hydra that its own actions kept fueling. This, of course, made a lot of money for those already in the military-industrial complex, or those who would join it over the years, but even those who benefited financially during this time now live in a severely diminished country, poisoned by its inability to properly diagnose what ails it.