Osama's strategy vs. the U.S. was economic not military

This is a very interesting article from the Washington Post by Ezra Klein on Osama's real strategy vs. the U.S. & to what extent he succeeded. Klein writes:

For bin Laden, in other words, success was not to be measured in body counts. It was to be measured in deficits, in borrowing costs, in investments we weren’t able to make in our country’s continued economic strength. And by those measures, bin Laden landed a lot of blows.

It seems clear that Osama couldn't have succeeded even to the extent that he did w/o the collaboration of the rapacious banksters on Wall Street & the utter stupidity of the U.S. government in the aftermath of 9/11, the attack on the World Trade Center was surely the catalyst for much that followed. Although when you set historical events in motion - as Osama did on 9/11 - it is impossible to predict with any certainty what will happen (I doubt that anyone in Al-Quaida could have imagined that the U.S. would use 9/11 as an excuse to invade & occupy Iraq, a mission that the Neo-Cons had been planning for 10 years prior to 9/11), it is nevertheless true, as Klein quotes Linda Blimes & Joseph Stiglitz as stating that invasion cost $3 trillion and as he says, we have spent another $2 trillion in Afghanistan & more on domestic anti-terror activity. He also points out that although the latest capitalist crisis wasn't a direct result of 9/11, the behavior of the economic regulators in response to it, was in part a response to the attack on the World Trade Center.

Klein concludes by writing: "But then, we can learn from our mistakes. He [Osama] can’t." If anyone truly believes that we will ever learn anything from our mistakes, I have a sure-fire war to sell you.