It’s been 22 years since the 9/11 Islamic terrorist attacks. Which doesn’t seem like all that much time. But like Dr. Henry Jones, Junior, once said, it’s more about the mileage than the years. Societies can travel a lot of miles in that time frame. Last century the world regressed from the Versailles Treaty and “the war to end all wars” to Pearl Harbor in the same span. In 303 AD Diocletian ordered the Roman Empire’s worst persecution of Christians — yet 22 years later Christian Emperor Constantine was presiding over the Council of Nicaea. In 49 BC, Rome was still (barely) a Republic, when Julius Caesar led his legions across the Rubicon. But in 27 BC Augustus was declared imperator, and Rome had become an Empire.

The Cost of Fighting Terror

In many ways the changes in the world, and this country, since 9/11 are just as monumental as those. But they weren’t exactly what Osama bin Laden intended when he ordered the attacks which killed 2,977 Americans in New York, Washington D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The worst terrorist attacks in human history were intended to spark massive U.S. “crusader” killing of Muslims. And thus spark a global Islamic uprising against the West. So far the latter hasn’t happened, despite the former taking place. Our “war on terror” probably killed somewhere between several hundred thousand and close to a million combatants and civilians. The Afghanistan and Iraq invasions and occupations, and the rest of the “global war on terror,” also added $8 trillion to our national debt. (Which totaled $5.8 trillion in 2001. Now it’s $33 trillion.) The Afghanistan campaign was defensible at first. After all, al-Qaeda was headquartered there. But staying for over two decades was not. Nor was attempting to refashion a fundamentalist Muslim society into a Western LGBTQ-friendly one. The 2003 Iraq enterprise had no rational basis. But at least we eventually got out and the country is quasi-democratic.

Islamic Terrorism Is Still With Us

Outside of Iraq and Afghanistan, did the massive U.S. effort, post-9/11, to stamp out terrorism succeed? Well, from 1979-2019 Muslim terrorists killed 167,000 people globally. An average of 4,175 yearly. In 2022 terrorists of all stripes killed 6701, 3267 of which were jihadist fatalities. So we reduced the worldwide numbers killed by Islamic militants. But it cost us $8 trillion and over 14,000 American deaths (military and contractors). Not very cost effective. And eight of the top ten deadliest terrorist groups are still Muslim, with Islamic State still topping the list. The more things change in that regard, the more they stay the same — despite President Biden and his administration’s incessant propaganda that “white supremacy terrorism” is our greatest threat.

The Patriot Act: The Root of Most Domestic Evil

Twenty-two years of the GWOT did change America. But internally. And it started with the Patriot Act. That legislation passed the House overwhelmingly, and the Senate almost unanimously, in October 2001. It had three main components. Allow for expanding how terrorism was defined. Permit the Justice Department and intelligence agencies to share data. And greatly expand the federal government’s surveillance capabilities. The latter two, in particularly have proved not just problematic, but perilous. For example, the feds have been data mining our cell phone records for years now. At first the justification was that American citizens-turned-jihadist needed surveilling. This after Omar Mateen carried out the Orlando nightclub shootings, Syed Farook the killings in San Bernardino, Nidal Hasan the Ft. Hood murders. But then the Obama Administration started claiming that non-Islamic, “right-wing domestic terrorism” was the real threat.

Using the Patriot Act Against Misguided Patriots

Congress recognized the dangers posed by the unfettered Patriot Act. So it tried to rein in government surveillance via the 2015 USA Freedom Act. But even after that passed, federal agencies “still collect[ed] vast amounts of data, including the calling patterns of people who are not suspected of any wrongdoing.” And this under the Trump Administration.

Of course President Trump himself — before, during, and now after his term — has been the primary target of these enhanced surveillance powers. Which the federal government only gained after 9/11. The Biden Administration has pushed this agenda. Almost certainly helped along by former Obama Administration officials — if not the 44th POTUS himself. And since January 6, 2021, spies, federal gumshoes, and the entire apparatus of “Justice” have been unleashed. But not against actual terrorists. No, they are deployed against the “insurrectionists” who entered the Capitol that day. With willing accomplices in the media providing cover, claiming January 6 was “a bigger threat than 9/11.”

Like Trump Said, They’re After You and Me

That of course is absurd. January 6 protestors were wrong to enter the Capitol building without permission. And to break into offices and pilfer. But some of the sentences were also absurd. Eleven months in solitary confinement for walking around inside with police permission? Four-and-a-half years in prison for having a stun gun, and putting your feet up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk? But this is what comes of using legislation aimed at terrorists to pursue and imprison mere political malcontents. President Biden said that January 6 represented “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.” But yet not one person involved has been charged with insurrection. Now the Democrats are attempting to prevent former President Trump from even running next year. Which was of course their plan all along.

Maybe Osama Did Succeed

So the worst terrorist attack in history did change America. Twenty-two short years ago we were a free Republic basking in its well-deserved Cold War win. Now the USA is massively in debt, more politically divided than any time since 1861, and subject to a Sauronic surveillance state which distrusts, if not detests, half the citizenry. And seems hell-bent on short-circuiting democracy.

Osama bin Laden seems to be getting the last laugh. But at least he’s doing so from hell. If that’s any solace.

Timothy Furnish holds a Ph.D. in Islamic, World and African history from Ohio State University and a M.A. in Theology from Concordia Seminary. He is a former U.S. Army Arabic linguist and, later, civilian consultant to U.S. Special Operations Command. He’s the author of books on the Middle East and Middle-earth, a history professor and sometime media opiner (as, for example, on Fox News Channel’s War Stories: Fighting ISIS). He currently writes for and consults The Stream on International Security matters.