Perverse Irony of the War on Terror
From Matthieu Aikins at Foreign Policy Magazine:
Indeed, the Global War on Terror has illustrated the troubling contradictions that underpin our age: That the West’s attractions of modernity, material progress, and liberalism can prove unsatisfying to smart and ambitious young men; that our allies in the Muslim world might be among the greatest sources of the terrorists who would do us harm; that the freedom promised by an age of unlimited connection across information and physical space might engender a draconian self-repression; and that a new golden age of capitalism might leave such ruined states and peoples on its margins. Today, we find the roots of terror in the growing instability of the world’s economy and climate, which in turn prefigures deeper coming threats to the global order. The perverse irony of the War on Terror is how badly it is has distracted our political and moral will from the great challenges of our time. This is bin Laden’s legacy.