May 17, 2011
Source: The Atlantic — May 7, 2011
By conservative estimates, bin Laden cost the United States at least $3 trillion over the past 15 years, counting the disruptions he wrought on the domestic economy, the wars and heightened security triggered by the terrorist attacks he engineered, and the direct efforts to hunt him down.
Certainly, in the course of the fight against bin Laden, the United States escaped another truly catastrophic attack on our soil. Al-Qaida, though not destroyed, has been badly hobbled. But that willingness may have given bin Laden exactly what he wanted: bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.
All of that has not given us, at least not yet, anything close to the social or economic advancements produced by America’s costliest past enemies.
Perhaps the biggest economic gain from our bin Laden spending, if there is one, is the accelerated development of unmanned aircraft. That’s our $3 trillion windfall, so far: Predator drones.
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