Bin Laden has Won

18 years later, Al Queada has won.

It took a while, but the Al Queada, Taliban, ISIS strategy of sowing chaos  has worked.

Western democracy has been destroyed.

The USA, Britain, France, Germany, the European Union, NATO, all in tatters.  Ungovernable.  Division so strong that no party can govern, no course can get a majority.  The nations are so divided, little substantial unified action is possible or even attempted.

Putin (Biblical Gog to many) has conquered the West.  He has gotten all he could have wished for, and more. In some of the same ways: By sowing the seeds of division, discord and chaos.

The US is leaving Syria, Afghanistan is next.  Russia and Islamics have pretty much free rein.

Russia and Saudi Arabia have shown that they can murder and assassinate anywhere in the world with impunity.

Free trade is ending as the nations retreat into isolationism, embargoes, sanctions, trade wars. Treaties are shunned. International cooperation, even to the limited previous extent, all but abandoned.

The US piles up debt at an ever greater rate, putting the inevitable reckoning ever closer.  Instead of saving in the last several good years, like the Keynesian Joseph in Egypt, the US has emptied its storehouses, leaving no resources to deal with the next downturn.

The aim of Bin Laden, and of ISIS, was to draw the West into an apocalyptic conflict with Islam (see note 1).  It is working.

It is fairly easy to connect the dots from 9/11 to this collapse:

The immediate effect was to draw the US into two wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq, which drained it of resources, and either partly resulted in, or at least exacerbated, the 2008-2009 recession.

It also heightened fears of immigrants and foreigners. Security on travel at airports and borders was tightened.

Then, the collapse of Iraq, the resulting rise of ISIS, the overflow of problems into Syria, with US withdrawal, led to mass migration of refugees, to Europe.

The reaction to economic problems, terrorism and the refugee invasion was xenophobic closing of borders.  The open border EU was not ready for the influx.  Britain's reaction was to leave the EU, though that is mired in political division.

In Germany, right wing factions fractured Merkel's majority because of reaction to taking in so many middle eastern refugees and a weakening economic outlook.

The French have turned against Macron's Internationalist policies.

In the US, the same fears of foreign immigrants and terrorists, an aversion to Obama's proposal to take in thousands of refugees from ISIS, coupled with fears they could be sneaking in across the southern border, added to existing concerns about border security, to get the issue to the tipping point where it swung the Presidential election.  This issue, tied directly back to 9/11, has now stopped governance.

The extreme societal division over this xenophobia, has democratic decision making grid-locked.  In the USA Constitutional checks and balances have been abandoned in favor of rule by emergency declaration.

The nations fiddle, as the planet burns. Pacific island nations demand an end to coal, while Trump tilts at windmills.

Trump tries to contain the spread of nuclear weapons to Iran and North Korea, while letting the existing treaty with Russia lapse, and having already abandoned the international treaty with Iran. 

What this means, or what it may lead to, I have no idea.  Many of my fellow Bible students find prophetic fulfillment in this, but in conflicting ways, seeing it both as a precursor to Armageddon, and at the same time, a nationalistic victory for border security, morality, and support for Zionism.  They like to see Gog as poised to invade, while at the same time seeing the UK-USA as God's chosen forces saving Israel.  Possibly, though how both could be true makes little sense to me, and I have a hard time seeing current leadership as divinely ordained.

It does seem to make the need for divine intervention clear.  Very clearly, humankind is not capable of solving its problems.  

If you do not see divine intervention as a likely possibility, you should be aware that all sides in the conflict include some with Messianic visions that fuel their positions.  Not just three visions (Christian, Islamic & Jewish) but multiple views within each of those religions; sometimes even conflicting views within individuals.  There will be no compromising.  There is no common ground.  Many actively oppose peace, including some in ALL of those religions.  So, secular peacemakers have some substantial roadblocks.

Am I exaggerating the negative to write this Jeremiad?  Possibly.  Feel free to propose a non-miraculous way out.  Know that for every one of you who may be thinking that way, there's another thinking, "Yes! Apocalypse Now!  Bring it on!  He hasn't said the half of it."

I had drafted this blog last year, but had delayed posting it, because I don't have a conclusion or ending.  Just posting doom and gloom isn't usually my style.  But it is what it is.  Draw your own conclusions.  

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Note 1.  Many will notice startling similarities between the Islamic apocalyptic goals and Christian expectations:   https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/