If the purpose of the attack was to destroy America, it certainly was a failure.

The attack has killed a great number of innocent American citizens, but while this was a tragedy for their families, friends and relatives, this provided an opportunity for the US government and Republican Party of obtaining greatly increased powers and greatly increased spending and they have secured reelection and the ability to initiate a couple of wars from which some well-connected companies gained a lot.

There is nothing that Bush Junior could have done to gain so much as he did, other than USA being the victim of such an attack. Assuming that the US government had nothing to do with the attack, it was nonetheless the luckiest event that could have ever happened to them. Bin Laden and his followers have gained absolutely nothing, except cheering like fools for a few days that they have hurt their supposed enemies.

Americans have lost their freedoms, and so much of what made America great. NATO is basically gone now. America can't catch up with it's competition in the east when it comes to tech and infrastructure. It'd be a miracle if the US avoids a proper civil war in the next few years. I don't know what else you can count as success short of that, an asteroid destroying the continent? The US isn't focused on invading the middle east, and it cost the US $20T in afghanistan and iraq. If a few wealthy americans got richer, bin laden wouldn't have minded. He wanted the influence of america to end. and he succeeded. America used it's influence in the 80's and 90's to interfere with islamic nations, and spread its culture. Now america is a pariah, even europeans consider america more hostile than russia right now. People either laugh at or pity america these days at what it's become. In the 90's people either hated america or loved it. That's all bin laden wanted. In his view, muslims were being oppressed by the west, and america was the west's leader. That has changed. and the catalyst to that change was his attack.

You seem to measure success with quite a short term view. You are wrong, the comment you are replying to is quite right.

A few days? That one day led America to prosecute two wars for over a decade - both of which failed. Both of which seeded the ground for the current moment, as the prevailing political establishment has lost all credibility.

This century was supposed to belong to America. Go back and see how optimistic people where about the new millennium. Where is that now? It's gone.

Because the American government responded to one of the darkest days in history by:

1. Invading Afghanistan only to lose it two decades later to the very people they had tried to dislodge in the most painful way possible - literally running away on the tarmac while those that had risked their lives to support them were begging not to be abandoned.

2. Invading Iraq when there were no WMDs and Saddam Hussein has never had anything to do with the faction that was in Afghanistan. Thousands died for what? And we are still there even though that war was supposed to end long ago.

Both of these entities had previously been supplied weapons by the United States btw, in Afghanistan against the Soviets and in Iraq against Iran. No one was held accountable for that. Oops.

Why do you think people are voting for the system to be torn apart? You are correct the attack itself would not destroy America, as everyone knew. The question is what would America do after.

On that count, the failures were numerous and again, no one in power was ever held accountable. This is its own form of lawlessness that has encouraged the present circumstances.

Now a security apparatus that has failed to impose its will on the streets of the likes of Baghdad is manifesting in a new form in Minneapolis. Afghanistan was known as the graveyard of empires. The goal was to draw us there so it could once again live up to its name. In such a circumstance, success is not measured in a manner of days, but in years. Thus I very sadly find much to agree with in the comment you so eagerly dismissed.