This kind of thinking has got to go

Bill Maher says maybe bin Laden won.  No, I think it is guys like Maher who manage to intimidate those who would have and could have taken more aggressive action after 9/11.  We did indeed spend a lot of money, but it wasn't necessarily to go after bin Laden per se.  It was to remake the Middle East.  If the whole operation boiled down to taking out bin Laden, then this was a huge waste of money.  It wasn't bin Laden, but our own leadership who won't take the action needed to deal with these people. It would have been guys like Maher who would have screamed bloody murder if we handled this in a more aggressive manner back then.  He complained enough as it is.  Now, the death of bin Laden is seen as the culmination of the whole affair and that is seen as an extraordinary expense in order to accomplish such a limited outcome.  Guys like Maher who wouldn't support what we did do, minimize its chances of success at that time, then turn around and reduce it to one man, bin Laden after they manage to turn the people against what we did do.  Now they feel a bad feeling that they haven't really solved the problem, and they haven't.  But could it be that guys like Maher don't want the problem to be solved in the first place?