Bin Laden, as medieval ideologist and global terrorist, had a record of accomplishment that was as vast as it was hideous. He did more to slash the fabric of American life than anyone since the Second World War. […] He forced the rise of expensive structures of security and surveillance. He incited a national politics of paranoia and retribution. He did as much as the economic rise of China and India has done to undermine America’s short-lived post-Cold War status as a singular, self-confident, seemingly omnipotent superpower.

Quelle: How Osama Bin Laden Changed America : The New Yorker