9-11-14: Better or worse than 9-12-01?

Better: Bin Laden's dead. Did a questionable deal with Iran.

Worse: We might have made a mess (Bush that is) of Iraq by destabilizing it, but then we trumped that by an early and complete withdrawal (Obama). We've destabilized Libya, backed it in Syria, made a questionable deal with Iran and tried to do it in Egypt, but the Muslim Brotherhood was quickly pushed aside in part by an Army who knows from experience the only way to govern in the Middle East is with a strong hand.

Thoughts?

Sorry, my phone is hell to type on. Bump it to 2015. Can the mods do that?

 

The Patriots had won zero Super Bowls as of 9-12-01. Therefore we are much worse off.

 

And Justin Bieber, the Kardashians, Kanye, the Real Housewives and "bae" weren't things yet. Worse.

 

Well, Miami was still a college football power, the Cowboys sucked and A-Rod wasn't a Yankee, and BALCO was just a good ol' American example of free enterprise.

 

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I'm not even sure what the trumped clause in the sentence means. But I do know there are no silver linings or flip sides to rationally debate on the issue of the Iraq invasion. An illegal war founded on lies that turned out to be the single dumbest and biggest blunderfuck in US foreign policy history, bankrupted our treasury, caused god only knows how many thousands of innocent deaths, and in the end only made the region worse off for everybody except for the ISIS fanatics who arose as a direct consequence of it.

 

But ISIS came about because of a complete vacuum of presence of American soldiers.

 

This thread came about because of a complete vacuum in your skull.

 

This thread is going to be #HotTakeCentral, isn't it?

 

in 2001 Balco was just that guy on Perfect Strangers.

 

I was still in my 30s in '01 so I'll vote for 01. Seriously, at that time Baghdad was the most stable, westernized, secular country in the Middle East, exactly what the US wants right now. Damn shame.

 

So ... worse?

 

I like to think the Ice Bucket Challenge made the world a better place.