In his October 2004 address to the American people, bin Laden noted that the 9/11 attacks cost al Qaeda only a fraction of the damage inflicted upon the United States. “Al Qaeda spent $500,000 on the event,” he said, “while America in the incident and its aftermath lost — according to the lowest estimates — more than $500 billion, meaning that every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million dollars.”
Al Queda doesn’t have to do much to make us do a lot.
Death by a Thousand Cuts - By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross | Foreign Policy