As Michael Scheuer, who ran the C.I.A.'s bin Laden unit until

Host: The bar was dimly lit, the kind of place where smoke, memory, and politics mixed like old whiskey — bitter, intoxicating, and dangerous to swallow too fast. Television screens hung in corners, muted, flashing endless loops of wars that had already ended for everyone except those still haunted by them.

Outside, the city was slick with rain, neon reflections blurring into the gutters — red, white, blue, and the faint shimmer of oil.

Jack sat at the counter, his hands wrapped around a glass he hadn’t touched. Jeeny sat beside him, eyes fixed on the silent news feed: soldiers walking through desert light, the endless choreography of conflict that looked more like routine than tragedy.

The screen shifted to an old clip — the smoking towers, the wars that followed, the faces of the long dead.

Jeeny spoke first, softly, almost to herself:

“As Michael Scheuer, who ran the C.I.A.’s bin Laden unit until 1999, has pointed out, if bin Laden believed in Christmas, the Iraq war would be his perfect present from Santa Claus. The 9/11 attacks and the subsequent war in Afghanistan severely damaged bin Laden's organization.” — Peter Bergen.

Jack: “That’s the kind of truth nobody celebrates — the idea that we gave him exactly what he wanted.”

Jeeny: “And paid for it with everything we thought we stood for.”

Host: The bartender moved silently, drying glasses that never got cleaner. The clock ticked too loudly in the corner, as though time itself was uneasy with the conversation.

Jack: “It’s strange, isn’t it? We call it the War on Terror, but terror was the one thing that never lost. It just changed uniforms.”

Jeeny: “Because we fought shadows with mirrors. You can’t bomb ideology, Jack. You can only feed it.”

Jack: “And we fed it well.”

Jeeny: “Fear makes great fertilizer.”

Host: Jack let out a bitter laugh — quiet, sharp. The kind that sounded like someone remembering too much.

Jack: “I was in college when it happened. The morning after, every TV, every radio, every person was breathing the same emotion — rage disguised as patriotism. I remember thinking: this will never end.”

Jeeny: “And you were right. It didn’t. It just mutated. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria — dominoes falling on the backs of civilians who never even knew why the game began.”

Jack: “We called it freedom.”

Jeeny: “We always do.”

Host: The light above them flickered. For a moment, the two faces reflected in the bar mirror looked older than they were — weighed down by the inheritance of a generation that traded certainty for vengeance.

Jeeny: “Bergen wasn’t wrong. The Iraq war was a gift — a victory wrapped in Western arrogance. One man with a video camera in a cave managed to pull an empire into a graveyard.”

Jack: “And we helped him dig it.”

Jeeny: “Because we couldn’t separate justice from revenge.”

Jack: “Because we needed an enemy to make us feel righteous again.”

Host: The rain outside grew harder, drowning out the faint jazz from the speakers. The world outside the bar blurred — as if even the city wanted to look away.

Jeeny: “Do you ever think about what it did to us — not just the wars, but the fear? How it rewired everyone? The airport lines, the surveillance, the way we look at strangers on trains?”

Jack: “Yeah. We became what we were afraid of — paranoid, cruel, self-justifying.”

Jeeny: “That’s the irony, isn’t it? Bin Laden didn’t need to win militarily. He just had to make us lose our reflection.”

Jack: “And we did. For twenty years straight.”

Host: Jeeny turned back toward the TV — now showing veterans in wheelchairs at a memorial service. The camera panned across their faces — proud, broken, alive.

Jeeny: “And yet, amid all that ruin, people still talk about heroism. About sacrifice. As if that justifies everything.”

Jack: “Maybe it’s the only way to live with it. Call it noble, or you admit it was meaningless.”

Jeeny: “And what do you call it?”

Jack: pausing “Human.”

Host: The bartender refilled their glasses without asking, as though he’d seen this conversation before. Perhaps he had — in different words, different wars.

Jeeny: “You know what’s tragic, Jack? That line — the perfect Christmas present. It’s not sarcasm. It’s prophecy. We gave our enemy the narrative he needed: the crusade, the arrogance, the proof.”

Jack: “We wrote his script and sold tickets to watch it burn.”

Jeeny: “And now, decades later, the ashes still fall on people who weren’t even born when it started.”

Jack: “That’s the cost of empire — your mistakes live longer than your victories.”

Host: The rain softened again, the silence between them filled by distant thunder. Jeeny stared down at her glass, watching her reflection ripple with every drop that fell against the window.

Jeeny: “You think we’ve learned anything?”

Jack: “From history? Never. We romanticize our guilt until it becomes myth.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe myth is how we survive the shame.”

Jack: “Or how we excuse it.”

Host: The clock struck midnight. Somewhere far away, a siren wailed — faint, melancholic. Jack glanced at it, then back to Jeeny.

Jack: “You know, Bergen’s right about something else too. The war damaged bin Laden’s organization. But it also made him immortal. Every drone strike, every civilian casualty — it all carved his name deeper into the collective fear. You can’t kill a ghost born from ideology.”

Jeeny: “No. You can only starve it by feeding the world something else.”

Jack: “Like what?”

Jeeny: “Understanding. Education. Empathy. But those aren’t profitable.”

Jack: “And we don’t fund what doesn’t explode.”

Host: A long silence followed. The rain had stopped completely now. Only the hum of electricity filled the space — the faint buzz of a world too tired to rest.

Jeeny looked up, her eyes steady, her voice clear.

Jeeny: “You know what I think, Jack? Maybe every war starts because someone forgets how to listen.”

Jack: “And every peace ends because someone remembers too late.”

Host: The bartender turned off the TV. The last image that flickered before the screen went black was a soldier standing alone against a sunset — the kind of picture that makes tragedy look cinematic.

Jack and Jeeny sat in the silence that followed, two figures framed in the fading glow of neon — thinkers, witnesses, survivors of a truth too complex for comfort.

Jeeny: “If history had a conscience, it would apologize to its children.”

Jack: “And they’d never forgive it.”

Jeeny: “Would you?”

Jack: “No. But I’d still try to understand.”

Host: Outside, the first light of dawn began to stretch over the wet streets. The rainwater reflected fragments of color — red, white, blue — still shimmering like ghosts of intentions that once believed they were pure.

Jeeny stood, pulling her coat close.

Jeeny: “You coming?”

Jack: after a pause “Yeah. Just one more minute.”

Host: She nodded, walking toward the door. Jack remained, staring at the empty screen, his reflection caught faintly in the glass — a man looking into the ruins of his own certainty.

He whispered — not to Jeeny, not to anyone, but to the ghosts of every decision ever made in the name of good intentions:

Jack: “No one ever wins a perfect present.”

Host: Then he stood, left the glass half full, and followed her into the pale, uncertain morning — where history, like war, never truly ends.