Militant Islamist strategy rested on a belief that America cannot absorb casualties

Evidence

Because of their depraved and self-indulgent way of life, Americans have become soft and cannot take casualties. And then they repeat the same litany—Vietnam, the Marines in Beirut, Somalia. Hit them and they will run. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1790

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s Said-adjacent cluster on how adversaries read the West — here the mirror image, how bin Laden constructed an image of American weakness that then shaped policy in both directions.