American exceptionalism is essentially the outward direction of the historical forces that throughout american historywe understand as settler colonialism and as manifest destiny. The nation was poorly equipped to understand that the sort of geo political, economic and cultural impact it has on the world would at some point provoke a violent response. America's refusal to examine bin laden's motivations also made it impossible for Americans to overtime recognize that what our government was doing was meeting bin laden’s goal of simply provokingAmericas into being itself.