5 days ago, Osama bin Laden was wiped off of the face of the Earth by a US Navy SEAL team. It was touted by many as a turning point in the War on Terror and a crippling blow for al Qaeda. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.
First and foremost, al Qaeda died as soon as Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire all those months ago in Tunisia. The primary purpose of al Qaeda, contrary to the belief of many in the Western World, was not to destroy the West or the United States. Sure, they did try to, but that was simply a means to an end; mainly, the overthrowing of the many Western backed regiemes that dotted the Middle East. Al Qaeda was tired of the autocratic, corrupt dictatorships in the Middle East and wanted them gone. They went about this by targeting the regiemes’ supporters in the West. The attacks on the United States and other European nations were to cripple them financially so they pulled support for Middle Eastern regiemes. With the Arab Spring, however, the entire purpose of al Qaeda is moot. They operated on the idea that only violence and martyrdom could overthrow the regiemes of the Middle East, not peace and civil disobedience. Clearly, the brave men and women of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and others have proven that point wrong. They do not want al Qaeda around any more than we do. The entire idea of al Qaeda is dead, and died when Ben Ali was ousted from his country, not when Osama was killed.
Furthermore, bin Laden’s main purpose was already fulfilled by the time of his death. Princeton defines terrorism as:
the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear
Obviously, bin Laden and his agenda fits this definition perfectly. He committed acts of terror to scare the American public so that they wasted away enormous sums of money fighting wars and eventually self destructing, ending the rule of the corrupt dictatorships of the Middle East. Osama stated on a few occasions that his strategy wasn’t to commit hundreds of acts of terror upon the United States. It was to commit only one, and then watch as the nation self destructed. Thanks to one simple act, Osama has caused us to plummet trillions of dollars into debt, get dragged into two separate wars, and destroyed many of our core civil liberties, all for naught. Because Osama never intended to attack the United States again (the new reports that Osama was planning an attack on the train system of the United States on September 11, 2011, are insignificant; surely there are thousands of planned attacks found on those hard drives that never came to fruition, and there is no reason to believe this would have suffered a different fate), the reign of the TSA over airports (and soon trains) is pointless and just a baseless affront on our civil liberties. The United States’ international reputation, so high after the end of the Cold War, was virtually destroyed after our conduct of the Iraq War, thanks to Osama. The plight upon this nation cannot be squarely placed on Osama, of course; one man cannot make that much of a difference; but he is a huge contributing factor.
Osama bin Laden may be dead, but his legacy lives on. He completed his goal: that is, he dragged America to its own self destruction. He has instilled terror in the American public and destroyed our civil liberties. He watched as the regiemes of the Middle East crumble (of course, Osama played no actual part in this, had no affect on the protests, and was probably very disappointed at their secular nature). And because of this, I can confidently say that Osama died with a smile on his face, content with the knowledge that he helped contribute to the United States’ own self destruction.
