A Post on Bin Laden

May 1st, 2011 marks the day the world learned that Osama Bin Laden had been shot and killed in a raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan by United States special forces. While most are, and rightly so, happy about this development in the so called 'war on terror' is it really as much of a victory as we believe?

Osama Bin Laden is best known amongst Americans for the infamous attacks on 9/11 of 2001. The attacks were carried out by the terrorist group Al Qaeda, headed and founded by Osama Bin Laden. They had previously organized attacks on American Citizens in Saudi Arabia where Bin Laden believed that false Muslims" were in control.

A Friendly History

Relations between Bin Laden and the United States weren't always so sour. The son of a billionaire Bin Laden became involved in the fight against the Soviet Union when they went to take over Afghanistan. In 1987 the Soviet Union wished to leave Afghanistan. Thousands of their troops had died due to the intense opposition funded primarily by the United States. This article details some of the disturbing views and events of the time. It appears that the United States also ignored an offer from Gorbachev to stop the war. Gorbachev had stated that he would withdraw his Soviet troops from Afghanistan if the United States would stop sending arms to the militants but the United States said no. This left Gorbachev with no option but to continue fighting or lose their main ally in the region India. This also resulted in the battle which made Osama Bin Laden famous. Had this battle not happened it is possible that the now infamous leader of Al Qaeda may have never become as powerful as he became.

The United States Backs the Taliban?

In an interesting side note I'm learning as I research there appears to be quite a bit of evidence for a Taliban backed by the United States originally. Some even claim that to this day the Taliban is backed. I first read about it here in an article by a professor of Notre Dame which was not cited. I did a quick google search for a quote I found rather appalling, "The good part of what has happened is that one of the factions at last seems capable of developing a new government in Afghanistan." "The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis. There will be Aramco [the consortium of oil companies that controlled Saudi oil], pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that," attributed to a United States Diplomat. A search for the beginning shows the quote shows up in a variety of other sources including books and other sources. Take it as you will, it is not the point of my article. Supposing the Professors entire article is true paints a rather ugly picture of the United States involvement in the Middle East though.

The Waning of Bin Laden's Muslim Support

We make Bin Laden out to be rather influential and clearly the man is. Despite this it appears that support for Bin Laden has waned even amongst his primary supporters. This well sourced article describes how Muslim support for Bin Laden which use to be strong has been waning after a series of attacks within the Middle East that killed innocent Muslims. A commenter makes the appropriate point that "So he was celebrated when he killed infidels but not supported when he killed Muslims? Why am I not comforted by this?" to which another commenter makes the equally appropriate point "We supported him when he was killing Soviets, but not when he was killing Americans". If Bin Laden's support has truly waned it might be an important victory for the United States in the Middle East. It also might indicate that the killing of Osama might not be as grand a victory as we hope in the 'War On Terror'.

A Younger Generation Seems not to Know who Osama Bin Laden is

This I found rather interesting. Apparently the search "who is osama bin laden?" was searched by many teenagers after the news broke. Many of our younger computer using generation had no idea who the man was. This I find rather saddening with the constant news on the 9/11 Mosque opposition, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the news of suicide bombings by Al Qaeda frequenting the air often. It seems that as the information age becomes more apparent less people are taking the small steps to actually utilize the resources we have and access information.

Evidence for Osama's involvement in 9/11 is Rather Scant

Another interesting note is that the actual evidence for Osama's involvement in 9/11 probably wouldn't even hold up in court. On the FBI's 10 most wanted list Osama Bin Laden's information did not feature 9/11 as a reason. Not only that but the FBI's chief of investigative publicity came out and stated that there was no hard evidence connecting Osama Bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks that occurred.

No. 2 Appears to Call the Shots

The State Department has claimed that Ayman al-Zawahiri calls the shots for Al Qaeda these days. He has a 25 million dollar bounty on his head just as Osama did and has apparently been much more active in recent years than Osama. This would indicate that the victory in killing Osama is probably not a victory in actually reducing the scope of Al Qaeda and rather a victory ideologically and morally.

With a Goal of Bankrupting the United States, did Osama Win?

Osama Bin Laden has stated that his goal is to bankrupt the United States. The cost of the two wars currently waged in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Iraq, has currently cost the United States more than one trillion dollars. If you add in the increased spending on defense, the NSA, the post 9/11 stock market crash, and the costs of the rest of the wars you've got one hell of a bill the United States has spent since the attacks on 9/11. With a mounting deficit that is currently more that 14 trillion dollars it is entirely possible that Osama completed his goals far more than the United States has. The other costs include United States soldiers of which more than 6,000 have died since the start of the two wars, deteriorating Pakistani US relations, over 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths, over 8,000 Afghani civilian deaths in the last four years, and terrible flak from United States practices at the controversial Guantanamo Bay Prison. Was the cost of capturing Osama worth it? Since 9/11 we've seen full body TSA scanners for airports, the Patriot Act, increased protests against Muslims within the US, and people like Pastor Terry Jones who only serve to incense the issue. All for a guy who's support amongst Muslims was waning and who probably doesn't even call the shots for Al Qaeda anymore. Although, admittedly, it wasn't all for him, we're still going to be in Iraq and Afghanistan and the new government in Afghanistan is a legitimate Democracy with women involved and everything, which I am in complete support of.

Bin Laden's Harddrive

A cool thing is that during the raid we found Bin Laden's hard drive. I hope one day it becomes public because I am curious as to what Bin Laden may have had on there.

Respecting Muslim Tradition

Another cool and respectful thing I noticed was that the United States respected Muslim tradition by burying the leader of Al Qaeda at sea complete with Muslim religious rights. Despite him being as atrocious as he was I do believe this was a proper way to go about the death of Osama and will likely be seen as respectful by many of Muslim faith. We must remember that America Vs the World is bound to fail but America with the world is not.

In the end...

In the end I feel as though Osama may have achieved his goals better than we have despite his death. I believe that there are some good things that have come out of the two wars we've waged since 9/11 such as the women in the Afghani government I mentioned earlier and I do believe the death of Osama is another good thing to come out of everything. Despite this, looking at the costs in terms of lives and dollars I am not sure if perhaps, Osama may have won. If the United States continues to incur debt as it does currently the dollar may lose the status of global reserve currency causing rapid inflation and increases in the prices of nearly everything. There are countries already agreeing not to trade with US dollars and many currencies are currently much stronger than ours. This continued spending on these wars, amongst other things, certainly contributes to that. If America does go bankrupt, loses its AAA rating with Moody's and Poor, well, then Osama will have achieved everything he set out to do. Be happy in the death of a terrible man, but think also of the other costs.