The Importance of Bin Laden’s Death to the US

IRD: The announcement of Osama Bin Laden’s killing by US forces attracted much attention, and even after more than a week, news on this issue still appears in headlines. But how important is this issue to the US? It seems that this incident had many political, security and psychological influences on the US.

Perhaps the first and most immediate effect of Bin Laden’s death is the psychological impact. The psychological effect is mostly related to the relief caused by his death. After the 9/11 attacks--which were unprecedented in US history--Americans felt hatred toward the people responsible for the attacks, especially their leader Osama. Even though with their invasion of Afghanistan US troops were able to inflict damage on Al-Qaeda, the American public always thought the US had some unfinished work to do. Actually, the death of Bin Laden created a sense of closure for the Americans. In other words, the Americans--especially those who had lost family members in the 9/11 attacks--felt that justice had been done and the case was closed.

Even though terrorist attacks may continue by Al-Qaeda, the death of their leader soothed the hearts of those who had lost family members on 9/11. Therefore, the main importance of Osama’s death is its psychological impact, and that’s why after hearing the news the American people came to the streets and expressed their happiness.

The political impact of this event is related to the arrangement of forces within the US. The importance of this fact is the highlighted role that Obama played in this event. Even though George Bush was also seeking to capture or kill Bin Laden, a large amount of information was gathered during Obama’s administration and eventually it was Obama who adopted the decision to kill Bin Laden. Therefore, this incident is considered a great score for Obama--at least in the short term. In the long term, this incident could bring positive points for Obama and could help him win the presidential election again. However, time might reduce the importance of this event and economic concerns might reveal themselves again. Nevertheless, this incident is of great political importance to Obama and in any case, the Democrats will surely use this victory as their ace card.

Another important political impact of this incident goes to the fact that the Democrats are usually accused of being weak in national security issues. The Democrats often focus on economic issues and the Republicans frequently accuse them of being ignorant on national security and international issues.

This operation proved that Obama had international concerns as well, and can take powerful positions on them. In fact, by leading this operation, Obama showed that he was a strong commander and disarmed those who accused him of not being so. If he is able to gradually withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan while establishing relative safety in that country, we might say that he has achieved a brilliant record in the international security field. Therefore, future rivals will no longer be able to challenge Obama on his security policies.

The death of Bin Laden was also very important in security terms. Due to his charismatic personality, Bin Laden played great role as the leader of Al-Qaeda and its extremist ideologies; therefore his death is considered a great blow to the terrorist group. Reorganization will not be easy for Al-Qaeda, either. They are under constant blows from NATO and the US, and losing their leader is an irreparable blow. However, it is possible that in the coming weeks Al-Qaeda will conduct revenge attacks, but this will only increase the US national security capabilities in the long term. However, some believe that Al-Qaeda will withdraw after the death of Osama and prepare itself to take revenge in a vital event, like the presidential elections.

Nevertheless, the death of Bin Laden as the leader of this extremist organization is of great importance to the Americans and the international community. Moreover, it is extremist and violent ideologies that have faced a blow with this incident.

Another important impact of this incident, in security terms, is that the world witnessed that the US--albeit after ten years--was finally able to capture Bin Laden. As a result, if anybody ever thinks of conducting terrorist attacks they will remember that a future like Bin Laden is awaiting them. An issue that has not been dealt with much is the attacking of Osama’s relatives in this operation. This incident shows that in such a situation the relatives and family members of the target are not paid any attention to, and despite their innocence they might get killed as well. Therefore, in security terms, the potential terrorist will think about the deaths of his relatives as well.

Nevertheless, after a decade of the fight against terrorism and after two years of intelligence work, the US was finally able to discover Bin Laden’s whereabouts and to ensure the necessary operational capabilities to conduct a successful operation. Therefore, the timing of this operation is not in any way subject to political interests and issues. The importance of this operation was so high to the American public that if a president lost such an opportunity and Osama Bin Laden managed to escape, the president would suffer serious political costs for his negligence. As a result, this opportunity was too great to be subject to political interests or to be delayed. For Obama and the US, there was no political matter greater than killing the symbol of enmity against America.