KILLING OF BIN LADEN

Killing of Bin Laden

Killing of Bin Laden

Introduction

The assassination of bin Laden has been celebrated as a great strategic victory by the White House, the European capitals and all the major mass media outlets throughout the world. The killing has served as a major propaganda tool to enhance the standing of the U.S military in the eyes of the domestic public and to serve as a warning to overseas adversaries (Adam, 2011).

Contrary to this immense propaganda campaign and despite whatever symbolic value the killing may have in the eyes of his executioners, there is no evidence that death will have any impact on the deteriorating military and political position of the US in South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa or elsewhere (Scheuer, 2011).

Discussion

Even in terms of weakening, let along defeating Al Qaeda, the killing will have minimal effect. Al Qaeda is a highly decentralized organization, a loose collection of groups distributed throughout the conflict zones, each with its own leaders, programs, tactics and strategies. Al Qaeda is not a centralized international organization dependent on a 'central command' directed by a single person: bin Laden was an ideological symbol more than an operative leader directing operations. His death will merely lead to a new leader and will have zero impact on the rest of the loosely associated global network of groups which call themselves Al Qaeda. Hence, whatever actions and activities taken in the past will continue into the future (Scheuer, 2011).

The killing of bin Laden will have the most minimum impact in Afghanistan, for the obvious reason that the major forces carrying out the armed resistance are the Taliban and various other independent nationalist movements. The Taliban is totally independent of Al Qaeda in its origins, structure, leadership, tactics, strategy and social composition. Moreover, the Taliban is a mass organization with roots and sympathizers throughout the country. It has tens of thousands of trained Afghans fighters; it has deeply penetrated the Afghani government and military and has recently announced a major 'spring offensive'. The Taliban is overwhelmingly 'national' in it composition, leadership and ideology; while Al Qaeda is 'international' (Arab) in its membership and leadership. The Taliban may have tolerated or even in certain circumstances tactically collaborated with Al Qaeda, but at no point is there any evidence that they took orders from bin Laden. The overwhelming majority of US and NATO casualties in Afghanistan were inflicted by the Taliban. The major bases of operation and support in Pakistan are linked to the Taliban. In summary the killing of Osama bin Laden will have zero impact on the correlation of forces in Afghanistan; it will have zero impact on the capacity of the Taliban to carry-out its prolonged war against the US occupation and inflict dozens of casualties each week (Reeve, 2011).

From Tunisia to the Gulf States, mass popular revolts have either overthrown US collaborator regimes or are on the verge of doing so. Al Qaeda had played a minor role, except perhaps among the Libyan ...