VPR Online Discussion: The End of Osama Bin Laden
May 2, 2011 2 Comments
Late Sunday evening, President Barack Obama announced that Osama Bin Laden had been killed by US Special Forces. The entire country burst out in celebration from New York to DC to our own campus.
What do you think the political ramifications of this will be? Does this wrap up the 2012 Presidential Campaign?
Will Al Qaeda be able to continue functioning without its figurehead?
Do you think the jubilation expressed by many Americans was the right response, or do you think it simply echoes what occurred ten years ago?
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Oh man, what a night. To be honest, I think this pretty much wraps things up for 2012. Don’t get me wrong — I’ll be one of the first to admit that Obama may have just gotten really lucky with timing, and that yesterday’s events could have happened on any president’s watch. That being said, the country is going through something amazing right now, and it will be very, very difficult for any Republican candidate to challenge Obama’s successes in national security and foreign policy (both areas that are traditional strongholds of Republican candidates). Osama’s death alone wouldn’t do it, in my opinion, but when you combine it with the fact that there are virtually no strong Republican candidates at the moment, I think Obama’s re-election is pretty much certain at this point so long as the economy continues to improve.
As to the latter two questions, I definitely think that Al-Qaeda will continue operating, if just for the short-term. While bin Laden was the primary driving force behind it, the organization itself is founded more on an ideology than individual charisma, and that ideology should sustain it for a little longer. Really, this death was more significant in my mind because of the effect it had here than anything else. For the second time in a decade, it united the country behind something greater, and reminded us all of the kinship (of a sort) we share.
That said, the celebrations themselves were…disheartening. Celebrating a victory is laudable, as is celebrating the lives of the men and women who died to achieve it, or closure for the greatest tragedy in recent American history. But I cannot in good conscience support celebration of an individual’s death, no matter how much harm he or she has done, especially since I don’t think it will in any way end the war on terrorism. Celebrate the end of this national nightmare, not bin Laden’s death.