If Bin Laden is caught/killed - what difference will it make ?

McArmalite

I mean, al-Qaeda, the Taliban etc will continue regardless. Even if he and some of the others cohorts who lead the fanatical fundamentalist Muslim groups are caught/killed, the political root of the problems causing the middle east conflicts will continue, and with them the violence. I'm not trying to justify the actions of Bin Laden etc, but, well, sometimes it's portrayed that if Bin Laden and a handful of his fellow evil nutters were killed/caputered then all would be ok and everyone would live happily ever after. No matter what some may say, much of the violence carried out in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bali and support for it in Pakistan, Iran etc is often 'leaderless resistance'. Brutally carried out but nevertheless a symptom of the political situation in the middle east ???

ex_infantry man

McArmalite wrote:

I mean, al-Qaeda, the Taliban etc will continue regardless. Even if he and some of the others cohorts who lead the fanatical fundamentalist Muslim groups are caught/killed, the political root of the problems causing the middle east conflicts will continue, and with them the violence. I'm not trying to justify the actions of Bin Laden etc, but, well, sometimes it's portrayed that if Bin Laden and a handful of his fellow evil nutters were killed/caputered then all would be ok and everyone would live happily ever after. No matter what some may say, much of the violence carried out in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bali and support for it in Pakistan, Iran etc is often 'leaderless resistance'. Brutally carried out but nevertheless a symptom of the political situation in the middle east ???

to be honest with you mcarmalite any war in the world that has happened is due to different religions fighting eachother i.e. northern ireland between catholics and protestants or in the case of ww2 it was just the nazis killing anything that was,nt blue eyed and blonde, but with all them nut jobs in the middle east who are islamics hate every1 in the west and i,d say even we are,nt safe, so it don,t matter who leads them they will still think the same, for all we know bin liner could be dead and buried already, basically they have no fight or no cause there killing out of pure hatred for the western world because we have everything and there just living in mud huts

Fratton Fred

If Bin Laden still holds the purse strings then it could have a relatively big effect, but somehow I suspect his death will make little or difference, if it already hasn't happened.

With the last botched attempt at suicide attacks in London and Glasgow you wonder if they are struggling to move money around the world.

Gas canisters, petrol and nails is pretty crude to say the least.

Manic Moran

In the long run, not much.

However, it will probably make some 3,000 families rather happier.

NTM

piby

If you haven't read 1984 then I suggest you do so and if you have you'll understand the role he plays, more like that of Big Brother at this stage. Sure I don't doubt that if he's alive then he's probably still pulling the strings but if he were to die then the other senior members of al Qaeda would have no problem making a martyr out of him. Those feelings of hate directed towards the west won't die with him. There may be some people across the Atlantic who may be naive enough to think otherwise but they'd wake up pretty quickly.

Clare gunner

Would be a symbolic victory for us in the West and a irrefutable arguement to continue the Iraq /Ghanistan police actions against all the anti war opponents,by saying see we finally got him.
What we do with him then is a question,do we lock him up forever somwhere or execute him?
Will it make much difference?Proably not,apart from showing the East that we will never give up hunting AQ& Co down.It might make the next person who is appointed head maryter maker,feel that he is now on barrowed time.
In the day to day running of AQ,wont make the blindest bit of difference.Bin Liner doesnt have a beaten path of messengers,phones,faxes or email coming to his cave.He is worried about his kidneys and the damp,not much else.AQ is now so scatterd and fragmented that taking him out will be just symbolic.

ex_infantry man

the yanks i,m sure had plenty of oppertunities to take him out over the years and they did,nt, they knew he was capable of doing what he did in sept 11 2001 and they did,nt act on this info either and innocent people died becuase of it, and the reason they died is so that george bush would have all his country behind him and other countries so he could create war, something the yanks are good at doin since there all gun totting, the yanks really are a law on to themselves like for instants back in the 80,s they gave a whole load of ammo and guns and mustard gas and god knows what else to saddam insane and he used this on his own people in a way they created saddam so therefore they had to destroy him also, all of this was over one resource that the yanks wanted and needed over the years and were willing to do anything to get it and that is OIL

I think it would be purely symbolic. But then Bush & co. would use this to justify the continuation of the war on terror and Iraq and of course the extremely gullible American public would lap this up.