Do you think that if the US can eliminate Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, this will effectively disable Al Qaeda?

They are already disabled in terms of being able to produce highly choreographed well-funded attacks on infrastructure. They are reduced to hit and run tactics in Iraq, and a few ill-planned sporadic failures here.

No.

From what I understand, Al Qaeda is heavily decentralized. It would certainly be a symbolic blow, but organizationally it would not be devastating.

Bin Laden does have access to big funds. Don’t know how that would dry up (or not).

Uh, no. Do you really think it’s that easy? There is always someone to take over for another.

No, but wouldn’t it be just grand.

Agree with @left3rd . It would be a propaganda coup, but nothing more. The top two are already isolated and on the run. Al Qaeda is really just a network for distributing funding out of the oil states, the world organization leaders merely symbols now. The actual leadership is now regional and local, many of them having different political agendas.

I would love to have the bastards in my crosshairs, though. :^)

Nope. They have had plenty of time and funds to set up succession plans.
Too bad…

No. There are more and more terrorists every day. They are yesterday’s news.

I don’t think it would.
Bin Laden is already a brand, a myth, a legend in many people’s eyes, alive or dead.
And every martyr around the globe can plan and execute an attack in name of Al Qaeda, even though they may not have any ties to the organisation at all.
His death will not mean a decrease of terrorist activity, but maybe even mean an extra stimulans for potential attackers.

Well now that they confirmed they bagged #3, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid who was the founder of al-Qaida, they are running seriously low on higher ups.

We’ve killed a lot of their number #3s over the years. It’s a running joke with some people but here is a more serious take on it from The New York Post.

The following is a quote from the article:

Still, Hoffman said, al Qaeda has quickly fielded new third-in-commands in the past. Being al Qaeda’s No. 3 is an unlucky post, because that person seems to get killed more frequently than many.

“At least five or six previous al Qaeda ‘No. 3s’ have been killed and captured in the past eight years,” Hoffman said.

“It may be that we are finally depleting its hitherto deep bench of operatives. It is likely though, based on past experience, that a successor is already waiting in the wings.”

Read more

Killing #3 doesn’t seem to help much.

@lillycoyote I’d say this #3 was a bit more sentimental…being the founder of al-Qaida and all.

The only thing that would happen if we killed Bin Laden is the US would declare victory and go home. Then the survivors of Al Qaeda would regroup, rebuild and hit us again.

It would degrade their ability to coordinate actions, but not stop the terrorist attacks. The organization is decentralized already and lopping off the leadership will have little impact.

al Quaeda is a bogeyman created and/or used to sway public opinion in favor of (or at least out of the way of) an agenda of war and economic imperialism. As long as enough people believe in the bogeyman, the agenda can move forward. Proponents of this agenda have a vested interest in maintaining the public’s perception of that threat.

If you believe the facts laid out in a 60 minutes interview with a Delta Force/special forces commando guy, then in the first few days of the war, we had bin Laden’s location and we had sufficient troops/commandos within a couple thousand yards of him. Those troops were ordered not to pursue purportedly because allied Afghan troops were supposed to lead/initiate, and they weren’t ready/able/willing (don’t remember for sure which). Anyway, it sounds like we could have had bin Laden in the bag in the first few days if that was our real intention.

Link

Your information is faulty.

It might as well be.

No.

Because we seem to fail to eliminate the root causes of islamist terrorism.

No, because it would lead several key media outlets and some government employees to declare the war on terror is over, we won. Which would result in US resources now used against al Quaeda to be moved to other threats or downsized.

I believe Osama was allowed to escape because he was worth more alive and free to the US war effort than he was dead or captured.

This has already happened and I see no decrease in terrorism. In fact, there seem to be more and more violent terrorist acts since we snuffed bin Laden.

Well, it is two years later and I believe we have an answer; NO!