1. Arguments
1.1. Yes
1.1.1. The blood has been let, vengeance is done. The US can now move troops out of AfPak
1.1.1.1. It was never a war on terror - it was a war of fury
1.1.2. This is the death blow to a weak organisation. Hurrah
1.1.2.1. Arab Spring shows it's so
1.1.2.2. Der Spiegel
1.1.2.2.1. Not much of that respect and reverence appears to remain, and both bin Laden's reputation and the violent culture he symbolized have been on the decline in the Muslim world for years. Since 2003, researchers at Pew have asked the same question about bin Laden every year. While 72 percent of Palestinians backed him in 2003, that figure has now fallen to 34 percent. Jordanian support has dropped from 56 to 13 percent, while Pakistani backing for bin Laden has slumped from 46 to 18 percent.
1.1.2.2.2. But as dangerous as al-Qaida remains as a terrorist organization, its political ideology has become virtually irrelevant in the Middle East. The more attacks it has carried out since 9/11 -- including on targets in the Muslim world -- the harder it has been to justify that terrorism to ordinary Muslims. This was already the case with the 2002 bombings on Djerba and Bali, and in Casablanca and Istanbul the following year -- not least because many of the casualties were Muslim, rather than just Western or Jewish. But support was particularly undermined by a series of al-Qaida assassinations carried out in Saudi Arabia from 2003 to 2006, in 2005 in Jordan and the countless attacks during the Iraq conflict, which quickly cost thousands of lives.
1.1.2.2.3. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,761177,00.html
1.1.2.2.4. Susanne Koelbl and Bernhard Zand
1.1.3. Leadership is terribly weak - no real replacement
1.1.3.1. Al Qaeda will have a difficult time finding a successor. Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s chief lieutenant, has few of the qualities that would make for a successful leader. He’s anti-charismatic. He ran his own Egyptian terror organization, al-Jihad, into the ground. Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American cleric now underground in Yemen, will continue to cause trouble, but it is unlikely that he will ever gain the standing of his Saudi predecessor.
1.1.3.2. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/05/bin-laden-hey-hey-goodbye.html
1.1.3.3. Lawrence Wright
1.2. No
1.2.1. The organisation has been radically transformed since 2001 into a network, a brand for terror. As a brand, it is alive and kicking. This is a long war, and Bin Laden's death only a battle
1.2.2. Jim Lacey
1.2.3. http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/266153/killing-bin-laden-jim-lacey
1.2.4. OBL and Al Qaida are already historically marginalised
1.2.4.1. The future is with the Arab Spring
1.2.4.1.1. http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/6910893/bin-laden-died-in-cairo.thtml
1.2.4.2. Daniel Korski
1.2.4.2.1. Spectator
1.2.5. Henry Jackson Society
1.2.5.1. Though al-Zawahiri is considered to be less charismatic than Bin Laden, he is, however, considered to be its chief ideologue. Some experts also believe he was the ̳operational brains‘ behind the 9/11 attacks.10
1.2.6. http://www.henryjacksonsociety.org/cms/harriercollectionitems/strategicbriefingbinladendeath.pdf
1.3. Yes
1.3.1. The war is long because we make it long. By treating it as a war, we have played OBL script since 2001. Whether or not it is a dead organisation, we will hasten its demise by calling an end to the GWOT. Put an end to the memetic cycles of violence.
1.3.1.1. Gideon Rachman
1.3.1.2. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3eff5db6-74ed-11e0-a4b7-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1L8noJOYn
1.3.1.3. the Bush-inspired drive to make terrorism the centrepiece of US foreign policy was a mistake. The declaration of a “Global War on Terror” distorted American foreign policy and led directly to two wars – in Iraq and Afghanistan. The war on terror has guzzled billions of dollars in wasteful spending and spawned a huge and secretive bureaucracy in Washington. The death of bin Laden gives President Barack Obama the cover he needs to start quietly unwinding some of these mistakes.
1.3.2. Mimetic violence
1.3.2.1. Girard
1.3.2.2. http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2007/08/roger-scruton-on-religion/
1.4. No
1.4.1. How naive. There really is a clash of civilisations. To give up now will only reinforce the view amongst our enemies that we are decadent and weak. There is just one language that terrorists understand, and that is might
1.4.2. Islamic inspired terrorism is just not about to end
1.4.2.1. The recent bombing in Marrakesh and the arrests in Germany demonstrate that Al Qaeda continues to have enthusiastic, entrepreneurial operatives that are eager to make their own mark on history.
1.5. Yes
1.5.1. Even if there are civilisational enemies out there, the point is to attack them through civilisation, not barbary. What if OBL had flown into White House, assassinated BHO, etc? We have the upper hand because we believe in law and justice. And those are just the currents we need to put behind us in the Islamic world.
1.5.1.1. We should never have declared war in response to a criminal act
1.5.1.1.1. the warnings issued in the aftermath of 9/11 by Sir Michael Howard, the British military historian. An admirer of the United States (he lived and taught here for several years) and no peacenik (as a young man, he served in the Coldstream Guards), Howard said that adopting war terminology in response to the criminal threat posed by Al Qaeda could lead to a century-long conflict. The gravest threat to world peace—and to America’s long-term security interests—Howard argued, was the possibility of the wounded superpower lashing out indiscriminately.
1.5.1.1.2. John Cassidy
1.5.1.1.3. The overreaction by the United States and its allies to 9/11 confirmed in the minds of many alienated Muslim youths (and a good many not-so-youthful devotees) the fateful notion that the world, as represented by the United States and other Western powers, was their implacable enemy.
1.5.1.2. Same with the name, Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”
1.5.2. We can't have double standards
1.5.2.1. http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/noam_chomsky_my_reaction_to_os/
1.5.2.2. Chomsky
1.5.2.3. Think of Che - is it really good to produce all those student sympathisers with a martyr?
1.6. No
1.6.1. The killing vs. justice question is an irrelevance. This was so clearly a military operation. And on moral superiority - we maintain it by a mile even if we do invoke Raison d'Etat in such cases. Liberalism, Democracy and America are still the most desired and admired systems in the Muslim world. The "double standards" problem only really afflicts a minority of morality-obsessed liberals. If these were the people we needed to bring onside, there would be no war!
1.6.1.1. The radicals who claim to be irked by our double standards are not irked by their own - for example sexist - double standards. It is clearly just an excuse.
2. Background
2.1. How should we read Obama's pronouncements?
2.1.1. “While drawing down in Iraq, we have refocussed on defeating Al Qaeda and denying its affiliates a safe haven,” Obama said in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in September. “In Afghanistan, the United States and our allies are pursuing a strategy to break the Taliban’s momentum and build the capacity of Afghanistan’s government and security forces, so that a transition to Afghan responsibility can begin next July. And from South Asia to the Horn of Africa, we are moving toward a more targeted approach—one that strengthens our partners and dismantles terrorist networks without deploying large American armies.” Panetta would seem to be the ideal candidate to continue that sort of transformation at the Pentagon.
2.1.2. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/05/after-bin-laden-a-new-foreign-policy.html#ixzz1LrVxKHdI
2.1.3. Ryan Lizza
2.2. By 2010, the US intelligence budget was $75 billion a year – a more than twentyfold increase since 9/11. That figure does not even include military activities run by the intelligence agencies, such as the drone attacks in Pakistan. Given all this, it is astonishing that it took a decade to track down bin Laden.
2.2.1. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3eff5db6-74ed-11e0-a4b7-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1LrXAYB4a
2.2.2. Gideon Rachman
3. Media
3.1. http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/better-rough-justice-than-another-911?SQ_PAINT_LAYOUT_NAME=chapter&start=2003&end=2638&sgmt=33659
3.2. Better Rough Justice than Another 9/11
3.2.1. Minute 2:45
3.2.2. 07:10
3.2.3. 09:25-10:35