Did Bin Laden win the war on terror

Since its an election year in the United States and the war on terror continues to dominate the news with the occupation of Afghanistan. I ask you, did Osama bin Laden win the war on terror from beyond the grave.

How did he win? Simple, he made the United States run up a huge deficit/debt which will bankrupt the US if massive budget cuts aren't made.

Source

He also made it impossible for the west to topple dictators in the Middle East because many of them painted themselves as vanguards against Islamic Terrorism and thus made it easy to recruit people to Islamic Terrorism because that was the only other choice.

However, he might have also lost the war on terrorism because there is a wave of secularism flowing through the region and Al-Qaeda is finished as a global force.

I think he won when the US invaded Afghanistan, because with the US as the "aggressor" it's quite easy to drum up support for your cause.

...let's call it a draw.

Despite his best efforts, he came nowhere near "bankrupting" us. Even at their peak in a major war, U.S. military expenditures never bankrupted the country, and in fact they tend to have a stimulatory effect. Osama bin Laden fails economics 101 in the same way that the Tea Party in the U.S. does.

Well, let's put it this way..

He scared the crap out of our nation to where we are now a good 3 times as paranoid about becoming victims as we were previously.. We've run up a huge expenses bill on Afghanistan...

However, we're still here as a nation, Al Qaeda has been torn to shreds and dismantled along with many of its key allies, and Geronimo got shot in the face. I'd say it's a draw, with us coming out slightly in the win column.

Well tell me Sam, you okay with a draw?

Considering he's dead now and spent his last years in hiding, I'd say that's a crappy definition of winning. The US as a country can recover from the damage he caused. He and his followers can't exactly recover from being dead and forced into irrelevancy.

Winning can be defined as achieving ones goals, we don't know what his exact goals are. If these goals were to further disgrace the US in the eyes of the international community I'd say he succeeded indirectly. That goal is also not mutually exclusive with the US's goal of killing him possibly leading to multiple winning parties.

Can yes, but if the last year is anything to go by, they wont. A deficit of 10% of GDP isn't sustainable whatever way you slice it. Also Civil liberties have been eroded all over the western world because of what Bin Laden did.

I'd say they won the second the Patriot Act was approved and people started treating anyone of middle eastern descent as a terrorist.

Yes.

Terrorist's goal is to inflict terror. Our country is afraid of its own shadow now.

It always has been. First it was the Germans. Then it was the Russians. Now it's the Islamic Fundamentalists. And someday it'll be somebody else, probably China by the way things are going. It's just like The Boss from MGS 3 said: there's no such thing a true immortal, timeless enemy, and there never will be. As time marches on, those enemies will fade, possibly even become allies, only to be replaced by a new one that we ourselves invent. And Osama is no different.

Barkey, Midget and whale have it right.

Terrorists' goal is to inflict terror as a means of making the terrified party do what they want. I'm pretty sure the United States increasing its presence in the Middle East was not bin Laden's goal.

I'd say his goal was, at least partially, to increase hatred of the United States among Islamic countries and therefore destroy our power and influence in the region. In this he has markedly failed, as our influence is and remains greater than ever.

Yes it was actually because it spread the United States too thinly and was expensive. It showed once and for all that the United States couldn't even fight 2 wars in the same neighbourhood, nevermind in 2 different locations.

How so?

edited 17th Jan '12 11:37:37 AM by whaleofyournightmare

Actually, the US would have a pretty easy time fighting two wars in the same neighborhood if it was willing to tap into the manpower and resources who are stationed elsewhere, such as Germany, Okinawa, Hawaii, etc.

But that wouldn't be as tasty for the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex.

edited 17th Jan '12 11:44:29 AM by ssfsx17

He didn't win.

He tied.

Well the weird thing is that, I would say he "lost" but not in the way he or the US expected to lose. Certainly, the US did damage to the organisation itself with military actions in Afghanistan, but the same military actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan gave them thousands more recruits.

What really did in Al Qaeda is the Arab Spring movement, a multi-ethnic rise up against tyranny. They rejected the violence of al qaeda and its extreme form of Islam, and they also rejected the US-backed dictators operating throughout the mideast.

As for the US, it can lose wars and survive, so long as the people understand what they need to do to recover.

He didn't win, he's dead. He was killed hiding out, with his organisation down to bare bones. He lost in all senses of the word. He did damage though. The economy's not his doing. That happened on it's own.

edited 17th Jan '12 1:42:44 PM by Joesolo

Dying isn't losing. Having your organization destroyed isn't losing either. While I doubt he intended anything like a Thanatos Gambit, if his goals had been accomplished he still could have been said to be winning. Isn't his side characterized by suicidal attacks anyway? How could anyone possibly believe those people considered survival their priority?

edited 17th Jan '12 1:48:17 PM by Clarste

No it didn't, its directly traceable to 9/11, the Fed reduced the interest rates to 0.5% which caused cheap money to flood the system which led to the subprime mortgage crisis which led to the great recession.

Al qaida's ultimate goal was a new caliphate, and the general populace to embrace conservative Islam. Osama attacked the United States because he saw the only obstacle to this goal being the secular dictatorships propped up by the American government in Egypt and Iraq. He wanted to show that America was not invulnerable, and hopped that in doing so he would inspire people to overthrow American backed dictators and institute an Islamic regime.

Well, Osama did accomplish the first of his goals, in that Egypt and Iraq are both toppling. The question that remains is will he accomplish his second goal, that of an Islamic state unified under conservative Islam. That remains to be seen; while pro-Islamic regimes seem to be taking shape in Egypt and Iraq, the notion that they will unify seems distant.

He tied.

He lost in terms of his ultimate objective of promoting his particular brand of Islam (most reject his views), creating a Caliphate (Islamists may be coming to power, but no two Islamists agree on what exactly a caliphate even is, much less how to implement it), or of ever getting another lick at the US.

He won in terms of breaking the US's unipolarity that it enjoyed in the 1990s (not that it was sustainable in the long run, but something has to act against it to stop momentum and he did it), he made the US feel what the Soviets did in the 1980s and taught the lesson of reaping what one sows (if not to the politicians, certainly to some in the general public), he created economic turmoil (doesn't matter if we'll recover, an injury is an injury even if it eventually heals), and most importantly he got us to become paranoid. While it isn't the first time America has experienced it nor likely to be the last, paranoia/xenophobia is not an advantage in the globalized world we live in.

There are many other wins and losses to his name, but all in all, dude tied.