Bin Laden’s death may be the most momentous event of this year—or it may seem to be. After the clapping and the dancing, it’s time for our afterthoughts about what difference his death really makes. It’s too soon to be sure, but it may make less difference than we think, except for enhancing President Obama’s re-election bid.
Of course there’s been talk of revenge, and there may be attempts. But as a writer remarked on the Madville Times blog, “If any significant terrorist attack happens in the coming year, it was probably already in the works before the May Day surprise.”
Bin Laden, born to wealth, an educated, reflective man and a seasoned fighter, is a hard act to follow. To replicate his charisma and fundraising ability—for al Qaeda is fueled by money as well as hostility—will take more than anger and oratory.
What’s more, the Arab Spring has absorbed some of the energy that might have gone into jihad if bin Laden were still here and dissatisfied people in the Middle East hadn’t discovered Facebook and Twitter as organizing tools. “As long as [bin Laden] was around, he created an alternative narrative,” al Qaeda expert Lawrence Wright recently commented in a statement quoted in the New York Times.
But it’s also the case that bin Laden created an opportunity, even a pretext, for the interests within the United States that benefit from constant military conflict. To armsmakers and their investors, wars large and small are trade shows; though our manufacturing base for civilian products of all kinds has eroded, that crowd is determined to keep the U.S. at or near the top of the list of the world’s largest weapons sellers. Ponder what economist Seymour Melman, author of The Permanent War Economy, told CounterPunch in 2003: “The top federal government executives are a partnership of top political and corporate managers who operate a war economy to enlarge their power as their main continuing goal.”
Bin Laden is gone. That elite isn’t, and the House has passed a defense bill with a clause (H 1540, sec. 1034) that would give the president expanded power to launch military attacks, without the consent of Congress, anywhere terrorists are perceived to be. And if a foreign policy that claims to be based on the propagation of democracy when its real aim is to secure oil supplies persists, and arms manufacturers and their capitalizers exploit the constant tensions that policy provokes, bin Laden’s death will make no difference. A new justification for war will always be found.
