Osama bin Laden may be gone, but his impact lives on. It's not just Americans who worry about what this means for the global war on terror. Here, a rundown of what writers around the world are saying about bin Laden's downfall and legacy:
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"Osama's killing has come as a huge prize" for the U.S., says The Frontier Post in an editorial, but it's terrible for Pakistan. First, it's shocking that our vaunted "intelligence agencies were so ignorant" that Osama was holed up in the middle of a bustling city like Abbottabad. But the truly terrifying thing is how U.S. commandos pulled off the raid so near an army garrison, while Pakistan's military stood flat-footed. Is our sovereignty — or our nuclear arsenal — safe?
Now the U.S. should mend its ways
Osama bin Laden was merely a symptom of America's problems, says the Beirut Daily Star in an editorial. Now that he's gone, the Obama administration should attack the root causes of "the deep-seated antagonism toward Washington" in the Muslim world. To do that, the U.S. should stop favoring Israel over "the entirely legitimate cause for Palestinian statehood." It should also stop preaching democracy while making friends with any dictator willing to do its bidding.
Bin Laden hurt Muslims, too
"For the Muslim world, it is like a lifting of a curse," says the Arab News in an editorial. "We complain, with very good reason, at the spreading tide of international Islamophobia but he was the cause of so much of it." But this is by no means the final chapter. "Because there are so many Al-Qaeda offshoots, so many Bin Laden wannabees, his death will not end the dangers of terrorism."
Fear still resonates
Osama bin Laden's killing is "testimony that merchants of death can only hide for so long," says the Daily Nation in an editorial. While Americans joined the hunt for the al Qaeda mastermind after 9/11, bin Laden struck the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi in 1998. "Unprovoked attacks and numerous unfulfilled threats" have forced Kenya "to join the war on terror, if only to ensure its own security." And these harsh realities and fears live on here.
"Vigilance best way to mark Osama's death"
THE PHILIPPINES
But this could still have a lasting effect
Even if this was mostly a symbolic victory, says the Sun.Star Cebu in an editorial, it "does not mean Bin Laden’s death won't have an effect on the conduct of worldwide terrorism. The fall of charismatic, or should we say notorious, leaders always weakens the movement identified with them." Just look at the al Qaeda-linked Philippine terrorist group Abu Sayyaf. It has been crippled by the loss of two such leaders in the past decade.
"Weighing impact of bin Laden's death"
UNITED KINGDOM
Bin Laden's vanity did him in
For a fugitive, we sure did see bin Laden a lot. "Despite being stateless, he was very far from faceless," says Mark Lawson in The Guardian. Bin Laden "delighted in distributing images" of himself. But considering that Islam forbids any images of its leader Muhammad, bin Laden symbolically "perverted and travestied the faith he claimed to represent: In showing his face, he showed himself to be a false prophet."
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