One cannot understate the importance of eliminating Bin Laden. He was a symbolic head of the organisation and, as we now know, an operational head of the organisation.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Getting rid of Bin Laden is good for the cause of peace worldwide but what counts is to overcome the discourse and the methods - the violent methods - that were created and encouraged by Bin Laden and others in the world.
It's not just Bin Laden or just those that are involved in the counterterrorism effort. We've gotta cast the net broader than that. But I think it's a - very special tribute that we all owe to the bravery and courage of the men and women in the intelligence and military business who performed so well to finally get it done.
Bin Laden does reprehensible activities, and we should surely take care of that by killing him as soon as we can. But he's not an irrational man. He's a very worthy enemy. He's an enemy to worry about.
Bin Laden comes out of a business background - he studied public administration and economics at university, and he worked for his family company, which was obviously a rather successful enterprise.
Without the connotation good or bad, bin Laden's a great man in the sense that he's influenced the course of history.
In short, the hunt for bin Laden could not have been accomplished without every form of American intelligence-gathering.
We know that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has some very dangerous, very important leaders who are tied directly to the top leadership of al Qaeda central, including a man who was formerly Osama bin Laden's secretary.
Bin Laden is remarkably eager for Americans to know why he doesn't like us, what he intends to do about it and then following up and doing something about it in terms of military actions.
Osama bin Laden fervently hoped that attacking the United States would create pressure on American leaders to reduce their support for Middle Eastern regimes. Bin Laden believed that without that American support, the Arab regimes would collapse and would be replaced by Taliban-style rulers.
Bin Laden always wanted to get rid of Mubarek and Ben Ali and Gaddafi and so on, claiming that they were all infidels working for America, and in fact, it was millions of ordinary people who peacefully, more or less - certainly in the case of Tunisia and Egypt - got rid of them.