U.S. Safer From Terrorism After Death of Bin Laden

For years analysts have argued that al Qaeda had matured into a many-tentacled global multinational actor, with offshoots, copycats, and official subsidiaries all vying for attention from the national security bureaucracies in the West. Killing Osama Bin Laden is most importantly a signal of American endurance, perseverance, and military effectiveness. His death brings a turning point and closure to the war of retribution that followed September 11. We are now in a much more complicated, developed competition with the forces of religious extremism around the world, with the United States and Israel in the crosshairs of totalitarian Islamist jihad. I don't believe we are necessarily safer. But I'm confident we're capable of defending our interest against our foes.

In any case, at Gallup, "Majority in U.S. Say Bin Laden's Death Makes America Safer":

Americans express mixed views on how Osama bin Laden's demise will affect U.S. national security, according to a Monday night USA Today/Gallup poll. A slight majority (54%) believe bin Laden's death will make the U.S. safer from terrorism, nearly double the 28% who fear it will make it less safe ...

Bottom Line

While fearful that a retaliatory attack could be imminent, Americans are guardedly optimistic about the longer-term national security ramifications of the dramatic U.S. military operation that killed al Qaeda leader bin Laden at his residence in Pakistan.

Americans are twice as likely to consider the United States safer rather than less safe as a result. However, they continue to believe the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan -- initiated in October 2001 to destroy al Qaeda terrorist training camps -- is needed. And they have fairly modest views about what the U.S. military's success at locating and killing bin Laden means for the war on terrorism more generally. Although three-quarters say their confidence that the U.S. will win that war is at least somewhat higher as a result, fewer than half, 39%, say it makes them a lot more confident. Similarly, not quite a third of Americans, 32%, say bin Laden's death gives them a lot more confidence in Obama as commander in chief.

RTWT (via Memeorandum and Los Angeles Times).