A decade after the September 11 attacks, US President Barack Obama was able to declare on Sunday: "Justice has been done".
Given that bin Laden had become a synonym for global terror, his death could mark a milestone in the international efforts to fight terrorism and serve as a morale booster for the United States.
The demise of the world's No 1 terrorist could be a heavy blow to international terrorists and extremists, who have long taken bin Laden to be their inspiration.
Yet, the road to rid the world of the scourge of terror remains arduous and long. Past experience indicates military action alone will not remove the soil in which terrorism grows.
Since the September 11 attacks on the United States, bin Laden has been the No.1 enemy of the American people. In the past ten years, the United States has launched wars against Afghanistan and Iraq in the name of anti-terrorism, bringing great disasters to the two countries.
Despite the promise of ending the wars, Obama increased troops in Afghanistan after taking office. Wars on terror do not bring safety to the U.S., instead, the terrorism threat has been exacerbated: the al-Qaeda organization has set up branches in Yemen; native terrorism suspects have been discovered one after another in the U.S. The attempted acts of attacking airline in December 2009 and the Time Square terror last year still send chills up the American people's spines.
This means the al-Qaeda organization has not been eliminated but been gaining momentum. Ten years of anti-terrorism just makes terrorism even more rampant.
The demise of bin Laden brings a ray of hope to American people, who expect a new age of peace. However, the first measure taken by the U.S. government after the killing of bin Laden is thought provoking: the U.S. Department of State issued a travel warning for all U.S. citizens traveling and residing abroad to the possibility of enhanced anti-American violence.
On May 1, Washington Post did a poll by asking netizens if they feel safer after the death of bin Laden. The result shows that at first the people saying yes and no evened but soon people choosing "no" kept increasing and reached 57% two hours after the announcement of bin Laden's death.
Therefore, death of bin Laden does not mean the end of terrorism, which is rooted in the injustice and inequity of the world's economic and political order. Needless to say, international efforts to combat terrorism should target these root causes too. (Source: China Youth International/Southern Daily)
