What if Osama bin Laden died in the Soviet-Afghan War?

[boredviewer1234]

It depends on your interpretation of Osama, for example if you believe he killed his mentor then their is a decent chance Abdullah Yusuf Azzam inherits his mad cash and unites the peshaware parties against the communists. The father of the Global Jihad may be see his vison spread through all corners of the world.

Azzam urged the creation of a "pioneering vanguard", as the core of a new Islamic society. "This vanguard constitutes the solid base [qaeda in Arabic] for the hoped-for society. ... We shall continue the jihad no matter how long the way, until the last breath and the last beat of the pulse – or until we see the Islamic state established." From its victory in Afghanistan jihad would liberate Muslim land (or land where Muslims form a minority in the case of the Philippines or formerly Muslim land in the case of Spain) ruled by unbelievers: the southern Soviet Republics of Central Asia, Bosnia, the Philippines, Kashmir, Somalia, Eritrea, and Spain.

He also founded Lashkar-e-Taiba, a group that Osama also helped created and is arguably stronger than AQ has ever been.


Then you got the guys who like Mustafa Setmariam Nasar AQ top strategists who Daesh copied and believed Osama attention grabbing attacks hurt the movement.

Overall I would expect without Osama there be more focus on the target's of Asia, Africa, Europe than America and near enemy countries like Syria, SA, Jordan ect.

I would expect the CIA would work far more with ''freedom fighters'' and longer given the US would much less of a primary target and exporting dissidents to fight Russians, Philippines, Burma would common in the Arab world.

 

[Fernan3451]

Don't come in a month after the fact to one liner somebody.

I didn't mean to offend him. Sorry.

 

[Shehryar]

I hope you learned from not saying conspiracy theories, Shehryar.

I hope you learned from not saying conspiracy theories, Shehryar.

All I will say to you is to follow the money trail and you will find the truth.
whatever the truth may be.

 

[cjc]

The budget was balanced in the Clinton administration and Bill personally hoped to pay off the country’s debt according to his memoirs. Bush pushed tax cuts that got rid of that and then 9/11 took it from there. By getting rid of OBL there’s a chance that the balanced budget could be maintained longer but it would likely require Gore winning in ‘00.

Getting Gore in the White House might not be too hard in such a scenario. Butterflying away the embassy and USS Cole attacks without similar attacks may not make some consider Clinton and those associated with him to be weak on foreign threats which could be enough to o swing the election.

We wouldn’t see the PATRIOT Act in such a world and of course there wouldn’t be the attitude of, “if you’re not with us then you’re against us” at least not nearly as prevalent. It would really be just a continuation of the 90s... Not gonna lie, kinda wish I lived in that world.

Isn't us dept a good thing for the world economy? What would have happened to the world economy if the us payed off all its dept by 2010?

 

[BrockSampson]

Isn't us dept a good thing for the world economy? What would have happened to the world economy if the us payed off all its dept by 2010?

There’s actually a good video on that topic on Youtbue by The Infographics Show. The conclusion basically came down to: the US is seen as incredibly credit-worthy, daily life wouldn’t change much, and it’s all but guaranteed that some politician(s) will squander it eventually. Short of passing the Balanced Budget Amendment of course. which is possible TTL as it came within 1 vote of passing the Senate and Clinton would have likely agreed to it.

 

[CalBear]

All I will say to you is to follow the money trail and you will find the truth.
whatever the truth may be.

So, the first kick doesn't seem to have done anything.

Once again unto the Breach!

Kicked for a week.

Clue-in. Seriously.

 

[Colonel Zoidberg]

**cracks knuckles in big outward arm-stretch**

Let’s see what we have here.

The first thing to remember about Osama bin Laden is that he meets three important criteria to pull off a 9/11, along with lesser attacks such as the Cole and the embassy bombings: he has a fuckton of financial resources, he has a radicalized Islamic vision, and he has a strong motive to be pissed the hell off at America.

Bear in mind that the Saudi royal family and clerics were hardliners, but bin Laden was radical even by their standards. So you won’t see the Saudi government or anyone like them touching any Islamic radical. They’re too cozy with the US government to bite on something like that, especially when Saudi oil is the bread and butter of their economy. The last thing they want is to piss off their market.

This means that Islamic radicalism is almost certainly missing a big-time backer. They may have their casus belli (American troops in Saudi Arabia is bound to piss someone off) and they have their radical state backer (as far as I know the Taliban isn’t going away) but that’s about it. The Taliban isn’t about to start anything as far away as America, and they probably won’t have the resources or anyone who thinks of flying planes into buildings.

Beat in mind that 9/11 was comparatively cheap but still cost a pretty penny by the standards of “rogue Islamic terrorist/freedom fighter.” A financial analysis showed that the cost to pull off the attack was in the neighborhood of $500,000. That’s doable if a guy like bin Laden is at the helm, but I’m not aware of another well-off Islamic radical who would pull something like that. So they stick to attacks like Kenya and the USS Cole, and that’s probably the ceiling for Islamic terrorism in a no-bin-Laden timeline.

This means Bush’s presidency is very different, defined by religious conservatism, tax cuts and some dust-ups in the Middle East. Iraq is out of the question, even if they wanted Saddam from Day One - there’s a 90% chance they never strike and a 10% chance they try to take him out under the radar and replace him. And there’s a 90% chance it goes to hell if he does.

Bush getting re-elected depends largely on who runs against him and how they campaign. Bear in mind that the issues that were expected to split the OTL 2004 election were terrorism (expected to break for W,) the economy (expected to break for Kerry,) and Iraq (expected to split.) Two of those issues likely don’t exist TTL, so the economy is the biggest issue in theory. That’s the good news for the Democrats. The bad news? The issue that actually decided the election was “moral values.” And that one is both still a thing and breaks heavily for Bush. So based on that, Bush ekes out a win in 2004, but his wins in Congress are diminished.

 

[BrockSampson]

I do wonder how NATO, Russia, and China are affected by all this. NATO isn’t pulled into a conflict in the Middle East so it either keeps a wary eye on Russia or starts to question whether is should still exist.

Russia meanwhile is still dealing with Chechnya. Did OBL act as an inspiration for insurgents there?

China also doesn’t get the benefit of western countries being distracted with other conflicts for years. OTL the US started pushing against China in the 2010s but here I wonder if there would be moves to contain them sooner.

 

[Spencersj345.346]

Well assuming no war in either Iraq or Afghanistan the procurement of the replacements for a lot Cold War era hardware actually is done in sufficient numbers and presumably a bit earlier in the case of several programs. Mind you the lack of IED spam against US forces due to said wars not happening might result in far less emphasis on defending such threats in vehicle design at least for that generation of vehicles

 

[West]

The world would be a better place.


Keep in mind the united states was in general backing off from the world and being a international police man. Most people wanted to go back to a kind of isolationism. The war on terror didn't create our current mentality of trying to get out of the middle east it just slowed it down for a bit.

The money spent on the war is either given away in tax cuts or used to pay down the debt, Dubya probally loses in his second round because he was honestly really really bad at his job and never should have been allowed anywhere near power. The world is probally richer now, freerer, and a better place with out Osama.

 

[Otto Kretschmer]

There are Jihadist movements that are independent of Al Qaeda. Shia Hezbollah obviously but other ones like Hamas, and Taliban etc would exist even if Osama was never born.

After failure of Arab Socialism something was needed to fill the ideological void

 

[Colonel Zoidberg]

The world would be a better place.


Keep in mind the united states was in general backing off from the world and being a international police man. Most people wanted to go back to a kind of isolationism. The war on terror didn't create our current mentality of trying to get out of the middle east it just slowed it down for a bit.

The money spent on the war is either given away in tax cuts or used to pay down the debt, Dubya probally loses in his second round because he was honestly really really bad at his job and never should have been allowed anywhere near power. The world is probally richer now, freerer, and a better place with out Osama.

Theoretically, anyway.

Also, bear in mind that, if Dubya loses in 2004, his tax cuts and shitty regulation policies mean that the next four years are a ticking time bomb. You simply do not want to be the President or hold Congress when that happens - so if it’s a Dem in the White House, get ready for President McCain (who probably doesn’t pick Palin because he doesn’t feel pressured into putting a woman on the ballot - expect a mainstream conservative with Bush’s views but actual political chops.)

However, the GOP dominated Congress during that decade and probably would hold a narrow majority when everything went to hell. So all the pissed off Republicans vote McCain but don’t support their representatives; meanwhile, get used to the term “McCain Democrat” - a Democratic voter who votes McCain but to put Dems in Congress.

And this is all assuming that Dubya doesn’t ramp up his (at the time really popular) crusade against gay marriage. Absent a controversial war, the Iraq voters who broke for the Dems OTL have to find another issue, and if Bush is halfway decent at countering Cole-like strikes overseas, he has both the terrorism voters and the values voters. There are three ways to rally voters - scare them, promise them more money, or win a war. Dubya’s got two out of three of those if he keeps al-Qaeda at bay and people see that.

Which is good for Dubya in 2004 but a disaster for the GOP in 2008 - the victories will dry up, the economy will be in shambles, and people will have stopped giving a shit about gay marriage. That means the Dems win even bigger than they did OTL - the most vulnerable seats for the GOP that they actually won were in Georgia and Kentucky. Enough of a swing and Georgia could have elected a Democratic Senator - and if things went really well for the Dems, they could have retired Mitch McConnell. This means that Obama would have had a filibuster-proof majority right off the bat and possibly even passed something more substantial than Obamacare.