Who benefited most from the fear of Osama Bin Laden

[malaise]

I watched a discussion about the price of oil since 9/11 from $29 a barrel to over $100. Then there's the 'fear factor' which was exploited by ReTHUGS 24/7.

[JTFrog]

1. Fuck it.

All of the above lol.

[Art_from_Ark]

2. I don't know if despots in the Middle East benefited

Certainly Saddam didn't.

[malaise]

3. Many did including Mubarak, Musharraf

but not all of them cashed in. :hi:

[Art_from_Ark]

7. Well, Musharraf might have benefited for a while

But wasn't he eventually pushed out? What's he doing now?

[ixion]

5. The biggest despot in the Middle East is the U.S.A.

and the benefit was there, in one form or another.

[ixion]

4. All of the above... and Obama

Which seems like an obvious answer somehow left off your list.

[malaise]

6. How did Obama benefit? n/t

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

8. He's gotten good press in the last few days

If the SEALs had killed some low-level slogan-maker, unknown and unfeared, how much political capital would come from that?

[pipi_k]

9. But this isn't about the death of OBL...

it's about the fear of him. While he was alive.

Since he's now dead, nobody benefits from the fear of him. And Obama didn't benefit from OBL much, if any, when he (OBL) was alive.

OBL was the Bushies' perpetual boogeyman. Somebody they could drag out every now and then to scare Americans into thinking Bush was the only one who could protect us from him.

[ixion]

12. The benefit now is from his assassination

and you can be sure that somebody benefited, otherwise he would still be very much alive.

[ixion]

11. A political spike is a benefit

and he got a huge spike from this.

[Salviati]

10. Other: Osama Bin Laden

and by stoking fear in him, republicans were aiding his efforts to make us bankupt ourselves us as a nation, both economically and morally.

[Octafish]

13. There's the 'only democracy' in the Middle East, too.

One of my favorite countries in the world; its name starts with an "I."

[GoCubsGo]

14. Aren't most of them one in the same?

Outside of the Middle Eastern despots, they're all pretty much the same entity.