AMARILLO, TEXAS -- Congressman Mac Thornberry, Dr. Harry Hueston and Dr. Syed Anwar of West Texas A&M University all had just about the same thing to say about the bin Laden death... that it was a huge victory.
"Finally they got him, if you look at how long the U.S. government and how long the military has been looking for him, I think it's done," said Hueston.
"A lot of relief because every day that bin Laden was alive was, in itself, an inspiration to terrorists and having removed that inspiration and that makes the world safer," said Thornberry.
But in reality how does bin Laden's death effectively impact the war on terror?
"If the cult leader is gone, you really don't have the problem going away, the problem is still there, but the intensity may not be all that high," Anwar.
Dr. Hueston seemingly agrees.
"His death is an important victory in, like the President said, our War on Terrorism, but I don't forsee it being something in the long run that will have the same effect as say the death of a Hitler or Mussolini," he said.
His death, however according to Thornberry, means a possible increase in danger for the United States.
"I think in the immediate future we are in a period of some what increased danger, there is increased security today for example around the Capitol and Washington."
But Thornberry does feel this in the long run removes the inspiration and planning bin Laden provided Al Queda and that all terrorists shouldn't feel safe.
"Everybody's got to be looking over their shoulder. If we can get bin Laden we can get anybody and so hopefully they're looking over their shoulder more and planning attacks against us less."
Dr. Anwar went on to say that this can go either of two ways, either making the threat of terror go down or backfiring in the future.
