A strike took out Al-Qaeda leader X, accused of being one of the leaders behind 9/11, in Afghanistan.  The first question most have is whether such attacks make us safer or not.  A top-notch LaGrange College student’s paper for a national undergraduate research conference provides some answers.

It was October of 2019.  ISIS Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a U.S. military action.  The next day, my students and I analyzed 12 cases of raids or attacks against terrorists, as well as rescue attempts of hostages or the capture of enemy leaders.  We found that 75 percent of the time, a President’s approval ratings increase, though in 83 percent of the time, that leader’s polls decline over the next several months, which shows Biden’s boost in the polls may only be temporary.

John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in Georgia. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. His Twitter account is @JohnTures2.