There was a Washington Post Article about the fact that bin Laden apparently had goals of damaging the U.S. economically instead of purely by death-destruction-terror. It goes on to discuss that in that respect, he might have been very successful.
It's an interesting statement, but back in 2008 I read a compilation of Laden statements 1994-2004, and one of the interesting things (besides how bin Laden waffled on 9/11 and how he admitted it worked out much better than expected) was how his economic reasoning does not show up until the end - suggesting that he had no such thing in mind. And you see on occasion some pretty weird economic thinking, like this '97 bit:
...Ladin: Correct! This is the right method to throw America out of the Gulf. The United States is beefing up its forces in the Gulf in a bi
From "Academics Doubt Impact of Osama bin Laden’s Death":
See also Lost Purposes, The Importance of Goodhart's Law, & Faster than Science.