Goodbye and Good Riddance!
Al-Zarqawi’s dead today, doo-dah, doo-dah! Al-Zarqawi’s dead today oh doo-dah-day! The terrorist is dead! The terrorist is dead! Al-Zarqawi’s dead today oh doo-dah-daaaaaaay!
In case you didn’t notice, I am very pleased to announce the death of the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi! The man who has led the so-called insurgency, which has always been nothing more than a terrorist campaign led by this puke has lost its leader. Now to see if cutting off the head kills this beast, or if, like the hydra it, grows a new head to replace the old one.
At the very minimum this victory should give the terrorists pause and suck some of the fervor out of them. Make them less willing to fight. As long as their leader has been able to elude US forces they have been able to ignore their own horrific losses in the hopes that those who come after may yet succeed. Now, with no leader, and no known heir apparent, they will be splintered, leaderless, and disheartened. Some will look to Bin-Laden, but they will be disappointed. He is on the run and not in Iraq. If he goes to Iraq he will met the same fate as Al-Zarqawi did.
It was a bombing that got him. Not a roadside bomb or other IED, but a real bomb. A good old-fashioned aerial dropped manufactured in the good old USA bomb. The man who can now be linked to the deaths over 2,000 American military men and women has now joined the tens of thousands of insurgents and terrorists who have died under his command.
Today is also a great day for the people of Iraq. Right now they have an opportunity to seize control of their national situation and put down the insurgency once and for all with the help of the US. They can take advantage of the internal chaos within the insurgency and fracture it to a point that it can never recover. This done, they will finally know both peace and democracy. They will be able to walk down their streets, go to their schools, go to work, meet, greet, and enjoy life without the worry of some terrorist blowing himself up in their midst. They have this opportunity right now, and if they are wise they will take it.
For the US this means we are one step closer to both reducing our manpower in Iraq to close to nil and focusing more on the hunt for Bin Laden, or we are one step closer to invading Iran and doing everything we have just done in Iraq all over again. Truth be told I can live with either option since both of them probably need to happen whether anyone wants them to or not.
Politically this is a significant event. If it works out in such a way that the insurgency dies down significantly or dies out altogether Iraq will be an indisputable victory, and all the talk about quagmires and failure will be proven utterly false, and those who have been making such negative claims will become the objects of ridicule and distrust. I can live with this. It has always been my position that the people who have been actively undermining the war effort here at home have been simply trying to advance their own political careers at the cost of American lives overseas. The constant rhetoric about Iraq being a failure and the need to turn it into another Vietnam by quitting are enemies of America in my opinion. I say this because such an action would prove to the terrorists that we are weak with no stomach for a fight, and the WILL start attacking our homeland in droves. Our sticking out to final victory is the only way to win this thing in the long term. Today, we may have just hit the catalyst that speeds victory along. Only time will tell.
In case you didn’t notice, I am very pleased to announce the death of the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi! The man who has led the so-called insurgency, which has always been nothing more than a terrorist campaign led by this puke has lost its leader. Now to see if cutting off the head kills this beast, or if, like the hydra it, grows a new head to replace the old one.
At the very minimum this victory should give the terrorists pause and suck some of the fervor out of them. Make them less willing to fight. As long as their leader has been able to elude US forces they have been able to ignore their own horrific losses in the hopes that those who come after may yet succeed. Now, with no leader, and no known heir apparent, they will be splintered, leaderless, and disheartened. Some will look to Bin-Laden, but they will be disappointed. He is on the run and not in Iraq. If he goes to Iraq he will met the same fate as Al-Zarqawi did.
It was a bombing that got him. Not a roadside bomb or other IED, but a real bomb. A good old-fashioned aerial dropped manufactured in the good old USA bomb. The man who can now be linked to the deaths over 2,000 American military men and women has now joined the tens of thousands of insurgents and terrorists who have died under his command.
Today is also a great day for the people of Iraq. Right now they have an opportunity to seize control of their national situation and put down the insurgency once and for all with the help of the US. They can take advantage of the internal chaos within the insurgency and fracture it to a point that it can never recover. This done, they will finally know both peace and democracy. They will be able to walk down their streets, go to their schools, go to work, meet, greet, and enjoy life without the worry of some terrorist blowing himself up in their midst. They have this opportunity right now, and if they are wise they will take it.
For the US this means we are one step closer to both reducing our manpower in Iraq to close to nil and focusing more on the hunt for Bin Laden, or we are one step closer to invading Iran and doing everything we have just done in Iraq all over again. Truth be told I can live with either option since both of them probably need to happen whether anyone wants them to or not.
Politically this is a significant event. If it works out in such a way that the insurgency dies down significantly or dies out altogether Iraq will be an indisputable victory, and all the talk about quagmires and failure will be proven utterly false, and those who have been making such negative claims will become the objects of ridicule and distrust. I can live with this. It has always been my position that the people who have been actively undermining the war effort here at home have been simply trying to advance their own political careers at the cost of American lives overseas. The constant rhetoric about Iraq being a failure and the need to turn it into another Vietnam by quitting are enemies of America in my opinion. I say this because such an action would prove to the terrorists that we are weak with no stomach for a fight, and the WILL start attacking our homeland in droves. Our sticking out to final victory is the only way to win this thing in the long term. Today, we may have just hit the catalyst that speeds victory along. Only time will tell.
posted by Daniel Levesque at
9:04 AM
8 Comments:
yeah, daniel..."ding dong, the witch is dead" is the song that i was singing in my head yesterday!
By
Libby, at 9:11 AM
I saw an interesting column (by a Democrat actually) saying that this is good for morale. The terrorists know they can't outgun us, so they try to make us tired of the war. The death of Zarquawi will certinally help morale and continue the fight.
By
Anonymous, at 12:07 PM
While Zarqawi's death is a positive step and an important morale booster, I don't believe for a second that he can be "linked to the deaths over 2,000 American military men and women" . . . or that he was really the least bit important to the insurgency. Zarqawi fled Afghanistan and set up shop in the northern no-fly zone, and rather than take him out, the administration chose to use him as a talking point to support their claims that al-Qaeda was operating in Iraq -- even though there's nothing to show that Zarqawi was ever linked to al-Qaeda until the administration made the claim.
Once the US government had publicly called Zarqawi a threat to America, Zarqawi was eager to accept the title -- in the same way Osama bin Laden was eager to accept credit for 9/11, despite the lack of any credible evidence linking him to that crime. And yes, Zarqawi went on to use the publicity we gave him to gather up support and put out propaganda under the name al-Qaeda in Iraq, though there's no credible evidence that he was actually a part of the international network we named al-Qaeda, though he certainly wanted to be.
I've seen this happen so often now -- our "leaders" identify a monster and build him up to monumental proportions, exaggerate his power and influence so greatly that he even becomes a symbol to our enemies, and then take him down and pretend they've accomplished something -- that it's hard to care at all anymore.
Osama was initially identified as the terrorist mastermind who needed to be killed or captured immediately -- except that once we took Kabul, Osama and his global network went on the back burner. Saddam himself was supposed to be a mortal threat to America, a kingpin of the resistance after Baghdad fell -- but no, he was just another tinpot dictator, cowering in a hole. Noriega, Khaddafi, even the Soviet Union -- again and again they exaggerate the threat posed by some figure, then go into ecstatic convulsions congratulating themselves when they manage to pop the balloon they inflated themselves.
Zarqawi is just one more dead murderer. Nobody to celebrate over. And, as the Pentagon was so eager to point out not long ago, certainly not some great military or terrorist leader. Just another publicity whore.
By
catastrophile, at 1:57 PM
Hey, check out the vids I posted! They're good stuff.
By
Nightcrawler, at 7:29 PM
catastrophile what are you talking about? This guy was the #2 in Al-Quada. How can you say that he's not linked to the deaths of 2,000 men and women. On second thought, he'd linked to more. Being Al-Quada's second in command you don't think he had at least some role in killing Americans? Come on man. What you're saying is what? That the Bush administration MADE him second in command or made him go into Al-Quada through publicity? I think you might want to ask yourself, 'does Al-Quada take orders from Bush and American media outlets?' and rethink your position.
By
Anonymous, at 8:21 AM
"This guy was the #2 in Al-Quada."
According to whom? The White House? As you pointed out, al-Qaeda doesn't take orders from them.
Zarqawi was a nobody until the administration started trumpeting his name -- then he became a propaganda tool. He started a group called 'al-Qaeda in Iraq' -- I don't know of anything credibly linking that organization to Osama's. Obviously Zarqawi wanted in, but that didn't make him Osama's right hand man (that is, anywhere other than inside of his own head and in White House press releases).
Can you think of anything better for a jihadist's prestige then having Colin Powell go before the UN and call him a threat to America? What could possibly boost his name recognition more than that?
By
catastrophile, at 8:27 PM
Although Zarqawi and other foreign insurgents in Iraq have conducted deadly bombing attacks, they remain "a very small part of the actual numbers," Col. Derek Harvey, who served as a military intelligence officer in Iraq and then was one of the top officers handling Iraq intelligence issues on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told an Army meeting at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., last summer.
In a transcript of the meeting, Harvey said, "Our own focus on Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature, if you will -- made him more important than he really is, in some ways."
And people wonder why so many of us reflexively distrust anything the administration says . . . it's a reflex honed over years and years of this sort of nonsense. You'll notice they're wasting no time doing exactly the same thing with the man they've named Zarqawi's successor . . .
By
catastrophile, at 10:47 PM
"At the very minimum this victory should give the terrorists pause and suck some of the fervor out of them."
Did 9/11 suck some of the fervor out of you for standing against injustice?
An honest evaluation of violence will show that it tends to self-perpetuate and escalate rather than demotivate. We need look no further than our own emotions to determine this.
Another reason why I don't believe in the Myth of Redemptive Violence and think it would behoove us all to search for better answers.
And many well-reasoned responses there, Catastrophe.
By
Dan Trabue, at 2:00 PM
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