Got Him

[stankow]

It won't end the war, but the world is a slightly better place today. Would I have rather he be caught and tried for his crimes? Honestly, I'm not sure. There are people who are simply so evil, for no sane purpose, that they deserve to die. And if that's from a bomb instead of a lethal injection, well, sometimes justice is quick and loud

Comments

[dvandom]

I suspect the main long-term result of this is just that we'll have to learn another name. :/

[errforce1]

I won't miss him, certainly. I was always a little skeptical of the Zarqawi-as-Evil-Mastermind thing though. Evil, yes. But inflated by our own rhetoric.

[ajax]

You were not alone. The lefty hothead in neph_politics who pointed the article to me sez:Notice the date: April 10, 2006. Two months ago. Probably around the time they started getting firm intelligence on Zarqawi's whereabouts and started trailing the cleric that finally led them to him. Gee, what a co-inky-dink.
But who knows? Not I.

Anyway, one down. An effectively infinite number to go, without major changes on the political front.

--- Ajax.

[errforce1]

In London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair called al-Zarqawi's death "a very important moment in Iraq. A blow for al Qaeda in Iraq is a blow for al Qaeda everywhere."

Dear Tony:

Al Qaeda 2006 is a half-assed franchise operation with no startup fee. It's a brand name, not a functioning organization. It's like saying that blowing up a Subway in Carlisle, Pennsylvania is a blow to Subway everywhere.

[stankow]

Yes, it certainly is a "co-inky-dink" that an article detailing how al-Zarqawi wasn't really that important just happened to appear around the time that we might have gotten a trail on him. Man, those propagandists sure are clever -- they undermined their own propaganda, just to confuse the people who know the Truth.

Of course he's not the be-all and end-all of the resistance. No one has said he is. What he is, though, is a murderous thug who ordered the deaths of hundreds of innocents. And I am deliriously happy that he is no longer a functioning human being. No one will choose to martyr themselves because he got what was coming to him. At worst, they'll add it to the long list of reasons that they're forced to blow up schoolhouses and marketplaces.

[mchristensen]

Oblivion is a great game. An eternity of playing "ET" would be a better punishment.

[scottydont07]

Or perhaps Custer's Revenge, just to remind him about the afterlife's lack of virgins.

[bashou]

I thought AQ was looking for a good way to get rid of Zarqawi, seeing as he's been sullying their reputation of late? Or was that some other fellow?