Zarqawi’s death
I woke up today to the news of Zarqawi’s death.
This is the best day of its kind since the announcement of Saddam’s capture. And it does not seem this time as though reports of Zarqawi’s death have been greatly exaggerated; this appears to be the real deal at last.
There’s an especially interesting roundup of views at Pajamas Media. Note particularly the ones from Iraqi bloggers. And please contrast their attitude with Dr. Sanity’s compendium of views on the left, fine exemplars of the art of the “yes, but…”.
The NY Times reports an interesting incident of Tony Snow’s prescience:
As news that United States forces had killed the most wanted terrorist in Iraq began to spread through the American security apparatus late Wednesday afternoon, President Bush and his top advisers were meeting in the White House with congressional leaders, who were nervous about continued trouble in Iraq.
“What you really need to do,” Representative Ray LaHood of Illinois told the president, “is go get Zarqawi,” according to an account by the White House press secretary, Tony Snow, who was at the meeting.
“I said ‘Yeah, we’ll just order that up right now,’ ” Mr. Snow recalled in an interview this morning.
Minutes after that exchange, at 3:45 p.m., the national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, left the room in response to a Blackberry message to call the American ambassador to Iraq in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad.
“We think we have Zarqawi,” Mr. Khalilzad told him.
Was Zarqawi the source of all evil in Iraq? No. Will his death make the insurgency go away? Not a chance. But it’s another victory on the long slow and arduous road to some sort of functioning and democratic government in Iraq, and a message to others of his ilk as to what fate awaits them. And, if the Iraqi bloggers are any indication, a cause for ordinary Iraqis to rejoice.
Celebration at the death of an evildoer–and if there was a clearer example of an evildoer than Zarqawi on the face of this earth I can’t quite think of one at the moment–is a tricky phenomenon. Zarqawi was human, of that I am certain. As a human being, he deserves some sort of respect. But a long time ago he forfeited the right to be mourned in the usual way, and it is appropriate to be glad of the fact that he is no longer among us to inspire whomever it might be who found his particular brand of sociopathic thuggery impressive and charismatic.
For a sociopathic thug he almost undoubtedly was, with roots in garden-variety criminality, writ large over time through political opportunity and positioning so that he could work his evil on a vaster scale than most ordinary psychopaths. If we or anyone else shed a tear for Zarqawi, it should be for the fact that a human being can become so corrupted and lost, so brutal and bereft of humanity, that his death would cause such universal and justifiable rejoicing.
Who turned him in? He certainly didn’t lack enemies, including those in Jordan angered by his killing his own, like a rabid dog. The twenty-five million dollar reward probably sweetened the pot.
But celebration is clearly in order today, so sing it high, sing it low.
Jason,
You make excellent points. I would say that at least two of your three counterexamples are breaking down though. Turkey and Indonesia are having issues in their democracies because the islamic extremists are growing in power and demanding more and islamization of those democracies. i’ve been reading articles over the last year, the Jakarta News for one source, that have been exploring these problems.
I think you’re spot on with regard to Europe’s problems. I would say though that the racism runs in both, the elite seem to ignore the issues of their immigrants precisely because they are non-whites, or they cater in non-productive ways.
Ymir’s the idiot, as I said before. While Ymar is smart, he is loco and pretty unstable. So I don’t let him out all that often. I’m Sakar, and the most balanced of the bunch, so I’m the guy with the jail keys.
Oh I see your strategy. make me think you’re an idiot.
It’s working well so far.
Ymir said that he is Australian Society. Do you know what he might have meant?
Ymarsakar said…
The difference is that Nyo has no burning desire to spread his misery around as Confud seems to do. Zarqawi showed what happens to people who over-extend themselves.
We actually set a bait, and it was called Z-Man’s “spiritual adviser”. They were tracking that spiritual adviser. Then when they connected it with z man’s schedule… Boom. Two for the price of one. or 8 or 100 or how many other human torches were in that fortified house.
5:59 PM, June 09, 2006
You’re the ones advocating death destruction and suppression.
Now. Answer the question regarding Australian society Ymar.
mary,
you’ve been reading too many right wing blogs. Yes, there are tensions in Europe, but if you think that rioting by economically marginalized youths is a threat to European liberal democracy, you’re nuts. Immigration always creates tensions and it always dissipates. The US and Australia are perfect examples of this ongoing phenomenon.
If the jihadis are winning in any sense it is in the kneejerk actions of politicians in response to overstatement of the threat and their subsequent suppression of democratic principles.
Now that is irony.
You can’t classify this thing as a clash of religions or a clash of civilization or race because there are so many different agendas being fought and espoused.
How many different agendas are killing people in Iraq, what is the motivation of Saudi extremists?
Why are the right wing forces in the US now trying to link Zarqawi with Iran when it is so demonstrably untrue and ridiculous?
The difference is that Nyo has no burning desire to spread his misery around as Confud seems to do. Zarqawi showed what happens to people who over-extend themselves.
We actually set a bait, and it was called Z-Man’s “spiritual adviser”. They were tracking that spiritual adviser. Then when they connected it with z man’s schedule… Boom. Two for the price of one. or 8 or 100 or how many other human torches were in that fortified house.
Never said all cons are evil just that some of them are a bit dim
And you are dhimwitted. The difference is … I’m right.
5. If you think that Zarqawi qualifies as a good Muslim you need to talk more with all those Muslim friends of yours. You’re in Disneyland on this one.
Nyoextremist said…..
Zarqawi was indeed a good Muslim — a very good Muslim, a Muslim that Mohammad would have been proud to call his son, a Muslim that the Iranian Mullahs would have been proud to call their follower [follower is there are better term for this anyone?]
1. The Iranians kicked him out.
2. There are some pretty ugly teachings in your silly book too and certainly the extremist Christians and Jews can be nasty, intolerant and murderous. Does that mean we should be killing off them as well?
3. Most Muslims, IMO, would like a bit of democracy, but let us remember that deemocracy doesn’t mean American dominance. Your democracy looks a little shakey right now and the flaws in your system are obvious.
4. Please post a link to a leftist site mourning the demise of Zarqawi.
The manner in which Zarqawi was eliminated seems to me like a perfect example of our counterinsurgency plan in operation. The fact that we were led to him by local tips is very important, not to mention that the Iraqi military was heavily involved.
We are clearly making some serious headway in our attempts to bring in more local involvement.
That more than anything is going to make it possible to bring troops home.
Another problem is that Europe is Iran and the Arab’s contingency plan. If Iran falls, and Iraq succedes, if the US wins in the Mid East with a Total Victory then Europe is their fallback plan.
They’ve been preparing Europe for decades now. They know that whatever they do in Europe, Europe has neither the power nor the will to strike back at the centers of propagation in Arabia.
As Jason described, this does not have to be some master plan or conspiracy. All you need is regimes like Saudi Arabia exporting terroists to the West, to have Europe as the fallback plan of Islamic JIhad.
Europe is the second staging ground of Islamic Jihad. To be used in conjunction with the Mid East or in place of the Mid East. Africa and Indonesia are tertiary, staging grounds and war fronts. In their infancy.
“You see in European countries that once the percentage of muslims gets to a certain point–close to ten per cent–the demands for sharia religious law and courts grow louder. If the western nation gives in to those demands, it is the beginning of the end. Dhimmitude lurks very near at that point.”
There are several counterexamples to this. Turkey. Bangladesh. Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation and democracy.
European countries have problems for several reasons. One, many of their citizens are racist, contrary to the leftist belief of European utopia. Secondly, they’ve been taking immigrants from countries without discrimination — many times they end up with garbage that countries like Egypt don’t want. You can’t preach radicalism against Mubarak in Cairo, but you certainly can in Finsbury Park. Lastly, European countries are highly socialist, which means instead of encouraging their immigrants to sink or swim, they herd them in housing projects. In contrast, Muslims in the United States tend to have jobs, which means violence would be against their friends and coworkers, which is why astonishingly we’ve seen little over the last five years, despite 2,000,000 of them.
I think it is important to notice that Bush and Rumsfeld did their own bit of “yes, but…” in their comments after Zarqawi’s death. To me their lack of boasting and arrogance is the most striking thing about this episode. We no longer here “last throws” talk, which means we’re in for a long haul, for better or worse.
OR, instead of name calling, do what Mary Anne Weaver of the Atlantic Online did, according to Christopher Hitchens, just re-craft the story to show that Zarqawi was an America invention. Tada!
Remember: Commandant #1 of the “10 Commandants of Multiculturalism” is America is inherently evil…
Now, I’ll read the story and decide for myself, you can read it too at:
The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: How a video-store clerk and small-time crook reinvented himself as America’s nemesis in Iraq
And when you haven’t the capacity to debate — call them names yeah yeah little apple thief.
Another oped from The New Statesman
http://www.newstatesman.com/200606120052
Brendan O’Neill sometimes writes decent articles, but he’s an anti-war libertarian who can sometimes say really dumb things; like his comment about “today’s handful of cranky extremists – who do occasionally launch scrappy, bloody attacks”
“Cranky extremists” don’t need sophisticated weapons to launch scrappy, bloody attacks. They didn’t need guns on 9/11. “Cranky extremists” used machetes to kill hundreds of thousands in Rwanda. “Cranky extremists” didn’t need nukes to slaughter millions of Jews. All they needed was money, some organization and lots of hate.
I doubt that there is one single group that could be described as a militia.
You’re just like the Bush administration, only afraid of the militias with high-tech weaponry and nukes, generally ignoring the mass murderers who are armed mostly with hate. Your kind of thinking led to the Iraq war. It was also responsible for our inaction during the Rwandan massacre. Mass murderers can kill thousands with machetes or box cutters. When compared to the millions murdered in the name of hate, nukes are relatively harmless. Hate is the ultimate WMD, and terrorist-trained and financed Islamist hate is all over Britain right now. It’s all over Europe.
This kind of hate needs a complacent population (and, of course, money) to thrive. I’m suggesting that we should all be less complacent.
Are most muslims good people? How would you know? The traditions and mindset of most muslims is so completely different than those of most westerneres that he can not make a valid assessment.
Islam is not a religion in a western sense. Instead it is a total way of life–a totalitarian way of life. It is politics, war strategy and tactics, a supremacist ideology, and a religion, plus a lot of other things. Then if you tack on all the tribalist traditions, customs, and other ways of thinking, you do not have a person who thinks the same way as a westerner thinks.
You see in European countries that once the percentage of muslims gets to a certain point–close to ten per cent–the demands for sharia religious law and courts grow louder. If the western nation gives in to those demands, it is the beginning of the end. Dhimmitude lurks very near at that point.
yeah yeah little apple thief. Never said all cons are evil just that some of them are a bit dim…..as for the previous comment..
cause some on the Left to not only gnash their teeth in frustration but possibly pee all over themselves
well….
Arguments boys not bullshit…you know it makes sense
Follow up: It is this fact, that most Muslims are good people, is what gives me hope that they can reject Islam outright or begin a Reformation, chose a democratic form of government and step into the 21 century, in peace and harmony with all of their neighbors — extremely Optimist I knoooow I knowww I knowwww BUT it’s better than doing the Theronuclear Boogy. So wake up sleepy head lalala lalala — that song is so cute and appropriate I’m just giggling al day long 😀
Zarqawi was not a good muslim he was an evil f****r who was widely reviled by muslims and who got what he deserved.
Zarqawi was indeed a good Muslim — a very good Muslim, a Muslim that Mohammad would have been proud to call his son, a Muslim that the Iranian Mullahs would have been proud to call their follower [follower is there are better term for this anyone?]. Most Muslims simply refuse to follow Islamic Law to the letter, or they have no idea what the Quran teaches. They are good people by this default. I never suggested that all Muslims are evil. I have good friends and neighbors who are Muslim and I respect them because I know they love their children, they work hard, they as individuals are fair-minded, have meticulous manners that I can only learn from, and are interesting to be around.
neoneoconned, you stick to your “all conservatives are evil” nonsense. At least it makes it easy for you to think you understand the world.
Is there some kind of terrorist bombing fest going on? Do we got us a TBC (terrorist bombing competition) going on here between the US and Israel?I see IDF just incinerated abu samhadna with a missle in gaza. Free beer for those gunners too! Congrats, fellas! Such clear markers of success in the global war on terrorism will cause some on the Left to not only gnash their teeth in frustration but possibly pee all over themselves as they lose emotional control. Neo may have to provide Pampers to some of her trolls – someone sneak them a video of pilots guffawing and back-slapping in the hangars so they can feel better about themselves.
I see fewer and fewer people are engaging the ‘trolls’ – the main thing is to remember their kind and their froth come election time. The near mourning of zarqawi by elements of the left will most certainly bite them on their butts when the votes get tallied. Keep up the foaming at the mouth, trolls! and a big fat thanks from the heartland –
Zarqawi was so evil because he followed Islamic Law to a T. which kind of demonstrates why the little apple thief finds the whole Iraq situation so difficult to comprehend. Zarqawi was not a good muslim he was an evil f****r who was widely reviled by muslims and who got what he deserved.
You stick to your “all muslims are evil” nonsense. At least it makes it easy for you to think you understand the world.
…oh and sally those comments are just silly – even by your standards.
At 9:37 PM, June 07, 2006, confudeforeigner said…
OK Ymar, what are these “untoward effects” you are pontificating on?
You’d better clarify which criminal code and which jursidiction you are talking about first though. Wise to be accurate after all.
Come on Yboy, answer the question.
Given how much time Confud has invested in this site, with his digging up of many many links. Why doesn’t Confud have his own blog? Too hard?
paramilitary |ˈparəˌmɪlɪt(ə)ri| adjective (of an unofficial force) organized similarly to a military force : soldiers and police have been killed in conflicts with the drug cartels and their paramilitary allies. noun ( pl. -taries) a member of an unofficial paramilitary organization.
militia |mɪˌlɪʃə| noun a military force that is raised from the civil population to supplement a regular army in an emergency. – a military force that engages in rebel or terrorist activities, typically in opposition to a regular army.
Note* A MILITARY force.
I doubt that there is one single group that could be described as a militia. There are dozens in the states. And if you think you don’t have similar islamic types there, you’re nuts. And with your insane gun laws, probably far more dangerous too.
Another oped from The New Statesman
http://www.newstatesman.com/200606120052
Militias. Pfft.
Vic’s been a regular here for awhile now.
In a guerrila movement, a lot of it is based upon the popularity and charisma of the leader. Without that leader, the troops don’t have the discipline to attack as a single body. They scatter, and become a lot less dangerous.
So people may hope that another leader will come in and fill the slot, but that’s like saying your child can be easily replaced after he gets eviscerated. Easier said than done.
Neo, I see you have drawn a very infamous, moonbat, loon and troll. “Dr Victorino de la Vega” is famous on the net for his antics. He is distinguished for, I believe, receiving his doctorate in a box of Cracker Jack.
Regular readers are notified so that they may, at their option, choose not to engage him along with the other resident moonbat trolls.
Some of the propaganda apparatus on the Left, are pretty intimidating.
They just don’t give it up.
We would IF THEY EXISTED! What an idiotic statement.
Hysterical denunciations without facts aren’t an argument.
From an article written in Britain’s New Statesman, August 2004:
:::
Is this country really threatened by violent attack? After talking to potential martyrs, Jamie Campbell wonders if our rulers have hit on a clever way to keep us safe
It is a wonderful, typically British scene. I am sitting in a Manchester curry house, wondering whether to choose the Madras or the korma. The place is humming with Arabic, and a number of extended families have gathered to eat at adjacent tables. A few children skip past. My lunchtime companion is, at 24, three years younger than me. His name is Hassan Butt, and he’d like to martyr himself in Britain for the sake of Islam. I order the korma.
In the past year, Hassan and I have become steadfast dining partners, if not exactly firm friends. Over curries, pizzas and saccharine soft drinks, in London and Manchester, I have discovered what makes him tick. “Pray to Allah that he accepts me as a martyr,” he muses. “If that’s tomorrow, then tomorrow. If not, then whenever Allah wills.” Why don’t you get on with it, I ask. “Everything needs to be done in an organised manner, with the current organisations that are working around the world.”
Hassan earned himself a reputation for hyperbole when he rang the Today programme from Lahore in 2002. He asserted that, as a representative of the Islamist organisation al-Muhajiroun, he had recruited up to 1,000 British men to Islamic causes in the Middle East. He then returned quite freely to the UK, where his appetite for controversy remained undiminished…
…Sifaoui goes on to suggest that the significance of the roles played by British-based Islamists in attacks abroad is unparalleled. Before 9/11, he says, “Islamists considered the UK as a secondary base for their actions. To take a few examples . . . there were terrorist attempts in France in 1995, financed from the UK – that’s a reality. General Massoud’s assassination on 9 September 2001 was also financed in the UK – that’s a reality. The kidnapping of western tourists in the Yemen was organised by London and probably by Abu Hamza – his son was involved with it.”
Post-9/11, this pattern of British Islamists being implicated in attacks abroad has hardly altered. Here are just a few examples. Zacharias Moussaoui, from Brixton, is charged with being 9/11’s “20th hijacker”. In 2002, Richard Reid, a Brit, tried to blow up a plane out of Paris with a bomb in his shoe. Last year, Asif Hanif, from Hounslow, martyred himself in Israel. Omar Sheikh, the man convicted of the murder of the Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl, is British.
Yet British Islamists target other countries. Why? According to Sifaoui, it has long been recognised by the British Islamists, by the British government and by UK intelligence agencies, that as long as Britain guarantees a degree of freedom to the likes of Hassan Butt, the terrorist strikes will continue to be planned within the borders of the UK but will not occur here. Ironically, then, the presence of vocal and active Islamist terrorist sympathisers in the UK actually makes British people safer, while the full brunt of British-based terrorist plotting is suffered by people in other countries.
:::
Of course, this feeding-the-crocodile-theory was proven wrong a year later on 7/7. Now the brunt of British-based terrorist plotting is suffered by the Brits. They always fail when they try to deal with terrorism. They either appease it or they respond with terrorism. They’re the best example of what not to do.
The vacum left by his death will produce some squabbling and competition in the ranks for leadership roles, which when filled by no means will produce the solidarity and unity under zaqawri. The power vacum should create as well a degree of mistrust when new leaders emerge and a bit of jealousy. Men without the experience of zaqawri will make more mistakes and will be easier to kill. Al qaidah doesn’t either know how much intelligence was obtained from the site/safe house where Z. was killed, i.e. salvaged hard drives, documents, cell phones, etc. This should put some of them on the move and motion can yield detection and tracking and attacks. It was a major victory no matter how you cut it. It will be interesting to know the success of the raids conducted shortly after the hit on zarqawi. Elements of the Left are just about in mourning over this – no surprise there. There is no telling the number of Iraqi civilians that have been spared a violent death becaise of the demise of zarqawi, yet some of the wretches from the Left can’t even celebrate this simple fact. All in a day in the ongoing war on terrorism I guess…..
“fine exemplars of the art of the “yes, but…”.
“It is certainly something to celebrate but he will surely be replaced by more of the same.”
…and it only took until post #3!
His supposed links to Al Qaeda/Bin Laden aren’t actually all that convincing.
Just a thought
Look at all the Islamist paramilitaries in Britain
We would IF THEY EXISTED! What an idiotic statement.
“…but he will surely be replaced by more of the same.”
Surely that’s what his followers hope, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. When the Saudis killed the head of their al-Qaeda branch a couple of years ago (remember all those attacks and suicide bombings?) that was said then, too. In fact, people said that perhaps the reason he was killed was he was too publicity hungry and was being careless. The guy who took over was said to be “smarter” in that way and would be more careful. But a few months down the road he was killed, too. As was his successor a few months after that. Since then, there’s been hardly a peep out of al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia.
So, the only way to know what’s going to happen, really, is to watch and see (which you acknowledge in your list of possible outcomes). But the Saudi experience does prove that things don’t always stay the same. Sometimes the second string really isn’t as good as the first. The only sure way to lose is to give up and not try any more. They didn’t and we shouldn’t.
…oh and never forget that the power of Zarqawi was a result of the invasion; it has been the breeding ground for these kind of psychopaths
That’s absolute bullsh*t. Before 9/11, when America was at ‘peace’ , more than 20,000 mujahideen wannabes joined al Qaeda. A reliable source of wealth and complacent people to prey on breeds more goons than war ever did. Look at all the Islamist paramilitaries in Britain.
The news about Zarqawi is great, but since these terror cells are so decentralized, I think our general goal should be to aim for quantity rather than quality. As we saw on 9/11, a few terrorists can take many innocent lives.
Hopefully, enthusiasm for the successful Zarqawi operation will generate more enthusiasm for larger, more wholesale efforts. It’s nice to see that the press is covering the story in a fairly positive light.
Of Mohammedan Bogeymen and Bearded Ayrab Terrists: Why Zarqawi Had To Die
Earlier today, Gen. George Casey commander of US occupation troops in Iraq held a “joint press conference” with the Quislings of Baghdad to announce the elimination of Abu Musa’b al-Zarqawi, “the terrorist leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq”.
Casey had a nice “story line” ready to sell, full of heroic subplots involving choreographed strikes by American GI’s and “new Iraqi” soldiers working hand in hand like virile “allies” are supposed to, and backed by a series of neat (too neat to be true) artifacts such as the deceased public enemy numero uno’s framed photographs and magnified fingerprints appearing on the projected slides of an elaborate PowerPoint presentation.
As my old blogging friend Sophie pointed out, this smelled a rat: the fact that the announcement of Zarqawi’s death coincided precisely with the long-awaited (more than 4 months…) nomination of Iraq’s new security ministers (Defense, Interior and NSA) only added to our legitimate suspicions…
And what can we possibly say of the striking resemblance between the pictures of Zarqawi’s inanimate corpse and those of Latin America’s most “subversive” revolutionary, Ernesto Che Guevara who died in similar conditions 40 years ago?
Pervasiveness of the proverbially “aggressive” Arab-Hispanic ethnic and cultural “traits” threatening the integrity of our beloved Western civilization?
Common use of the advanced mortuary toileting techniques in vogue at the CIA during the Cold War?
Allah and Samuel P. Huntington only know…
Zarqawi was so evil that he attracted support for the occupying powers. Paradoxically someone better could be worse.
…oh and never forget that the power of Zarqawi was a result of the invasion; it has been the breeding ground for these kind of psychopaths.
Zarqawi was so evil because he followed Islamic Law to a T. The power of Zarqawi was the results of the Quran as it was revealed to Muhammad. And your last statement is true, “it has been the breeding ground for these kind of psychopaths” yes, since its beginning. Indeed, of course, nevertheless, despite the Quran’s unreformed and unrepentant Arabic text and Sharia … I get branded as, well, and you can go ahead and type it out… now…
It is certainly something to celebrate but he will surely be replaced by more of the same. There is a momentum to this mayhem but it is difficult to see what may happen next.
Possibilities.
1. This is the start of a process of pacification in Iraq – seems optimistic, but you never know.
2. Someone worse appears to attract the basest of his followers. Always possible but quite hard to conceive of worse.
3. A less extreme but equally committed and politically more aware indivdual steps into the breach. I see this as more likely. Zarqawi was so evil that he attracted support for the occupying powers. Paradoxically someone better could be worse.
…oh and never forget that the power of Zarqawi was a result of the invasion; it has been the breeding ground for these kind of psychopaths.
But we can feel pleased for a day or so as it is refreshing to have some positive news.
Read it 3 hours ago courtesy of bookworm.
This is the summarized point I made there. I believed it because centcome absolutely “confirmed” that he died, with photos and their website.
These weren’t the “rumours”, “speculations”, and “possibilities” that were reported before. TS at Bookworm’s site has a few links, conveniently, to the previous reports of deaths.
My bet is with the military, they know what they are talking about. No one else does.
Started my day off with a smile 🙂