al-Zarqawi dead (yea!)
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Great work by our military!
It should be remembered when Bush tries to take credit for *getting* al-Zarqawi, that before the Iraq war not only did Bush have an opportunity to kill him, Zarqawi was nothing. Bush and his war made Zarqawi. All of the people (U.S. soldiers, journalists and Iraqi citizens) who died at the hands of Zarqawi, should be laid at the feet of Pres. Bush. Killing Zarqawi goes into the category of cleaning up a mess he created.
It should be remembered when Bush tries to take credit for *getting* al-Zarqawi, that before the Iraq war not only did Bush have an opportunity to kill him, Zarqawi was nothing. Bush and his war made Zarqawi. All of the people (U.S. soldiers, journalists and Iraqi citizens) who died at the hands of Zarqawi, should be laid at the feet of Pres. Bush. Killing Zarqawi goes into the category of cleaning up a mess he created.
Taking out Zarqawi while it might not have much immediate operational effect, it will have a political / morale effect on all involved. I'd assert that his organization will immediately feel vunerable now that their leader who evaded the U.S. Military, the CIA, and others for so long is dead. Iraqi's who were afraid of him, may now be emboldened to speak out. I think that there will be ripples that we can't even guess from his death.
We were both at a bar in DC and I bought both him and his buddy drinks. Somewhere along the line as part of a rant on Bush, I made a comment about how Bin Laden was still on the loose. He came back with the assertion that it was better to keep killing all of the 2nd & 3rd tier terrorists and that Bin Laden wasn't able to do much.
I couldn't disagree more. If Bin Laden were taken out much of his organization would disolve. These highly charismatic leaders are hard to replace and (IMHO) it is by force of their personality that the organizations are held together. The 2nd & 3rd level jerks are comparitively easier to replace.
Much more likely that were he not occupied (formerly) with targeting Iraqis and an ocassional American soldier, he would be executing far more violent and atrocious attacks across all of the middle east and, perhaps, Europe or the U.S.
As terrible as those attacks in Iraq are, I would much prefer him targeting soldiers in theater than civilians on vacation or on their way to work.
My point was that Iraq elevated him. If the Iraq war hadn't happened, then he would not have become the horrible terrorist he became. Violence breeds violence & hate.
Now can be PLEASE stop posting pictures of his dead face everywhere. I don't enjoy seeing dead people. I really don't. I don't mind seeing the picture once, but looking at it everywhere, all the time. Enough.
And, I thought the US government had some sort of policy stating that they didn't show pictures of war dead? Or does that only count when the pictures of the war dead won't help them politically.
I don't know, just seems like us flaunting the picture of a dead guy we happily killed, well, that's not really the kind of country I want to be. One that takes joy in the killing of people. Perhaps it is good that he is gone, but I take no joy in the killing part of it.
The PsyOp has been quite successful on the American people to create a boogeyman that people can readily hate and blame for the death's of American soldiers and sailors in Iraq.
This PsyOp has served two purposes: 1). To create a knowable "bad guy" for the world and 2). to distract Americans from the failure of Bush's illegal post Saddam policies.