al-Zarqawi is DEAD!!

[Accountable]

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. aircraft killed al Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the insurgent leader who masterminded the death of hundreds in suicide bombings and was blamed for the videotaped beheading of foreign captives.



Story

[chonsigirl]

:yh_flag Way to go, USA!

[spot]

And if the announcement brings in another ten volunteers to his cause, it was still worth making? Nobody seems to be taking steps toward normality. That suggests to me that normality isn't in anyone's interests.

[spot]

Diuretic wrote: Anyway the world is a better place for his permanent absence.I'm always wary of the weight of history pressing on remarks like that. Winston Churchill recommended - or was it merely desired - that the Indian Colonial Service kill Gandhi, prior to World War 2. Not that on this occasion I'd wish to suggest any similarity between the prospective departeds.

[jbbarker1947]

spot wrote: And if the announcement brings in another ten volunteers to his cause, it was still worth making? Nobody seems to be taking steps toward normality. That suggests to me that normality isn't in anyone's interests.


That part of the world has never been normal. At the Paris peace talks after WWI, England took three tribes from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire and gave borders to what is now Iraq. I certainly am not saying we made it or ever will make it normal. I do support the idea of, “If you kill us, we will kill you back.”

[spot]

Diuretic wrote: Point taken. Of course my thinking was based on total harm. Whereas Gandhi urged the nation to take a handful of salt, al-Zarqawi urged the nation to take a handful of scalp, preferably attached to a human head.I remember his words vividly... what was it? "Actually, it’s a lot of fun to fight. You know, it’s a hell of a hoot… It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right upfront with you, I like brawling… You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

[Uncle Kram]

No great loss to humanity is it?

[BabyRider]

Uncle Kram wrote: No great loss to humanity is it?
That'd be a big, fat huge



NOPE!!!!!!

[spot]

Diuretic wrote: So who said that?

1. Churchill

2. Gandhi

3. A certain US senior military officer whos name escapes me right at this moment.

Answer - 3.You know, I quoted that on here long before last November's Marines massacre, much less this March's, as well as bringing up the thin and implausible excuses he gave for bombing that wedding party. And people are surprised now that re-indoctrination classes are being held for every Marine in the Rules of War? The rot starts at the top, every time.

[cars]

Mixed emotions exist, yea they got the SOB! But then, it may just turn out to be a short term high. As most likely there are over 100 other cut-throats there just waiting to take over for al-Zarqawi! Well time will tell, lets see if in 3 months that things are still status-quo. :-2

[spot]

You know, this series of raids, and the pinpointing and killing of al-Zarqawi, is the tail end of weeks of bargaining. He was sold down the river in exchange for Sunni political clout on the new Iraqi cabinet:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 060686.stm

The Iraqi parliament has approved Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's nominees for the key government posts of defence and interior ministers.

The two posts had remained vacant for nearly three weeks due to wrangling between the main parties in the governing Shia alliance.

Jawad Bulani, a Shia, is the new interior minister and Abdul Qadir Obeidi, a Sunni, the defence minister.

Shirwan Waili has also been approved as minister of national securityAll that happened within hours of the raids. I'd call it the visible culmination of a deal.

Oh... ps., Scrat - it was Major General James Mattis, commander of the US 1st Marine Division, not General Clark.

[nvalleyvee]

Scrat wrote: The General who said that was Mark Clark wasn't it? I'm not sure.

Anyway back to the subject. I guess the opposition has acknowledged he is dead which is no great loss to mankind.

A lot of questions remain though.

They also raided 17 safe houses supposedly used by the organization and found a "treasure trove" of intelligence.

Zarkawi was a man that had connections far and wide. He was the man with the ATM card in Iraq. All things went through him, especially the money that financed operations.

Money leaves a trail. That trail leads to places, in this case it will lead to people. What if these people happen to be in a place like say, Saudi Arabia? Will we make any moves to cut off funding for the foreign fighters in Iraq?

This is not over yet. I suspect Al- Quaidas role in this will be impeded for awhile but there is still the insurgency to deal with and the sectarian violence and the politicians militias on top of that.

This is just a battle in what is a veeery long and brutal war. There are many people willing to replace him. Supposedly one of the group gave the information to make this possible. Are we going to give the 25 mill to Al Quaida?

That's strange.


I know people don't like our REP from NM but she did serve in the Air Force. She said today that his death was just a good left hook.

[Accountable]

Scrat wrote: What has changed? At least the authorities had a brain hemmorhage and banned vehicles at certain hours. What a leap. :-5



Violence Persists After Zarqawi

Iraqi Prime Minister Imposes Vehicle Ban To Prevent Reprisals
Of course the ones who are left are going to make the hits that were already planned.



Next expect some even more reckless attacks as different leaders try to gain control.

[spot]

It's difficult on occasion to find any coherence in these matters. I often assume that incoherence indicates a lie at the heart of the issue. Take the following:

NY Times, June 10, 2006

The Aftermath

U.S. Says Zarqawi Survived Briefly After Airstrike

By DEXTER FILKINS

As American commandos surrounded the house where they believed Mr. Zarqawi to be, the commander on the ground decided to call in the airstrike. It was not clear why the American officer decided against storming the house and capturing Mr. Zarqawi, which would have given the Americans a chance to interrogate him.

One reason, General Caldwell said, was that such an assault might have cost many American lives without any guarantee of taking Mr. Zarqawi alive. Another reason, asserted by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld on Thursday, was that Mr. Zarqawi might have escaped, as he had many times before when the Americans had him in their sights.

"You have to ask yourself: is it worth putting American men and women's lives at risk to go in to what was probably a heavily fortified and guarded thing, in order to grab him?" General Caldwell said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/10/world ... =printWell, given that the total number of people killed in taking out the building with two half-ton bombs was six or seven, one of whom was a "spiritual adviser", and that the building was surrounded before the bomb hit, and that interrogating Mr. Zarqawi must surely have provided the greatest potential intelligence haul of the war to date, yes it undoubtedly was. But what's this "heavily fortified and guarded thing"? They said how many died - six or seven - they said nobody else was there - there were no survivors - and yet General Caldwell talks as though there was a battalion of die-hard warriors between them and an arrest?

[koan]

Scrat wrote: It seems that they are forgetting that "inside of every gook is an American trying to get out".


Didn't want to let this one go by without comment.

Comment:

Such a bizarre world. The Good, The Bad and the Converts.

[anastrophe]

spot wrote: It's difficult on occasion to find any coherence in these matters. I often assume that incoherence indicates a lie at the heart of the issue. Take the following:

NY Times, June 10, 2006

The Aftermath

U.S. Says Zarqawi Survived Briefly After Airstrike

By DEXTER FILKINS



As American commandos surrounded the house where they believed Mr. Zarqawi to be, the commander on the ground decided to call in the airstrike. It was not clear why the American officer decided against storming the house and capturing Mr. Zarqawi, which would have given the Americans a chance to interrogate him.



One reason, General Caldwell said, was that such an assault might have cost many American lives without any guarantee of taking Mr. Zarqawi alive. Another reason, asserted by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld on Thursday, was that Mr. Zarqawi might have escaped, as he had many times before when the Americans had him in their sights.



"You have to ask yourself: is it worth putting American men and women's lives at risk to go in to what was probably a heavily fortified and guarded thing, in order to grab him?" General Caldwell said.



http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/10/world ... nted=print

Well, given that the total number of people killed in taking out the building with two half-ton bombs was six or seven, one of whom was a "spiritual adviser", and that the building was surrounded before the bomb hit, and that interrogating Mr. Zarqawi must surely have provided the greatest potential intelligence haul of the war to date, yes it undoubtedly was. But what's this "heavily fortified and guarded thing"? They said how many died - six or seven - they said nobody else was there - there were no survivors - and yet General Caldwell talks as though there was a battalion of die-hard warriors between them and an arrest?
and pray, how were they to know how many people were inside ahead of time? hindsight is 20/20. it was indeed a heavily fortified concrete and steel bunker. "must surely"? please explain why you are certain that a bloodthirsty islamofascist zealot would have provided any intelligence at all.



i'm please however that you put "spiritual adviser" in quotes.

[spot]

anastrophe wrote: and pray, how were they to know how many people were inside ahead of time? hindsight is 20/20. it was indeed a heavily fortified concrete and steel bunker. "must surely"? please explain why you are certain that a bloodthirsty islamofascist zealot would have provided any intelligence at all.



i'm please however that you put "spiritual adviser" in quotes.It's as I transcribed it from my news source. The "must surely" is based on the number of other bloodthirsty islamofascist zealots who have provided intelligence over the last forty years, though not (in many cases) until years after their detention, I'll grant, and the importance that the debriefers would place on this particular convict. I think that you'd need to list a few who didn't fill files of solid history during their detention. For my list I'd start with that chappie in Egypt back in the late 60sm and the tall bulky fellow they arrested two years back in Indonesia to great fanfare.