Bush's Mideast policies have turned a brutal terrorist into an icon of resistance -- and made violent fundamentalism more popular.
By Juan Cole
June 27, 2006 |
Whatever the meaning of the killing of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by a U.S. airstrike earlier this month, it has not lessened Iraq's violent nightmare, or calmed tensions in the Middle East. Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri called him "the prince of martyrs" and vowed revenge on the U.S. Some reports suggest that the two U.S. soldiers captured at Yusufiyah were tortured and killed by Zarqawi's shadowy successor. The three weeks after his death have witnessed daily bombings with dozens of casualties throughout Iraq. And Zarqawi's demise has stirred up trouble throughout the region, as controversies on how to respond to it have erupted among secularists and fundamentalists, Sunnis and Shiites.
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You could call it unintended consqequences, but COME ON -- haven't any of them ever seen ANY of the numerous bad movies in which the Bad Guy or the Good Guy (but always the Little Guy fighting against the BIG Guys) says (All together now):
"You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea!"
(Hmm, maybe not -- after all, remember they kept saying they didn't know what was happening in New Orleans when Katrina hit, not for several days, until a reported asked: "Don't any of you people watch the news on television?" Maybe they just sit around, isolated, jerking each other off with thier self-importance. Certainly that would go a long way to explaining their lunatic policies.) Link
June 27, 2006 |
Whatever the meaning of the killing of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by a U.S. airstrike earlier this month, it has not lessened Iraq's violent nightmare, or calmed tensions in the Middle East. Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri called him "the prince of martyrs" and vowed revenge on the U.S. Some reports suggest that the two U.S. soldiers captured at Yusufiyah were tortured and killed by Zarqawi's shadowy successor. The three weeks after his death have witnessed daily bombings with dozens of casualties throughout Iraq. And Zarqawi's demise has stirred up trouble throughout the region, as controversies on how to respond to it have erupted among secularists and fundamentalists, Sunnis and Shiites.
******************
You could call it unintended consqequences, but COME ON -- haven't any of them ever seen ANY of the numerous bad movies in which the Bad Guy or the Good Guy (but always the Little Guy fighting against the BIG Guys) says (All together now):
"You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea!"
(Hmm, maybe not -- after all, remember they kept saying they didn't know what was happening in New Orleans when Katrina hit, not for several days, until a reported asked: "Don't any of you people watch the news on television?" Maybe they just sit around, isolated, jerking each other off with thier self-importance. Certainly that would go a long way to explaining their lunatic policies.) Link
posted by Saintperle at
7:31 AM
