AMERICAN CITIZEN SOLDIER

For those who wait to get their breaking news from the magazines in their dentist’s reception area, happy belated V-Z Day!

It looks as if Newton’s 3rd Law finally caught up with the Jordanian Terrorist formerly known as Prince of al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia. After three long years of false sightings and near-misses "Elvis" has once again left the building, albeit this time on a gurney at room temperature -- his last full measure of devotion to chaos and instability aimed at winning a war of concession from coalition forces.

Live by the IED, die by the GPS.

In lieu of the standard fawning eulogy, let’s instead review Zarqawi’s legacy, particularly his winning political strategy for Painting the Map Blood Red in Iraq:

• Prevent holding of elections.
• Suppress voter turnout.
• Discourage army and police recruitment.
• Defeat ratification of Constitution.
• Ignite sectarian civil war.
• Discredit permanent government.
• Drive U.S. from battlefield.
• Score Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News cover story trifecta.
• Die in place.

Overall, a 1 out of 9 on-qaeda-percentage doesn’t even get Zarky Zark above the Mendoza Line, and with stellar lifetime stats like those I doubt they’ll be retiring his jersey at the Martyrdome anytime soon.

But where is all the schadenfreude solidarity in the press corps for the extermination of this white-sneakered soldier of misfortune? This development is supposed to be good thing, right? (Remember what I said about how "no news is good news"?) Is it just me, or do I detect more subdued depresso liberalism with nearly every click of the mouse? One recurring lament decries the failure to capture Zarqawi alive, thus forfeiting a treasure trove of enemy intelligence. Are these not the very same mollycoddlers who decry our aggressive interrogation techniques as "torture" at every possible opportunity? How is it exactly they propose we induce these maniacal terrorists to talk? With the tickle monster?

Here, I’ll give you a CLUEtm:

Agent Bauer.

In the holding room.

With the electric sponge.

Any questions?

Actually, I'm now dreading the eventual capture or elimination of any more al-Qaeda bigwigs simply for the fact that I have no interest whatsoever in the details of their dysfunctional upbringing. "The Killer in Me is the Killer in You: the Memoirs of Osama bin Laden." Beethoven's Ninth through the world’s smallest violin.

But it appears the bleeding hearts of darkness in the press still don’t even realize their own Cassandra curse has finally been lifted. It would seem their warrior pathos knows no bounds.

Iraq’s Most Wanted Killed in U.S. Aerial Strike; Haditha Investigation Continues

Iraqi PM Names Remainder of Cabinet
Continued on page E17 between personals and TrimSpa ads

Am I the only one who often cannot distinguish their vacuous subtextual sloganeering from the enemy's?

End Iraqi Suffrage Now!

The papers all smell a Pyrrhic victory, but at least the Iraqi Army knows a tally in the win column when they see one. The IA gossip around the guard tower this past week surprisingly has not been over rising U.S. gas prices or terrorists committing suicide at Gitmo, but the oh-so-timely death of the used car bomb salesman who has done his worst to tear their country apart. "Zarqawi mufahkaka" (go boom), they excitedly state for the fifth time in an hour, drawing a finger across their throats in the universal sign for "hasta la vista, babykiller."

The Iraqis are not stupid; they know the fight for Middle Eastern Earth continues. But the tide of battle has now turned. Al Qaeda is on the skids and "Ali Baba" (the homegrown criminal element) remains on its heels. But tagging and bagging Zarqawi is a huge military coup precisely because it is the coup de grace for the al-Qaeda PR machine. Zarqawi had the terrorist mojo, the je ne sais quoi, the name recognition worthy of a movie star. Attach a Hollywood A-lister like Tom Cruise to the worst script ever written and piloted by a first-time director, and the project would still be greenlighted with a near unlimited budget. But replace him with Dolph Lungren and listen to the giant sucking sound as the financial backing vanishes overnight.

"V for Victory." Now there's a Hollywood production I'd pay $9.50 to sit through.

Even as lightning quick as the individual successes may appear on your television screen, overall progress in the Long War on Terror is slow and incremental -- a Great Game of inches measured on several levels and across many fronts. The enemy has its own yardstick for success, but it isn’t located anywhere near the battlefield. It’s in our own backyard. Cowing the American people through an elaborate and sophisticated PR campaign of terror is the end that justifies their by-any-means-necessary amoral methods.

In Allah They Trust, In Submissive Fear We Cower. Is this really the message we want to project to the rest of the world? Is this the legacy we want to leave our grandchildren? Wouldn't a wiser, stouter, and ultimately safer, choice of words to convey be: Not in Our Backyard, Not on Our Watch, Not a Chance in Hell you Thirteenth Century Psychopaths?

Last summer a memo addressed to the late Mr. Zarqawi from the al-Qaeda Executive Vice President for Regional Marketing, the Egyptian phantom menace Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, spelled out in clear terms the nature of the competition they’ve been up against:

I say to you...we are in a media battle in a race for the hearts and minds of [the entire Muslim community]. [But] however far our capabilities reach, they will never be equal to one thousandth of the capabilities of the kingdom of Satan that is waging war on us.

That’s right, Doctor Death. And we’re currently working our way backwards through the A-hole alphabet soup. Sorry to break it to ya, Z2, but laser-guided bombs don’t even whistle.

"We believe that this is the beginning of the end of al-Qaeda in Iraq," announced Iraqi national security advisor Mowaffaq al-Rubaie. Time (not Time) will tell if he is correct. As for al-Qaeda in Anywhere Other Than Iraq, he may be a bit premature.

"This is not the end," admitted Sir Winston in 1942, qualifying reports of the long-overdue British victory over Rommel's corps at El Alamein, the decisive battle for North Africa and the soft underbelly of the Nazi empire. "It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps, the end of the beginning."

This week marks the end of the beginning of the end for al-Qaeda.org. Let us be thankful even for small victories.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (1966-2006)
ROT IN PIECES

Posted by BUCK SARGENT on 15 June 2006 | Permalink