Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is dead - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Pacifier · 06-08-2006, 04:06 AM

Quote:

The Butcher of Baghdad is Dead

A US military official confirmed on Thursday that Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been killed in a bombing raid in Bakuba, north of Baghdad. Zarqawi was considered the mastermind behind numerous kidnappings, executions and terrorist attacks for al-Qaida.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki confirmed the death of the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, on Thursday morning. Believed to be Osama bin Laden's top deputy in Iraq, Zarqawi was killed in a US air strike in the town of Bakuba north of Baghdad. Maliki said that Iraqi security forces had assisted the Americans in planning the attack. General George Casey, commander of the US troops in Iraq, also confirmed that Zarqawi's body had been identified. The hunt for the terrorist leader in the Bakuba region began two weeks ago, but officials did not release any further details.

Speaking in Baghdad, US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad described Zarqawi's death as a "huge success for Iraq and the international war on terror." Nevertheless, he warned that it did not mean the recent spell of insurgent violence in Iraq would stop anytime soon.

Bakuba, which is located about 60 kilometers northeast of Baghdad, is considered a stronghold of insurgents and terrorists. In recent days, police in the city found a number of heads of people who had been decapitated by terrorists and left in bags on the street.

Zarqawi has long been at the top of the list of Washington's most-wanted terrorists in Iraq. Prior to his death, the Jordanian and his followers claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks and kidnappings. His organization also said it was responsible for bombings of hotels in Amman, Jordan, in which 60 people died. The Jordanian had a fast and furious career as an international terrorist -- making a name for himself with his shocking cruelty. One video is believed to depict a hooded Zarqawi personally decapitating American hostage Nicholas Berg with his own hands. Al-Qaida released the video with the title: "Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi slaughters an American."

The terrorist's stated aim was to transform Iraq into an fundamentalist Islamic state. His group threatened to murder any Iraqis who sought to participate in the country's democratic elections. And although Zarqawi was the most sought-after killer in Iraq, the 39-year-old managed time and time again to evade his pursuers. Throughout his rein of terror, Zarqawi sought to destabilize Iraq's new democratic course and its alignment with the West.

On Thursday, radical Islamic Web sites reacted to Zarqawi's apparent death casually. "Even if it's true," one site stated, "the death of a leader won't mean the end of the jihad."

Zarqawi was born in Jordan as Ahmed Nazal al-Khalayleh, the son of a Palestinian refugee. He took his terrorist name from his home town of Zarka. In Jordan, he had been convicted and sentenced to death in absentia for his participation in terrorist attacks. He also stood at the top of the most-wanted list in Washington, which had put a $25 million bounty on his head.

In his most recent recording, posted on the Internet last Friday, Zarqawi called on his fellow Sunni Muslims to revolt against Iraq's Shiite majority. He called on Sunnis to ignore calls for national unity and to arm themselves for the coming battle with the "Shiite snakes." The terrorist leader alleged that the Shiites had a long history of collaborating with Iraq's invaders. It was the first message from Zarqawi since late April.

Last week, Iraqi soldiers arrested Kassim al-Ani, considered a close colleague of Zarqawi, during a raid in Baghdad. The Iraqi government in Baghdad considered Ani to be second in command of al-Qaida's operations in Iraq.

(http://service.spiegel.de/cache/inte...420251,00.html)

The question is: How much will it change? How important was al-Zarqawi? Will the Insurgency fall after his death?

Personally I don't think so. The Insurgents are, AFAIK, organised in small, rather independend cells. I'm afraid the death of al-Zarqawi will now have much effect. Perhaps in the next days there will be even more attacks to retaliate for the death.
I think the US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad is right, the violence will not stop because of this, but I'm quite certain that Bush will present this as THE vicory and as a sign that the insurgency in Iraq is close to collapse, again.

Charlatan · 06-08-2006, 04:14 AM

This is a big whack at the leadership but I'm not convinced it will do much in the long run.

The violence will continue.

That said, there does seem to be some suggestion that someone inside gave him up. While this is likely just someone doing it for the money, it does open the possibility that there is a crack in the leadership...

dksuddeth · 06-08-2006, 04:17 AM

while this is great news in one aspect, all it truly is is a power vacuum. Someone else will step in to take zarqawis place. The only thing this conflict accomplish, should we stay at it long enough, is give people who are thinking about leading a terrorist group some pause while they consider if their life is worth it.

Psycho Dad · 06-08-2006, 04:25 AM

It would have made a better positive impact (if a positive impact comes from it at all) were he taken alive. Instead, some will view this as martyrdom rather than surrender or not "finishing the fight" as Saddam.

Rekna · 06-08-2006, 04:30 AM

This is definatly good news but I to wonder how much impact this will have on the war on Iraq. I hope that this will lead to a decline in Al Queda activity in Iraq and if a new leader does step forward the he will be clumsy. My fear is Al Queda will wise up and not make it publicly known who the leaders are.

Pacifier · 06-08-2006, 04:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan

This is a big whack at the leadership

Yes, the question is also how big his role really was. He was certanly a very loud voice of the insugency, but there are multiple groups fighting against the US forces, most of them probably don't care about al-Zarqawi

JumpinJesus · 06-08-2006, 04:43 AM

I'm pretty much with psycho_dad on this one. I'm afraid he will become a martyr and any short term positive effect this has for the U.S. will be eventually overshadowed by his martyrdom.

Also, if we are to believe the experts, he was only a small factor in the overall violence in Iraq and therefore his death will not have as large an impact on the insurgency as we might hope.

As an aside, regarding the title of the article "Butcher of Baghdad is Dead": how many butcher of baghdads are there? I thought Saddam Hussein owned that title?

Bill O'Rights · 06-08-2006, 04:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Psycho Dad

It would have made a better positive impact were he taken alive.

True. And yet, on the other hand, then you open up the gates for more kidnappings demanding his release. Truly, a no win situation.

While I certainly will not mourn his death in the least, I feel that all we've managed to accomplish is to swat the big mosquito, that was making all the noise buzzing around our head, while a dozen smaller quieter ones feast merrily away.

samcol · 06-08-2006, 06:19 AM

What is this like the 10th time this guy has been reported to be captured or killed? At least this time it hasn't been retracted yet.

Don't forget this guy's status has been severly over hyped by a pentagon that plants stories in Iraq. The boogie man is apparently dead. Who will now fill in that role for the defense department?

reconmike · 06-08-2006, 06:38 AM

Ding dong the bitch is dead, hope he suffered a great deal.

He personaly beheaded 2 americans, I sincerely hope he laid there with that house on him for hours, wishing the great OBL would swoop from the sky and rescue him.

The US should have dropped this bomb on him a year ago while he was holed up in that mosque in Fallujah.

If it makes a difference or not still remains to be seen, but atleast there are 8 or so less terrorists in the world.

cj2112 · 06-08-2006, 07:17 AM

the best thing that could come of this, is that the al-Qaida members that are looking to take his place start fighting among themselves and that it causes a breakdown of the organization. This is unlikely in my opinion, but it is possible.

host · 06-08-2006, 07:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reconmike

Ding dong the bitch is dead, hope he suffered a great deal.

He personaly beheaded 2 americans, I sincerely hope he laid there with that house on him for hours, wishing the great OBL would swoop from the sky and rescue him.

The US should have dropped this bomb on him a year ago while he was holed up in that mosque in Fallujah.

If it makes a difference or not still remains to be seen, but atleast there are 8 or so less terrorists in the world.

reconmike...please....share with me how you filter out fact from fiction...how you decide what to embrace and repeat, vs. what info you discard and what info you grow skeptical about? What would prompt you to believe anything that the U.S. Military "discloses", or that comes from the U.S. executive branch?

Why are you so forgiving of folks who have squandered their credibilty? Have they rehabilitated themselves, in your eyes, or have you never waivered in your acceptance of what they've told you for the last 5-1/2 years. I'm asking you these questions because your post seemed to be the best example of someone who has the least, or no doubts.

Do you think that Dexter Filkins added the line below because he might have still been embarassed that the U.S. military, in April was caught, through it's own bungled display of a slide presentation to the media, filtering propaganda about Zarqawi, specifically to Filkins, who then obediently published it on the front page of the NY Times, without noting his own skepticism?

Look at the "face" released by our military, mike....freshly "bombed" and washed clean for the cameras with ivory soap. More sanitzed BS from our own version of Big Bro, IMO....

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/08/wo...pc&oref=slogin
News Analysis
A Leader Is Eliminated, but Insurgency Is Likely to Carry On

By DEXTER FILKINS
Published: June 8, 2006
<center><center><img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/06/08/world/zar.190.2.jpg"><img src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40303000/jpg/_40303681_zarqap203body.jpg">
(I've added the BBC/AP photo on the right....for a comparison exercise...)

......In January, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia announced that it had joined the Council of Holy Warriors, a collection of seven insurgent groups that was headed by an Iraqi, Abdullah Al-Baghdadi.

Yet some experts doubted whether Mr. Baghdadi really existed, and whether Mr. Zarqawi had relinquished day-to-day control of the organization....

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...040900890.html
Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawi
Jordanian Painted As Foreign Threat To Iraq's Stability

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 10, 2006; Page A01

The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to internal military documents and officers familiar with the program. The effort has raised his profile in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have overstated his importance and helped the Bush administration tie the war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The documents state that the U.S. campaign aims to turn Iraqis against Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, by playing on their perceived dislike of foreigners. U.S. authorities claim some success with that effort, noting that some tribal Iraqi insurgents have attacked Zarqawi loyalists.

For the past two years, U.S. military leaders have been using Iraqi media and other outlets in Baghdad to publicize Zarqawi's role in the insurgency. The documents explicitly list the "U.S. Home Audience" as one of the targets of a broader propaganda campaign.

Some senior intelligence officers believe Zarqawi's role may have been overemphasized by the propaganda campaign, which has included leaflets, radio and television broadcasts, Internet postings and at least one leak to an American journalist. Although Zarqawi and other foreign insurgents in Iraq have conducted deadly bombing attacks, they remain "a very small part of the actual numbers," Col. Derek Harvey, who served as a military intelligence officer in Iraq and then was one of the top officers handling Iraq intelligence issues on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told an Army meeting at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., last summer.

In a transcript of the meeting, Harvey said, "Our own focus on Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature, if you will -- made him more important than he really is, in some ways."

"The long-term threat is not Zarqawi or religious extremists, but these former regime types and their friends," said Harvey, who did not return phone calls seeking comment on his remarks....

......That slide, created by Casey's subordinates, does not specifically state that U.S. citizens were being targeted by the effort, but other sections of the briefings indicate that there were direct military efforts to use the U.S. media to affect views of the war. One slide in the same briefing, for example, noted that a "selective leak" about Zarqawi was made to Dexter Filkins, a New York Times reporter based in Baghdad. Filkins's resulting article, about a letter supposedly written by Zarqawi and boasting of suicide attacks in Iraq, ran on the Times front page on Feb. 9, 2004.

Leaks to reporters from U.S. officials in Iraq are common, but official evidence of a propaganda operation using an American reporter is rare.

Filkins, reached by e-mail, said that he was not told at the time that there was a psychological operations campaign aimed at Zarqawi, but said he assumed that the military was releasing the letter "because it had decided it was in its best interest to have it publicized." No special conditions were placed upon him in being briefed on its contents, he said. He said he was skeptical about the document's authenticity then, and remains so now, and so at the time tried to confirm its authenticity with officials outside the U.S. military.

Willravel · 06-08-2006, 07:49 AM

Let's go kill more CIA trained terrorists!!

How about we take apart the CIA and stop the whole next generation of terrorists instead of trying to kill one at a time? We've been meddling in others affairs so long that we've created our own enemies. It's absurd.

reconmike · 06-08-2006, 08:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

reconmike...please....share with me how you filter out fact from fiction...how you decide what to embrace and repeat, vs. what info you discard and what info you grow skeptical about? What would prompt you to believe anything that the U.S. Military "discloses", or that comes from the U.S. executive branch?

Why are you so forgiving of folks who have squandered their credibilty? Have they rehabilitated themselves, in your eyes, or have you never waivered in your acceptance of what they've told you for the last 5-1/2 years. I'm asking you these questions because your post seemed to be the best example of someone who has the least, or no doubts.

Do you think that Dexter Filkins added the line below because he might have still been embarassed that the U.S. military, in April was caught, through it's own bungled display of a slide presentation to the media, filtering propaganda about Zarqawi, specifically to Filkins, who then obediently published it on the front page of the NY Times, without noting his own skepticism?

Look at the "face" released by our military, mike....freshly "bombed" and washed clean for the cameras with ivory soap. More sanitzed BS from our own version of Big Bro, IMO....

javascript

hotoPop('207546/30_27_060806_zarqawi_photo.jpg','June 8: Image displayed by the U.S. Military at a press conference in Baghdad, Iraq, shows body of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.','AP',350,450);

Here ya go Host this image doesnt look to sanitized to me, maybe you should look at other sources for your information besides the times and the post.
Because we both know neither of those rags would want to offend anyone.

As to what I believe or disbelieve in the information the US military "discloses" as you so put it, really doesnt matter, you see being that I retired from the US Marine Corps with over 20 years I know what they release and do not release.
And as much as you think you have the "right" to know what they are doing all the time, you do not so get over it. They will tell you what they want when they want.

host · 06-08-2006, 09:00 AM

Is it just a coincidence that the "Nicholas Berg beheaded by Zarqawai" story, was released, 2 years ago, and distracted from the height of focus on Abu Ghraib prison abuse and the "Zarqawi killed in air strike" story was released after world stock market values had been dropping alarmingly for days? How fortunate for TPTB....
<img src="http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/w?s=%5EDJI">
<img src="http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/w?s=%5EN225">
reconmike....as far as your posted belief that

Quote:

he personally beheaded 2 Americans.....

Here is some of what you have to "swallow" (or ignore) to simply accept the Nicholas Berg "beheaded by Zarqawi" story.....

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/in...st/26BERG.html
Tracing a Civilian's Odd Path To His Gruesome Fate in Iraq
New York Times, The (NY)
May 26, 2004
Author: This article was reported by James Dao, Richard Lezin Jones, Christine Hauser and Eric Lichtblau and was written by Mr. Dao.
Estimated printed pages: 10
Abstract: Path that led Nicholas E Berg to his murder by militants in Iraq detailed; friends and relatives say he really believed he could help rebuild war-torn nations by repairing radio towers; he was briefly detained in Jan in Diwaniya by Iraqi police who thought he might be spy; was arrested again in Mosul Mar 24 as possible spy, smuggler or terrorist, held 13 days while Federal Bureau of Investigation checked and rechecked his story and freed Apr 6, at time when Iraqi insurgents were targeting foreign contractors, after his family sued for his release; he disappeared Apr 10, day he planned to return home, and body was found May 8; Mosul detention has raised questions about whether American officials did enough to get him released as quickly as possible, so he could have returned home before Apr wave of anti-Western killings; time line; map; photos (M)

Nicholas E. Berg had a distinctive strategy for soliciting work for his communications tower company: conduct free spot inspections, then offer to fix any problems. Where others went sightseeing, he went climbing and inspecting. Where others wrote postcards, he inventoried towers, from Texas to Africa.

By late last year, Mr. Berg, 26, had turned his sights on Iraq. An adventurous entrepreneur and religious Jew, Mr. Berg had a passionate belief in capitalism's power to transform poor nations. He really believed, friends and relatives said, that he could help rebuild that war-shattered country one radio tower at a time.
It was a vision that almost immediately aroused suspicions. In January, the Iraqi police, thinking Mr. Berg might be an Iranian spy, briefly detained him while he was touring towers near the south-central city of Diwaniya.

"Isn't this starting to read like a mystery novel," he wrote to his friends and family following his Diwaniya adventure.

Two months later, Mr. Berg would not be so lucky. Late on the evening of March 24, the Iraqi police in Mosul, apparently thinking Mr. Berg a spy, a smuggler or a terrorist, detained him while he was traveling to visit two business contacts.

This time, he remained in an Iraqi jail for 13 days while the Federal Bureau of Investigation checked and rechecked his story. When he was released on April 6 -- one day after his family filed suit demanding his release -- Iraq was being swept by insurgent violence singling out foreign contractors.

On April 10, the day Mr. Berg planned to return home, he disappeared. On May 8, American troops found his body near a highway overpass in Baghdad. The Central Intelligence Agency has said Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to Al Qaeda, is probably the man seen beheading Mr. Berg in a ghastly videotape.

Mr. Berg's detention in Mosul has raised sharp questions about whether American officials did enough to get him released as quickly as they could have. Mr. Berg's family contends he had planned to leave Iraq on March 30, which might have enabled him to avoid the anti-Western kidnappings and killings of April.

"Were it not for Nick's detention, I would have had him in my arms again," Mr. Berg's father, Michael, wrote in a letter in support of a demonstration by an antiwar group last week. In the letter, Mr. Berg blamed the Bush administration more than terrorists for his son's death.

But the many unexplained details of Mr. Berg's final days, combined with the uncommon details of his unconventional life, have also prompted furious speculation on the Internet and talk radio about Mr. Berg himself. Some have argued that he was a spy for Israel or the C.I.A., or that the video of his murder was staged by pro-American forces to arouse anger toward Iraqi insurgents. Some have asserted that he had ties to the very Qaeda militants who are believed to be responsible for his death.

He was, after all, traveling alone, without a translator or a bodyguard, in a lawless land whose language he barely understood. He carried books about Iran and kept a detailed inventory of Iraqi communications towers. He was shown in the beheading video wearing orange clothing, which, to some, looked like the jumpsuits worn by prisoners held by the American military.

Adding to the mystery, both the Iraqi police and the American military deny responsibility for Mr. Berg's detention. The Iraqi police contend they promptly turned Mr. Berg over to the American military, an assertion Mr. Berg later confirmed in e-mail home. But American officials assert he remained in the custody of Iraqi police for the entire 13 days.

American law enforcement and intelligence officials have strenuously rejected the conspiracy theories. Mr. Berg was detained because his activities seemed suspicious, and once those suspicions were dispelled, he was released, they said. They are convinced, they said, that Mr. Berg was just a freelancing businessman with a high tolerance for risk, whose naivete and idealism blinded him to Iraq's treacherous corners.

"He was in the wrong place at the wrong time," an F.B.I. official said.

To Mr. Berg's friends and family, there was nothing odd or mysterious about his wanderings in Iraq. He was just being Nick: a bright, fearless, iconoclastic man who saw himself as a modern-day Prometheus, bringing progress to a downtrodden nation. And like Prometheus, his friends say, he was punished for his good deeds.

"I'm sure that throughout the entire ordeal, he felt no fear," a close friend, Luke Lorenz, said of Mr. Berg's final hours. "I doubt that he thought they would hurt him. He really believed in the goodness of people. That if they took the time, they'd like him."

"When I see him sitting there in the video, it doesn't seem any different than when I'd see him anywhere else," Mr. Lorenz, 28, said. "Taking it all in."....

....He attended Cornell University, distinguishing himself in engineering courses, a faculty adviser said. But his defining semester came in a small Ugandan village, where he spent the spring of 1998 in an exchange program. There he was exposed to poverty he had never imagined, friends said. He turned his inventiveness to good use, fashioning a brick-making machine to help villagers stabilize mud huts. In letters, he described schemes to help the Ugandans market mushrooms and make bricks from indigenous materials.

"He was shaken by his experience," a friend, James Wakefield, 52, said. "He had nothing but a pair of pants, a shirt and boots when he came home. He gave away his clothing."

Friends say Mr. Berg's Africa experience made him impatient with traditional academics. He left Cornell at the end of 1998, despite being on the dean's list and having only one year left, school officials said.

He spent the next two years searching for ways to transform his Africa ideas into a practical plan, studying at Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania before transferring to the University of Oklahoma in Norman in the fall of 1999.....

......In Oklahoma, Mr. Berg's e-mail password was obtained by an associate of Zacarias Moussaoui. Mr. Moussaoui, who is awaiting trial on charges of assisting the Sept. 11 plot, attended flight school in Norman in 2001, but it is not clear that he ever met Mr. Berg.

F.B.I. agents interviewed Mr. Berg in 2002 and came away convinced that he had either shared the password with someone who passed it on to Mr. Moussaoui or that the password had been stolen from him. The F.B.I. cleared Mr. Berg of having links to terrorist groups, officials said.

In Oklahoma, Mr. Berg also began learning about communications towers. As a youth he had loved climbing; he built a three-story treehouse in his backyard and in college was an avid rock climber. In 2000, he quit his studies in Norman and for more than a year wandered across Oklahoma and Texas working as a freelance contractor replacing lights, painting girders and fixing cables hundreds of feet above the ground.

By 2002, he had returned to the Philadelphia area and formed his own tower company, Prometheus Methods Tower Service, using as a motto, "Man is more than fire tamed." Through cold calls and free spot inspections, he had built a client list of 50 companies by 2003.....

......As his business grew, Mr. Berg began plotting ways to resume his work in developing nations. With the help of the American Jewish World Service, he visited Kenya for two weeks in March 2003, working on water projects and pledging to return in the summer of 2004.

But it was Iraq that loomed large in Mr. Berg's imagination. While traveling to Kenya, he wrote e-mail fondly describing some Texans "rushing toward the action" in Baghdad as the American-led invasion was getting under way, even as other Westerners were fleeing with "sweaty hands."

Back in Pennsylvania, Mr. Berg defended the invasion, arguing that it had ousted a brutal dictator. And he argued that Americans had a moral obligation to help rebuild the shattered country. In part, friends said, he saw a business opportunity. In December 2003 he attended a convention in Virginia on rebuilding Iraq. Government officials and private contractors at the convention encouraged businesses to join in the reconstruction.

But his feelings were heavily influenced by his Judaism and his moral beliefs, friends said. Mr. Berg was raised in a secular Jewish household but became increasingly religious after college, studying the Torah and learning to keep kosher. He seemed particularly attracted to the Hebrew concept of tikkun olam -- healing the world through social action.....

.....His views differed sharply from those of many of his friends and his father, a retired high school teacher who actively opposed the war. But though his parents and friends warned him of the dangers of Iraq, they were not surprised when he decided to go.

"Nick was real good at recognizing physical danger; it's part of the job," Scott Hollinger, the foreman for Prometheus Methods, said. "He didn't do too well at recognizing human danger because he never thought anybody was going to hurt him."

In late December, he flew to Israel and crossed by land into Iraq via Jordan. For the next month, Mr. Berg operated in Iraq much the same as he did in the United States: touring the countryside, usually by taxi, inspecting towers and building a database, he told friends.

One trip took him to Abu Ghraib, the neighborhood outside Baghdad that is now famous for its prison complex. Another took him north to Mosul. He also made contact with an Iraqi businessman, Aziz al-Taee, who had lived in Philadelphia for 20 years before returning to Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Mr. Taee, who owned electronic equipment stores in Philadelphia, pleaded guilty in 1994 to selling plastic vials that were used by crack dealers. Mr. Berg told friends that he found Mr. Taee "very competent" and that the two planned to create a company called Babylon Towers.

"The fact alone that he and I are just now sitting in a free and open Internet shop is unbelievable to most Iraqis," Mr. Berg wrote to friends in January.

Mr. Berg went home in February but returned to Iraq in March, expressing confidence about getting work from the Harris Corporation, a company based in Florida that had a $96 million contract to rebuild Iraq's media industry. Jan Bosman, the regional program manager in the north for the Iraqi Media Network, said Mr. Berg went to his office in Mosul in late March looking for work. Mr. Bosman said Mr. Berg seemed casual about the security situation in the country, traveling by taxi and staying in local hotels.

On March 24, while traveling to meet some business contacts, Mr. Berg was stopped at an Iraqi checkpoint near Mosul. "We were afraid for his life," the police chief, Mohammad Barhawi, said in an interview. "And we had suspicions about him. So we turned him over to the coalition forces."

Mr. Barhawi said the Iraqi police took Mr. Berg to its headquarters and handed him over immediately to coalition forces in an operations room inside the same compound, where the American military police have a liaison office.

He asserted that Mr. Berg was in Iraqi hands for "minutes," but American officials contend that Mr. Berg remained in Iraqi police custody the entire time he was detained.

During his detention, Mr. Berg was interviewed three times by F.B.I. agents who asked whether he had ever built a pipe bomb, what he was doing in Iraq, why he had gone to Iran, Mr. Berg told friends and his family later. He had never been to Iran but was carrying a book about Iran and some Farsi language materials, he wrote.

Mr. Berg also told friends that while he was in jail, other prisoners chanted "Isralein," apparently believing he was an Israeli. (He had an Israeli stamp in his passport.) American soldiers ordered the Iraqi guards to put him in a separate cell near political and war criminals from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, Mr. Berg wrote.

By then, Mr. Berg's parents, who had expected their son to return home on March 30, had become frantic. They contacted the State Department and were interviewed by the F.B.I., which corroborated Mr. Berg's statements in Iraq. The F.B.I. then recommended that Mr. Berg be released, F.B.I. officials said.

But when Mr. Berg was not immediately released, his parents filed a lawsuit on April 5, asserting that the American military was violating their son's civil rights. He was released the next day, April 6.

Mr. Berg's family contends that the swift release of Mr. Berg after the filing of the lawsuit proved that the American military had controlled their son's detention all along.

Upon his release, Mr. Berg sent e-mail saying he planned to catch a flight home from Jordan on April 10. He disappeared soon after that.

The next time Mr. Berg was seen publicly was on the grisly video showing his beheading. On the video, a masked man refers to the humiliation of Muslim prisoners at Abu Ghraib, prompting some to speculate that Mr. Berg was dressed in orange to simulate Muslim prisoners held there and at Guantanamo Bay.

Though Mr. Berg's Moussaoui connection has fueled speculation that F.B.I. agents would not allow him to be released out of concern that he had links to terrorists, officials in Washington deny that.

"What was this guy doing there in the first place?" an F.B.I. official said. "It's not as if Iraq suddenly turned hostile."

Such comments anger Mr. Berg's friends, who say he went to Iraq in part because he thought American officials and corporate leaders wanted American entrepreneurs to help rebuild the country.

"They can keep looking for a conspiracy, but they won't find anything at all," said Douglas Strickland, 25, a close friend.....

Quote:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/...641717320.html
Who killed Nick Berg?
May 29, 2004

Conspiracy theories about how the kidnapped American died in Iraq are flying around the world. Richard Neville explores the explanations......

......The first few seconds of the video shows Berg sitting on a white plastic chair in an orange jumpsuit. He speaks directly to the camera in a relaxed way: "My name is Nick Berg ... I have a brother and sister, David and Sara. I live in Philadelphia." His white chair is identical to those in the photographs of the Abu Ghraib prison tortures, but such chairs are probably common in Iraq. It is highly likely that this segment is edited from the interrogation of Berg during his 13 days of custody.

In the next scene, Berg is sitting on the floor with five masked figures standing behind him. We do not see the figures enter. Berg looks lifeless, though his body appears to make slight movements. A man reads a lengthy Arabic statement in a passionless monotone. He is identified as "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi", a Jordanian associate of Osama bin Laden who is tied to dozens of terrorist acts.

Yet a leaflet recently circulated in Falluja, by no means a reliable source, claims that al-Zarqawi was killed in the Sulaimaniya mountains of northern Iraq during a US bombing. A US military report last month has claimed al-Zarqawi was killed in the bombing of Falluja.

Also, the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has said that al-Zarqawi was fitted with a prosthetic leg in a Baghdad hospital, yet the tape shows no evidence of a limp. CNN staff familiar with al-Zarqawi's voice have been quoted as saying the voice does not sound like his.

Among the many curiosities raised on the web about the fanatical five are:

· They are well-fed, fidgety, and reveal glimpses of white skin.

· Their Arabic is heavily accented (Russian, Jordanian, Egyptian).

· An aside in Russian had been translated as "do it quickly".

· One character wears wears bulky white tennis shoes.

· The man on the far left stands in the familiar "at ease" military posture.

· The men's scarves are worn and tied by people who "haven't a clue", says conspiracy theorist Hector Carreon, like actors in Hollywood movies.

· There is even a voice at the end that seems to ask in English, "How will it be done?" [http://www.aztlan.net/nick_berg_how_done.htm]

None of this proves a grand conspiracy, but it does raise questions. In the final segment of the tape, Berg is thrown to the ground, but doesn't move. During the decapitation, starting at the front of the throat, there is little sign of blood. The scream is wildly out of sync, sounds female, and is obviously dubbed.

Dr John Simpson, executive director for surgical affairs at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, told Ritt Goldstein of the Asia Times, "I would have thought that all the people in the vicinity would have been covered in blood, in a matter of seconds ... if it [the video] was genuine".

Simpson agrees with other experts who find it highly probable that Berg had died before his decapitation..........

reconmike, don't you find it odd that no autopsy was reported to have been done on Mr. Berg's body? Isn't that highly unusual in a murder investigation of this stature? Doesn't Berg's email password, ending up, according to authorities, in the hands "of an associate of Zacarias Moussaoui", seem a bit curious, and how about the fact that the FBI had free access to Berg to question him while he was in custody in Iraq, and apparently ordered his release from custody, but will not admit that he was ever in U.S. custody?

Seaver · 06-08-2006, 09:09 AM

Host, seriously, more and more you grab at straws in your attempt to deny anything this administration does which results in something good. Instead you turn the entire government into mass murderers.

9/11, Gitmo, and now Zarkawi is innocent of decapitation... it was actually the US.

Charlatan · 06-08-2006, 09:30 AM

Host, all that last article tells me is that it is likely the kidnappers weren't from Iraq. That they were a group made up of Russians, Jordanians and Egyptians (not outside of the scope of things).

While I think it is fair to speculate that the US Administration *might* do something like this... I really think it is just speculation and doesn't hold enough water to give it much more than a cursory examination.

Until there is a smoking gun or some concrete evidence, it doesn't rise above the level of conspiracy theory.

Bodyhammer86 · 06-08-2006, 09:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Let's go kill more CIA trained terrorists!!

How about we take apart the CIA and stop the whole next generation of terrorists instead of trying to kill one at a time? We've been meddling in others affairs so long that we've created our own enemies. It's absurd.

will, do you have any proof whatsoever to prove that the CIA trained Bin Laden or Al-Zarqawi? I mean, seriously, you've been peddling this myth that the CIA has trained these guys all these times and you've offered no proof at all to show that this is true. While it is true that we funded and armed the Mujahudeen during the Soviet Invasion, most of the factions we gave aid to became fighters for the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance (hell, they even fought under the same name).

To put this bullshit to rest once and for all: http://www2.gol.com/users/coynerhm/osama_bin_laden.htm and there have also been many declassified government documents pertaining to this incident that have debunked this myth as well.

host · 06-08-2006, 09:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

Host, seriously, more and more you grab at straws in your attempt to deny anything this administration does which results in something good. Instead you turn the entire government into mass murderers.

9/11, Gitmo, and now Zarkawi is innocent of decapitation... it was actually the US.

Seaver, the military already accidentally revealed that they planted "stuff" about Zarqawi that may have been untrue.....so why would today's "news" demand a "hands off" reaction. They already broke our trust....

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...040900890.html

The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to internal military documents and officers familiar with the program. The effort has raised his profile in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have overstated his importance and helped the Bush administration tie the war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.....

......One slide in the same briefing, for example, noted that a "selective leak" about Zarqawi was made to Dexter Filkins, a New York Times reporter based in Baghdad. Filkins's resulting article, about a letter supposedly written by Zarqawi and boasting of suicide attacks in Iraq, ran on the Times front page on Feb. 9, 2004..........

I already posted the preceding quotes in a larger excerpt on this thread, ans still Seaver.....you responded by posting a criticism of me.....Aren't you "shooting the messenger"? How can we possibly accept that Zarqawi was "killed" or that it is even a signifigant event, when the "authorities" that you criticize me for relentlessly challenging and questioning, were caught deliberately misinforming us about Zarqawi and exaggerating his signifigance and role in Iraq?

Seaver, isn't it established now that Powell's nearly entire Feb. 5, 2003 presentation to the UN general assembly was misleading, or outright untrue, even though it was the U.S. administration's official, justification to the world, to invade and occupy Iraq? Isn't it true, that for many months after the "mobile weapons" lab "component" of that Powell presentation, was known to be debunked, that officials as high in authority as Rumsfeld, Bush, and Cheney, continued to cite the "trailers" as "justification for the invasion?

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...101888_pf.html
Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carried Case for War
Administration Pushed Notion of Banned Iraqi Weapons Despite Evidence to Contrary

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 12, 2006; A01

On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."

The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true......

Powell's own key aide of 16 years said:

Quote:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/08/19/powell.un/
Former aide: Powell WMD speech 'lowest point in my life'

Tuesday, August 23, 2005; Posted: 10:44 a.m. EDT (14:44 GMT)

(CNN) -- A former top aide to Colin Powell says his involvement in the former secretary of state's presentation to the United Nations on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was "the lowest point" in his life.

"I wish I had not been involved in it," says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a longtime Powell adviser who served as his chief of staff from 2002 through 2005. "I look back on it, and I still say it was the lowest point in my life."

Wilkerson is one of several insiders interviewed for the CNN Presents documentary "Dead Wrong -- Inside an Intelligence Meltdown." The program pieced together the events leading up to the mistaken WMD intelligence that was presented to the public. A presidential commission that investigated the pre-war WMD intelligence found much of it to be "dead wrong."

Powell's speech, delivered on February 5, 2003, made the case for the war by presenting U.S. intelligence that purported to prove that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Wilkerson says the information in Powell's presentation initially came from a document he described as "sort of a Chinese menu" that was provided by the White House.....

My POV is not the "problem", Seaver,

The total lack of this administration's own credibility, squandered in stages, by deliberate lies and distortions in pursuit of aggressive war and attacks on American's constitutionally guaranteed rights, and unprecedented sums spent on distribution of propaganda and misinformation, by U.S, civilian and military authorities, have created a climate where everything that thet say or do is suspect, and should be met with debate and criticism by everyone, not just me.

Seaver, is it more my fault that Bush's approval rating is in the shitter, at 30 percent now....or is it more his fault, and to a degree....yours....for letting him think that he could mislead the world and act contrary to our best interests and the constitution, with no challenge and little questioning of his actions and motives, by you....and the folks who have only defected from unquestioningly supporting him....in just the past year or so?

That's the real question, Seaver, and the answers that are coming in show that history will not be kind to the Bush administration, or to those who supported it. Your criticism of me amounts to baseless scapegoating.

Gatorade Frost · 06-08-2006, 09:51 AM

This is good news.

Naturally I have no doubt that th violenve will continue, and it will probably continue for quite a while, but that's expected to happen until everything eventually settles. In this case it never hurts to knock out a known terrorist.

In regards to the issue of martyrdom, I think it's a bit of a moot point. What are the issues? On one hand you can claim that people will be rising up for their martyr, but they do that anyway. If you liked Zarqawi, chances are his death didn't change your opinion of his much. If you didn't like him, odds are that his death isn't going to start converting him for being a martyr. People have already chosen their sides, and I personally believe that if you knock out a highly publicised 'leader' then people will be less inclined to start joining up with that group.

I suppose in my opinion this is nothing but a good thing. A bad man died, I don't believe there will be any real ramifications to the killing of Zarqawi aside from the fact that he's not around to do any more harm.

Willravel · 06-08-2006, 10:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bodyhammer86

will, do you have any proof whatsoever to prove that the CIA trained Bin Laden or Al-Zarqawi? I mean, seriously, you've been peddling this myth that the CIA has trained these guys all these times and you've offered no proof at all to show that this is true. While it is true that we funded and armed the Mujahudeen during the Soviet Invasion, most of the factions we gave aid to became fighters for the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance (hell, they even fought under the same name).

To put this bullshit to rest once and for all: http://www2.gol.com/users/coynerhm/osama_bin_laden.htm and there have also been many declassified government documents pertaining to this incident that have debunked this myth as well.

It's common knowledge that Osama Bin Laden and many members of the current al-Qaeda were trained by the CIA when he was a member of the Afghan jihad fighting against Communist Russia.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BBC News

[Osama Bin Laden] received security training from the CIA itself

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/155236.stm

While the official story of the US government so far is that they have not trained Bin Laden...it is general knowledge to the rest of us.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The New Yorker

That Pan-Islamic effort, whose fighters were funded, armed, and trained by the C.I.A., eventually brought some twenty-five thousand Islamic militants, from more than fifty countries, to combat the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The United States, intentionally or not, had launched Pan-Islam's first jihad, or holy war, in eight centuries.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/con...24fr_archive03

samcol · 06-08-2006, 10:25 AM

I'm really at a loss for words when trying to describe the Zarqawi and Berg propaganda machines. We have been totally lied to and misled about both of these guys. Even Berg's family don't believe what the government is telling them about their son. I'll just leave it at that for now.

reconmike · 06-08-2006, 10:45 AM

Host, since you try and refute the savage beheading of Berg I noticed you did not even attempt to do the same with Eugene Anderson.
Care to explain why?

Im trying at the moment to load a graph that shows maybe al-Zarqawi's killing
was released just as lead prices are falling on the world market,
perhaps Bush and co. will make them rebound as this is proof that the US NEEDS MORE BOMBS.

silent_jay · 06-08-2006, 10:45 AM

I doubt it will do anything to stop the attacks, or make the US more successful in Iraq, Zarqawi was a minor player in the insurgency, whom the US needed to blame attacks on and try and build world support for the war in Iraq. Another leader will step forward and take control, only this time they will probably be smarter and stay underground.

host · 06-08-2006, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bodyhammer86

will, do you have any proof whatsoever to prove that the CIA trained Bin Laden or Al-Zarqawi? I mean, seriously, you've been peddling this myth that the CIA has trained these guys all these times and you've offered no proof at all to show that this is true.....

Bodyhammer86...here is the earliest report that I can find....via newsbank subscription service....it's 12 years old....

Quote:

Fiery Arab expert speaks his mind Susan Yerkes
San Antonio Express-News
May 11, 1994
Estimated printed pages: 3

Hot tip Wednesday: don't miss Farouk El-Baz . The charismatic genius, head of the Boston U Center for Remote Sensing, speaks at 7 at Trinity's Chapman Center on the Gulf War's devastating environmental impact.
Expect a fascinating evening.

Tuesday, El-Baz addressed the Free Trade Alliance S.A. on a wide range of international themes, from women's role in the Middle East ("They run the show. . . . Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia is b---s--- "); to impressing foreign clients ("You can say your technology came from the U.S. space program - nearly everything does").

El-Baz deplored U.S. businessmen who approach foreign clients with "the attitude that 'we're fabulous and yesterday these guys had no shoes.' They come back empty-handed every time," he said.

He dropped a bombshell on the subject of Islamic fundamentalism, naming 31-year-old Yemeni multibillionaire Osama bin Laden as the sponsor of most fundamentalist violence, including the World Trade Center bombing.

Unfortunately, he added, Bin Laden stays untouchable in his Peshwahar headquarters, because: " He's supported by the CIA ."....

and reconmike....although you've done nothing to refute the reports....all from credible news media sources.....the largest circulation newspaper in Australia, and the NY Times and Washington Post...besides your sarcastic response, I'll look into the reports on Eugene Anderson. I've never heard of him, but I'll share whatever I can find.

I have a personal need to know what I'm talking about. Even though I make a great effort to always be personally satisfied that I do....before I post, I still take a lot of heat and taunts from folks who seem to have a lower threshhold
of acceptance of what they publicly admit about what it is that they are, SURE OF.....

When the opinions of my critics here, are too often "in synch" with reports originating from a now totally discredited U.S. administration.....as if the process of the disintegration of the administration's credibility, and it's leaders public approval rating is not taking place, for years now, before our very eyes, I redouble my efforts to know what the f*ck I'm talking about.

Comments to the effect of "what is wrong with you, host", the administration says al-Zarqawi....or Gitmo....or Haditha....or Abu Ghraib....or bin Laden....why do you hate them....or question them.....that are backed by nothing more than spin from that same U.S. administration....can't cut it here, anymore....if this forum is still to be located in a rational part of the rest of the world. Please stop repeating what the administration tells you....and post what you think, and point us to independent information that backs what you believe. Like..... Senate Judiciary Committee Chair, Arlen Specter does,
in his letter of protest to his V.P., Dick Cheney:
<a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/specter-cheney/?resultpage=1&">Dear Mr. Vice President.....</a>

Willravel · 06-08-2006, 11:19 AM

Host, how do you find these articles? Any 12 year old articles are hard to find on the internet, let alone relevent ones. Thanks for the assistence.

Bodyhammer86 · 06-08-2006, 11:39 AM

Quote:

[Osama Bin Laden] received security training from the CIA itself

From a middle-eastern analyst, no less. He surely wouldn't have any sort of bias or spin, would he? And your second quote does nothing to refute my point about Bin Laden not being trained by the CIA. It simply says that the muhjadeen fighters were armed and funded by the CIA, and hell CIA agents were told specifically not to sell weapons to him because they knew Bin Laden was a complete nutjob even then. From Daniel Pipes:

Quote:

Can't argue with much of what you say. Short and sweet. However, there are more urban myths surrounding this issue than there are facts, insofar as apologists for Islam are concerned. Bear in mind that the Mujahadeen fell into two distinct camps, ie the native Afghanis and the Arab jihadists who poured into Afghanistan to make a holy war against the Infidel invader. The Pakistanis and CIA kept their dealings with the Arab component of the conflict to a bare minimum as the Arabs were far too difficult to control, and dealt mainly with the bonafide Afghani fighters; far better to deal with warriors who are fighting for their homes and families than those gatecrashers following a warped death cult. The two 'types' of fighter were a lot less compatible than people might think. The wisdom of that strategy is all too apparent today.

However, the urban myth that CIA somehow funded Bin Laden directly, or by proxy, has never been substantiated and given the general incompetence of all the Western intelligence services in matters Islamic it seems rather ridiculous to imagine that a papertrail would not have emerged by now in the public domain clearly demonstrating a link between the two in one had actually existed. Any such links are tenuous at best - 'six degrees of separation, etc'. However, the ignorant still persist in maintaining that this is a case of the 'chickens coming home to roost'. It makes for good TV. Bad logic, though!

CIA's involvement in Afghanistan was far from altruistic but it seems ridiculous to me that they somehow are perceived as being at fault for helping the Afghani's eject the Russians from the country. Maybe it's a mental defect on my part but where I come from gratitude would be seen to be a more appropriate response toward a country that had armed me in my struggle against an invading force. Unfortunately, these guys seem unable to distinguish between us Infidels - maybe we all 'look the same' to them! But I think that we've all come to learn that sincere expectations of gratitude from a Muslim is like waiting aound for the Second Coming - a very long wait!!!

How could we have handled the Afghani situation differently? Nation rebuilding is a relatively new concept. It used to be called colonialism - not a popular concept in this part of the world. We couldn't have sent in troops. It would have brought us in to direct confrontation with the Russians AND the Muhjahadeen. Should we have poured money into the country? Why? Who would we have given it to? The warlords? Should the US have maintained the pre-WWII political of isolationism and not gotten involved?

If the Soviets had prevailed in Afghanistan I have every reason to believe that the world would be an even darker place than it presently is. And Iran would have had 'The Bomb' many moons ago. And probably used it. However, we can all speculate till the cows come home. We need to dwell on the 'here and now' as you imply.

But, put it this way, while Afghanistan was being invaded the Arab League was too busy counting their Petro-Dollars to actually do anything to help their Muslim brothers - that is, those of them who weren't Soviet puppets in the same way that Saddam was initially a Western puppet. But when has the Arab League ever done anything other than complain? The West AND The Arabs are quick to wring their hands and wail about the 30,000 people killed since the invasion of Iraq. But where are there tears for the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS who have died in Muslim Sudan? It obviously doesn't matter given that it's a civil war and is being waged in the name of Islam rather than democracy. None of our business. Just like Afghanistan. Am I right? Or, am I right?

One point which I've made repeatedly is that I believe that there is a far bigger picture than people are aware of. Obviously, governments generally need to paint issues in very simple terms when presenting their motives to their electorate. The point being that in the years leading up to the recent regime changes in Afghanistan and Iraq these countries coincidentally provided the highest numbers of migrants to the UK. This is no longer the case. Today, Iranian migrants are the largest single group. I pray that this pattern indicates a growing awareness of the threat that the Islamic Fifth Columnists present to the civilised world and a covert attempt to close Pandora's Box. It's not as far fetched as it sounds. After all, WMD is a far more politically correct pretext for regime change that is a policy of discriminating against refugees on the basis of following a cult (I don't believe that Islam qualifies as a religion in the same way that Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism does) by taking pre-emptive action against them at their point of origin. Food for thought?! Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part!!!!!!!!

http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/47182

Willravel · 06-08-2006, 11:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bodyhammer86

From a middle-eastern analyst, no less. He surely wouldn't lie to us would he? and your second quote does nothing to refute my point about Bin Laden not being trained by the CIA. It simply says that the muhjadeen fighters were armed and funded by the CIA, and hell CIA agents were told specifically not to sell weapons to him because they knew Bin Laden was a complete nutjob even then. From Daniel Pipes: http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/47182

Oh, I'm sorry, you're article is clearly the end all of information and is not suceptible to any kind of scruteny, wheras my articles are obviously without merrit. The fact of the matter is that the source of the "no Osama/CIA link" information is from US and UK govnermental sources...sources that make a middle easter analyst look like the author of the bible.

I am facinated that you simply don't trust my first linked article because the source is middle-eastern. Do you know how racist that comes off? I'm sure you're not racist (so far as I know), but your dismissal suggests otherwise. Do you trust black people when it comes to crimes possibly committed by blacks?

Bodyhammer86 · 06-08-2006, 11:57 AM

Will, I'm not racist, but did it ever occur to you he just might have some sort of bias or axe to grind with the US? Seeing as I don't know his credentials, it wouldn't be a bad idea to wonder whether or not he has an agenda. I was just saying, that there are sources that say otherwise about the so called CIA-Bin Laden link that you've never backed up until now. Plus, I find it funny how you criticize me for supposedly taking what my articles are saying as the gospel when you're doing the same with the articles you've posted saying that there is a link between the CIA and Bin Laden.

But then again, this is a subject for a different thread. Apologies for the threadjack.

Seaver · 06-08-2006, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Their Arabic is heavily accented (Russian, Jordanian, Egyptian).

Oh my god! Really?! You do so much research and you dont realize that Zarkawi is Egyptian?

Quote:

It's common knowledge that Osama Bin Laden and many members of the current al-Qaeda were trained by the CIA when he was a member of the Afghan jihad fighting against Communist Russia.

There was a big difference between the Arab fighters in Afghanistan and the Afghani Mujahadeen. Yes they were the same religion (sorta), and yes they still fought the Russians, but because they fought in the same direction does not mean they had anything in common politically.

I'm not saying Bin Laden did not get indirect training, however the lines of supplies have been declassified and they were primarily to the warlords of the Mujahadeen. This is seen quite simply because they were the exact same warlords who helped us defeat the Taliban and Bin Laden.

Quote:

That's the real question, Seaver, and the answers that are coming in show that history will not be kind to the Bush administration, or to those who supported it. Your criticism of me amounts to baseless scapegoating.

It's not a scapegoat, and I'm not the problem. It's you constantly posting ludicris theories, e.g. that the US killed that man. Did it ever cross your mind that the fighters could be ex-Iraq/Syrian military (your "evidence" of the orange jump suite and at-ease stance)? No, of course not. Bush is to blame.

Bodyhammer86 · 06-08-2006, 12:39 PM

Seaver, just to clarify, Zarqawi is Jordanian, but that still fits into the groups that Host put in his accent list. Just thought I'd clear that for you.

reconmike · 06-08-2006, 02:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bodyhammer86

Seaver, just to clarify, Zarqawi is Jordanian, but that still fits into the groups that Host put in his accent list. Just thought I'd clear that for you.

Body, just to clarify, Zarqawi WAS Jordarian, now he is just another dead AQ member.

soccerchamp76 · 06-08-2006, 02:40 PM

As for concerns about his martyrdom, the reports are in that he was betrayed. To quote the front page of CNN, "Terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was betrayed from inside the al Qaeda in Iraq group he led in the insurgency fight against coalition troops, the U.S. military says."

Bodyhammer86 · 06-08-2006, 02:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reconmike

Body, just to clarify, Zarqawi WAS Jordarian, now he is just another dead AQ member.

Damn, freudian slip, I guess.

powerclown · 06-08-2006, 03:09 PM

A Good Day's Work
Why Zarqawi's death matters.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Thursday, June 8, 2006, at 2:00 PM ET

The death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is excellent news in its own right and even more excellent if, as U.S. sources in Iraq are claiming, it resulted from information that derived from people who were or had been close to him. (And, if that claim is black propaganda, then it is clever black propaganda, which is also excellent news.)

It hasn't taken long for the rain to start falling on this parade. Nick Berg's father, a MoveOn type now running for Congress on the Green Party ticket, has already said that he blames President George Bush for the video-beheading of his own son (but of course) and mourned the passing of Zarqawi as he would the death of any man (but of course, again). The latest Atlantic has a brilliantly timed cover story by Mary Anne Weaver, which tends to the view that Zarqawi was essentially an American creation, but seems to undermine its own prominence by suggesting that, in addition to that, Zarqawi wasn't all that important.

Not so fast. Zarqawi contributed enormously to the wrecking of Iraq's experiment in democratic federalism. He was able to help ensure that the Iraqi people did not have one single day of respite between 35 years of war and fascism, and the last three-and-a-half years of misery and sabotage. He chose his targets with an almost diabolical cunning, destroying the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad (and murdering the heroic envoy Sérgio Vieira de Melo) almost before it could begin operations, and killing the leading Shiite Ayatollah Hakim outside his place of worship in Najaf. His decision to declare a jihad against the Shiite population in general, in a document of which Weaver (on no evidence) doubts the authenticity, has been the key innovation of the insurgency: applying lethal pressure to the most vulnerable aspect of Iraqi society. And it has had the intended effect, by undermining Grand Ayatollah Sistani and helping empower Iranian-backed Shiite death squads.

Not bad for a semiliterate goon and former jailhouse enforcer from a Bedouin clan in Jordan. There are two important questions concerning the terrible influence that he has been able to exert. The first is: How much state and para-state support did he enjoy? The second is: What was the nature of his relationship with Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaida?

For the defeatists and pacifists, these are easy questions to answer. Colin Powell was wrong to identify Zarqawi, in his now-notorious U.N. address, as a link between the Saddam regime and the Bin-Ladenists. The man's power was created only by the coalition's intervention, and his connection to al Qaida was principally opportunistic. On this logic, the original mistake of the United States would have been to invade Afghanistan, thereby forcing Zarqawi to flee his camp outside Herat and repositioning him for a new combat elsewhere. Thus, fighting against al-Qaida is a mistake to begin with: It only encourages them.

I think that (for once) Colin Powell was on to something. I know that Kurdish intelligence had been warning the coalition for some time before the invasion that former Afghanistan combatants were making their way into Iraq, which they saw as the next best chance to take advantage of a state that was both "failed" and "rogue." One might add that Iraq under Saddam was not an easy country to enter or to leave, and that no decision on who was allowed in would be taken by a junior officer. Furthermore, the Zarqawi elements appear to have found it their duty to join with the Ansar al-Islam splinter group in Kurdistan, which for some reason thought it was the highest duty of jihad to murder Saddam Hussein's main enemies. But perhaps I have a suspicious mind.

We happen to know that the Baathist regime was recruiting and training foreign fighters and brigading them with the gruesome "Fedayeen Saddam." (This is incidentally a clue to what the successor regime in Iraq might have looked like as the Saddam-plus-sanctions state imploded and Baathism itself went into eclipse.) That bomb at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, for example, was no improvised explosive device. It was a huge charge of military-grade ordnance. Are we to believe that a newly arrived Bedouin Jordanian thug could so swiftly have scraped acquaintance with senior-level former Baathists? (The charges that destroyed the golden dome of the Shiites in Samarra were likewise rigged and set by professional military demolitionists.)

Zarqawi's relations with Bin Laden are a little more tortuous. Mary Anne Weaver shows fairly convincingly that the two men did not get along and were in some sense rivals for the leadership. That's natural enough: Religious fanatics are schismatic by definition. Zarqawi's visceral hatred of the Shiite heresy was unsettling even to some more mainstream Wahhabi types, as was his undue relish in making snuff videos. (How nice to know that these people do have their standards.) However, when Zarqawi sought the franchise to call his group "al-Qaida in Mesopotamia," he was granted it with only a few admonitions.

Most fascinating of all is the suggestion that Zarqawi was all along receiving help from the mullahs in Iran. He certainly seems to have been able to transit their territory (Herat is on the Iranian border with Afghanistan) and to replenish his forces by the same route. If this suggestive connection is proved, as Weaver suggests it will be, then we have the Shiite fundamentalists in Iran directly sponsoring the murderer of their co-religionists in Iraq. This in turn would mean that the Iranian mullahs stood convicted of the most brutish and cynical irresponsibility, in front of their own people, even as they try to distract attention from their covert nuclear ambitions. That would be worth knowing. And it would become rather difficult to argue that Bush had made them do it, though no doubt the attempt will be made.

If we had withdrawn from Iraq already, as the "peace" movement has been demanding, then one of the most revolting criminals of all time would have been able to claim that he forced us to do it. That would have catapulted Iraq into Stone Age collapse and instated a psychopathic killer as the greatest Muslim soldier since Saladin. As it is, the man is ignominiously dead and his dirty connections a lot closer to being fully exposed. This seems like a good day's work to me.

****

Good day's work indeed. Christopher Hitchens writes an absolute bulls-eye article here (on the same day of the incident!) that speaks for me on the subject in ways I can't articulate. Not only is Hitchens a masterful writer, he's a masterful public speaker as well, a rare combination. This phrase:"Religious fanatics are schismatic by definition." is a thing of beauty.

While a lot remains to be done, this is obviously a big, big step in the right direction. For progress to continue, this guy was numero uno on the 72 Virgins for Islamofascists Tour. Particularly sweet justice that his own rats ratted him out, too. Nice touch. A good day for Iraq, a good day for the free world, a good day for Good, a good day for the Coalition, a bad day for Satan, and a bad day for his supporters and admirers, secret or otherwise.

trickyy · 06-08-2006, 03:16 PM

i thought cnn's coverage was somewhat humorous.

well, mainly just this list from their main page....

Seaver · 06-08-2006, 03:29 PM

Quote:

Body, just to clarify, Zarqawi WAS Jordarian, now he is just another dead AQ member.

Well I was wrong, I know he was arrested while working with the Qutbist forces in Egypt.

smooth · 06-08-2006, 06:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

It's common knowledge that Osama Bin Laden and many members of the current al-Qaeda were trained by the CIA when he was a member of the Afghan jihad fighting against Communist Russia.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/155236.stm

While the official story of the US government so far is that they have not trained Bin Laden...it is general knowledge to the rest of us.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/con...24fr_archive03

hahaha, you should have read the article

It wasn't even our government saying it. This is the basis for the claim in the exclusive dossier:

Quote:

In 1988, he decided to put his affairs and those of his colleagues on a firmer footing. He gave the umbrella group for his guesthouse and camps a name: Al-Qa'edah, Arabic for "the base". Talk of the CIA funding him and assisting him at this time, say Mr bin Laden and his supporters, is unfounded. They even go further, to insist he has never had any contact with US officials. The CIA did back the Mujahedin, but these, they say, were different factions from Mr bin Laden's.

OK, so how much faith should I put in bin Laden's truthfullness, bodyhammer?
If you make a compelling argument for believing him, then I'll change my mind.

Bodyhammer86 · 06-08-2006, 06:29 PM

smooth, considering Bin Laden has never liked America from the get-go, I don't see why he would ever accept aid from an American source. Oh and let me ask you this: if Bin Laden said himself that he supposedly received training or whatever from the CIA, would you need a compelling argument to believe him?

docbungle · 06-09-2006, 05:10 PM

I don't view this as terribly important. It is symbolic, perhaps, but not in any meaningfull way. Symbolism is hyped up way too much in situations such as this. His death will change nothing. His followers will find someone else to fight for. The violence will not decline for any meaningfull period of time. Iraq will not be calmed. There will never be a functioning democratic society there. Not in the way the U.S would like there to be. The "terrorists" are killed and they kill us back. What makes anyone think the U.S. is going to be able to stop this?

06-08-2006, 04:14 AM	#2 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	This is a big whack at the leadership but I'm not convinced it will do much in the long run. The violence will continue. That said, there does seem to be some suggestion that someone inside gave him up. While this is likely just someone doing it for the money, it does open the possibility that there is a crack in the leadership... __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke

06-08-2006, 04:17 AM	#3 (permalink)
dksuddeth Junkie Location: bedford, tx	while this is great news in one aspect, all it truly is is a power vacuum. Someone else will step in to take zarqawis place. The only thing this conflict accomplish, should we stay at it long enough, is give people who are thinking about leading a terrorist group some pause while they consider if their life is worth it. __________________ "no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

06-08-2006, 04:25 AM	#4 (permalink)
Psycho Dad Mulletproof Location: Some nucking fut house.	It would have made a better positive impact (if a positive impact comes from it at all) were he taken alive. Instead, some will view this as martyrdom rather than surrender or not "finishing the fight" as Saddam. __________________ Don't always trust the opinions of experts.

06-08-2006, 04:43 AM	#7 (permalink)
JumpinJesus Junkie Location: Chicago	I'm pretty much with psycho_dad on this one. I'm afraid he will become a martyr and any short term positive effect this has for the U.S. will be eventually overshadowed by his martyrdom. Also, if we are to believe the experts, he was only a small factor in the overall violence in Iraq and therefore his death will not have as large an impact on the insurgency as we might hope. As an aside, regarding the title of the article "Butcher of Baghdad is Dead": how many butcher of baghdads are there? I thought Saddam Hussein owned that title? __________________ "I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am" - Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses

06-08-2006, 06:38 AM	#10 (permalink)
reconmike Thank You Jesus Location: Twilight Zone	Ding dong the bitch is dead, hope he suffered a great deal. He personaly beheaded 2 americans, I sincerely hope he laid there with that house on him for hours, wishing the great OBL would swoop from the sky and rescue him. The US should have dropped this bomb on him a year ago while he was holed up in that mosque in Fallujah. If it makes a difference or not still remains to be seen, but atleast there are 8 or so less terrorists in the world. __________________ Where is Darwin when ya need him?

06-08-2006, 04:30 AM	#5 (permalink)
Rekna Junkie	This is definatly good news but I to wonder how much impact this will have on the war on Iraq. I hope that this will lead to a decline in Al Queda activity in Iraq and if a new leader does step forward the he will be clumsy. My fear is Al Queda will wise up and not make it publicly known who the leaders are.

06-08-2006, 06:19 AM	#9 (permalink)
samcol Junkie Location: Indiana	What is this like the 10th time this guy has been reported to be captured or killed? At least this time it hasn't been retracted yet. Don't forget this guy's status has been severly over hyped by a pentagon that plants stories in Iraq. The boogie man is apparently dead. Who will now fill in that role for the defense department?

06-08-2006, 07:17 AM	#11 (permalink)
cj2112 Unbelievable Location: Grants Pass OR	the best thing that could come of this, is that the al-Qaida members that are looking to take his place start fighting among themselves and that it causes a breakdown of the organization. This is unlikely in my opinion, but it is possible.

06-08-2006, 07:49 AM	#13 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Let's go kill more CIA trained terrorists!! How about we take apart the CIA and stop the whole next generation of terrorists instead of trying to kill one at a time? We've been meddling in others affairs so long that we've created our own enemies. It's absurd.

06-08-2006, 09:09 AM	#16 (permalink)
Seaver Junkie Location: Fort Worth, TX	Host, seriously, more and more you grab at straws in your attempt to deny anything this administration does which results in something good. Instead you turn the entire government into mass murderers. 9/11, Gitmo, and now Zarkawi is innocent of decapitation... it was actually the US.

06-08-2006, 09:30 AM	#17 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	Host, all that last article tells me is that it is likely the kidnappers weren't from Iraq. That they were a group made up of Russians, Jordanians and Egyptians (not outside of the scope of things). While I think it is fair to speculate that the US Administration might do something like this... I really think it is just speculation and doesn't hold enough water to give it much more than a cursory examination. Until there is a smoking gun or some concrete evidence, it doesn't rise above the level of conspiracy theory. __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke

06-08-2006, 09:51 AM	#20 (permalink)
Gatorade Frost Rookie	This is good news. Naturally I have no doubt that th violenve will continue, and it will probably continue for quite a while, but that's expected to happen until everything eventually settles. In this case it never hurts to knock out a known terrorist. In regards to the issue of martyrdom, I think it's a bit of a moot point. What are the issues? On one hand you can claim that people will be rising up for their martyr, but they do that anyway. If you liked Zarqawi, chances are his death didn't change your opinion of his much. If you didn't like him, odds are that his death isn't going to start converting him for being a martyr. People have already chosen their sides, and I personally believe that if you knock out a highly publicised 'leader' then people will be less inclined to start joining up with that group. I suppose in my opinion this is nothing but a good thing. A bad man died, I don't believe there will be any real ramifications to the killing of Zarqawi aside from the fact that he's not around to do any more harm. __________________ I got in a fight one time with a really big guy, and he said, "I'm going to mop the floor with your face." I said, "You'll be sorry." He said, "Oh, yeah? Why?" I said, "Well, you won't be able to get into the corners very well." Emo Philips

06-08-2006, 10:25 AM	#22 (permalink)
samcol Junkie Location: Indiana	I'm really at a loss for words when trying to describe the Zarqawi and Berg propaganda machines. We have been totally lied to and misled about both of these guys. Even Berg's family don't believe what the government is telling them about their son. I'll just leave it at that for now.

06-08-2006, 10:45 AM	#23 (permalink)
reconmike Thank You Jesus Location: Twilight Zone	Host, since you try and refute the savage beheading of Berg I noticed you did not even attempt to do the same with Eugene Anderson. Care to explain why? Im trying at the moment to load a graph that shows maybe al-Zarqawi's killing was released just as lead prices are falling on the world market, perhaps Bush and co. will make them rebound as this is proof that the US NEEDS MORE BOMBS. __________________ Where is Darwin when ya need him?

06-08-2006, 10:45 AM	#24 (permalink)
silent_jay Her Jay Location: Ontario for now....	I doubt it will do anything to stop the attacks, or make the US more successful in Iraq, Zarqawi was a minor player in the insurgency, whom the US needed to blame attacks on and try and build world support for the war in Iraq. Another leader will step forward and take control, only this time they will probably be smarter and stay underground. __________________ Absence makes the heart grow fonder

06-08-2006, 11:19 AM	#26 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Host, how do you find these articles? Any 12 year old articles are hard to find on the internet, let alone relevent ones. Thanks for the assistence.

06-08-2006, 11:57 AM	#29 (permalink)
Bodyhammer86 Insane Location: Mattoon, Il	Will, I'm not racist, but did it ever occur to you he just might have some sort of bias or axe to grind with the US? Seeing as I don't know his credentials, it wouldn't be a bad idea to wonder whether or not he has an agenda. I was just saying, that there are sources that say otherwise about the so called CIA-Bin Laden link that you've never backed up until now. Plus, I find it funny how you criticize me for supposedly taking what my articles are saying as the gospel when you're doing the same with the articles you've posted saying that there is a link between the CIA and Bin Laden. But then again, this is a subject for a different thread. Apologies for the threadjack. __________________ Pantera, Shadows Fall, Fear Factory, Opeth, Porcupine Tree, Dimmu Borgir, Watch Them Die, Motorhead, Beyond the Embrace, Himsa, Black Label Society, Machine Head, In Flames, Soilwork, Dark Tranquility, Children of Bodom, Norther, Nightrage, At the Gates, God Forbid, Killswitch Engage, Lamb of God, All That Remains, Anthrax, Mudvayne, Arch Enemy, and Old Man's Child \m/ Last edited by Bodyhammer86; 06-08-2006 at 12:04 PM..

06-08-2006, 12:39 PM	#31 (permalink)
Bodyhammer86 Insane Location: Mattoon, Il	Seaver, just to clarify, Zarqawi is Jordanian, but that still fits into the groups that Host put in his accent list. Just thought I'd clear that for you. __________________ Pantera, Shadows Fall, Fear Factory, Opeth, Porcupine Tree, Dimmu Borgir, Watch Them Die, Motorhead, Beyond the Embrace, Himsa, Black Label Society, Machine Head, In Flames, Soilwork, Dark Tranquility, Children of Bodom, Norther, Nightrage, At the Gates, God Forbid, Killswitch Engage, Lamb of God, All That Remains, Anthrax, Mudvayne, Arch Enemy, and Old Man's Child \m/

06-08-2006, 02:40 PM	#33 (permalink)
soccerchamp76 Go Cardinals Location: St. Louis/Cincinnati	As for concerns about his martyrdom, the reports are in that he was betrayed. To quote the front page of CNN, "Terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was betrayed from inside the al Qaeda in Iraq group he led in the insurgency fight against coalition troops, the U.S. military says." __________________ Brian Griffin: Ah, if my memory serves me, this is the physics department. Chris Griffin: That would explain all the gravity.

06-08-2006, 03:09 PM	#35 (permalink)
powerclown Junkie Location: Detroit, MI	A Good Day's Work Why Zarqawi's death matters. By Christopher Hitchens Posted Thursday, June 8, 2006, at 2:00 PM ET The death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is excellent news in its own right and even more excellent if, as U.S. sources in Iraq are claiming, it resulted from information that derived from people who were or had been close to him. (And, if that claim is black propaganda, then it is clever black propaganda, which is also excellent news.) It hasn't taken long for the rain to start falling on this parade. Nick Berg's father, a MoveOn type now running for Congress on the Green Party ticket, has already said that he blames President George Bush for the video-beheading of his own son (but of course) and mourned the passing of Zarqawi as he would the death of any man (but of course, again). The latest Atlantic has a brilliantly timed cover story by Mary Anne Weaver, which tends to the view that Zarqawi was essentially an American creation, but seems to undermine its own prominence by suggesting that, in addition to that, Zarqawi wasn't all that important. Not so fast. Zarqawi contributed enormously to the wrecking of Iraq's experiment in democratic federalism. He was able to help ensure that the Iraqi people did not have one single day of respite between 35 years of war and fascism, and the last three-and-a-half years of misery and sabotage. He chose his targets with an almost diabolical cunning, destroying the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad (and murdering the heroic envoy Sérgio Vieira de Melo) almost before it could begin operations, and killing the leading Shiite Ayatollah Hakim outside his place of worship in Najaf. His decision to declare a jihad against the Shiite population in general, in a document of which Weaver (on no evidence) doubts the authenticity, has been the key innovation of the insurgency: applying lethal pressure to the most vulnerable aspect of Iraqi society. And it has had the intended effect, by undermining Grand Ayatollah Sistani and helping empower Iranian-backed Shiite death squads. Not bad for a semiliterate goon and former jailhouse enforcer from a Bedouin clan in Jordan. There are two important questions concerning the terrible influence that he has been able to exert. The first is: How much state and para-state support did he enjoy? The second is: What was the nature of his relationship with Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaida? For the defeatists and pacifists, these are easy questions to answer. Colin Powell was wrong to identify Zarqawi, in his now-notorious U.N. address, as a link between the Saddam regime and the Bin-Ladenists. The man's power was created only by the coalition's intervention, and his connection to al Qaida was principally opportunistic. On this logic, the original mistake of the United States would have been to invade Afghanistan, thereby forcing Zarqawi to flee his camp outside Herat and repositioning him for a new combat elsewhere. Thus, fighting against al-Qaida is a mistake to begin with: It only encourages them. I think that (for once) Colin Powell was on to something. I know that Kurdish intelligence had been warning the coalition for some time before the invasion that former Afghanistan combatants were making their way into Iraq, which they saw as the next best chance to take advantage of a state that was both "failed" and "rogue." One might add that Iraq under Saddam was not an easy country to enter or to leave, and that no decision on who was allowed in would be taken by a junior officer. Furthermore, the Zarqawi elements appear to have found it their duty to join with the Ansar al-Islam splinter group in Kurdistan, which for some reason thought it was the highest duty of jihad to murder Saddam Hussein's main enemies. But perhaps I have a suspicious mind. We happen to know that the Baathist regime was recruiting and training foreign fighters and brigading them with the gruesome "Fedayeen Saddam." (This is incidentally a clue to what the successor regime in Iraq might have looked like as the Saddam-plus-sanctions state imploded and Baathism itself went into eclipse.) That bomb at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, for example, was no improvised explosive device. It was a huge charge of military-grade ordnance. Are we to believe that a newly arrived Bedouin Jordanian thug could so swiftly have scraped acquaintance with senior-level former Baathists? (The charges that destroyed the golden dome of the Shiites in Samarra were likewise rigged and set by professional military demolitionists.) Zarqawi's relations with Bin Laden are a little more tortuous. Mary Anne Weaver shows fairly convincingly that the two men did not get along and were in some sense rivals for the leadership. That's natural enough: Religious fanatics are schismatic by definition. Zarqawi's visceral hatred of the Shiite heresy was unsettling even to some more mainstream Wahhabi types, as was his undue relish in making snuff videos. (How nice to know that these people do have their standards.) However, when Zarqawi sought the franchise to call his group "al-Qaida in Mesopotamia," he was granted it with only a few admonitions. Most fascinating of all is the suggestion that Zarqawi was all along receiving help from the mullahs in Iran. He certainly seems to have been able to transit their territory (Herat is on the Iranian border with Afghanistan) and to replenish his forces by the same route. If this suggestive connection is proved, as Weaver suggests it will be, then we have the Shiite fundamentalists in Iran directly sponsoring the murderer of their co-religionists in Iraq. This in turn would mean that the Iranian mullahs stood convicted of the most brutish and cynical irresponsibility, in front of their own people, even as they try to distract attention from their covert nuclear ambitions. That would be worth knowing. And it would become rather difficult to argue that Bush had made them do it, though no doubt the attempt will be made. If we had withdrawn from Iraq already, as the "peace" movement has been demanding, then one of the most revolting criminals of all time would have been able to claim that he forced us to do it. That would have catapulted Iraq into Stone Age collapse and instated a psychopathic killer as the greatest Muslim soldier since Saladin. As it is, the man is ignominiously dead and his dirty connections a lot closer to being fully exposed. This seems like a good day's work to me. ** Good day's work indeed. Christopher Hitchens writes an absolute bulls-eye article here (on the same day of the incident!) that speaks for me on the subject in ways I can't articulate. Not only is Hitchens a masterful writer, he's a masterful public speaker as well, a rare combination. This phrase:"Religious fanatics are schismatic by definition."** is a thing of beauty. While a lot remains to be done, this is obviously a big, big step in the right direction. For progress to continue, this guy was numero uno on the 72 Virgins for Islamofascists Tour. Particularly sweet justice that his own rats ratted him out, too. Nice touch. A good day for Iraq, a good day for the free world, a good day for Good, a good day for the Coalition, a bad day for Satan, and a bad day for his supporters and admirers, secret or otherwise.

06-08-2006, 03:16 PM	#36 (permalink)
trickyy ►	i thought cnn's coverage was somewhat humorous. well, mainly just this list from their main page....

06-08-2006, 06:29 PM	#39 (permalink)
Bodyhammer86 Insane Location: Mattoon, Il	smooth, considering Bin Laden has never liked America from the get-go, I don't see why he would ever accept aid from an American source. Oh and let me ask you this: if Bin Laden said himself that he supposedly received training or whatever from the CIA, would you need a compelling argument to believe him? __________________ Pantera, Shadows Fall, Fear Factory, Opeth, Porcupine Tree, Dimmu Borgir, Watch Them Die, Motorhead, Beyond the Embrace, Himsa, Black Label Society, Machine Head, In Flames, Soilwork, Dark Tranquility, Children of Bodom, Norther, Nightrage, At the Gates, God Forbid, Killswitch Engage, Lamb of God, All That Remains, Anthrax, Mudvayne, Arch Enemy, and Old Man's Child \m/

06-09-2006, 05:10 PM	#40 (permalink)
docbungle It's all downhill from here Location: Denver	I don't view this as terribly important. It is symbolic, perhaps, but not in any meaningfull way. Symbolism is hyped up way too much in situations such as this. His death will change nothing. His followers will find someone else to fight for. The violence will not decline for any meaningfull period of time. Iraq will not be calmed. There will never be a functioning democratic society there. Not in the way the U.S would like there to be. The "terrorists" are killed and they kill us back. What makes anyone think the U.S. is going to be able to stop this? __________________ Bad Luck City