It is a sad day for mainstream journalists and liberals everywhere: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is facing the judgment of God for his crimes.
Zarqawi scurried away from Afghanistan when the U.S., the U.K., and Afghan militias destroyed his protectors’ government. Despite the Left’s fanatical insistence that Saddam Hussein had “nothing to do with al Qaeda,” Zarqawi set up shop in Baghdad two years before the war, as an honored guest of the regime. He was in bad company — Iraq had sheltered several other major international terrorists. Saddam also had extensive contacts (not to say alliances) with terrorists, directly funded Ansar al-Islam and used terror groups as proxies in his vicious struggles with the Kurds and Iranians.
Two years ago, Zarqawi announced that his band of merry thugs and murderers would be the Iraqi franchise of al Qaeda. They have killed hundreds of Americans and thousands upon thousands of innocent Iraqis. They are the avowed enemies of democracy and have promised to institute a Taliban-style theocracy in Iraq if they triumph.
Zarqawi and other terrorist leaders have depended upon the Left’s footsoldiers to broadcast news of their murders and bombings, with little context or explanation, and the Left has been happy to comply in order to harm the standing of President Bush and the war in Iraq. With yet another major terrorist undergoing the anger of Allah, it will be difficult to spin this as anything other than a victory, but I’m sure journalists will do their best. Within 24 hours, you will see stories that say, “Despite the Zarqawi’s death, the violence continued in Iraq….”
May the remaining terrorists repent of their crimes and turn themselves in to the civil authorities for temporal punishment. For those who do not, may God visit his wrath upon them for the innocent blood they have shed, and the discord they have sown.
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Mr. Johnson, I’m afraid that, in your zeal to justify this war, you’re making some basic historical mistakes. To wit: “Zarqawi scurried away from Afghanistan when the U.S., the U.K., and Afghan militias destroyed his protectors’ government. . . . Zarqawi set up shop in Baghdad two years before the war, as an honored guest of the regime.”
The war in Iraq was launched in March 2003. Two years before that was March 2001–six months before the September 11 attacks. The Bush administration itself did not claim that Zarqawi was present in Iraq until months after the start of the war.
Mr. Richert, I’m afraid that, in your zeal to disagree, you have lost your grasp on colloquial English. From the BBC: “[Zarqawi] is believed to have fled to Iraq in 2001 after a US missile strike on his Afghan base, though the report that he lost a leg in the attack has not been verified.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3483089.stm
When someone says “two years ago,” they don’t usually mean 24 months. In this case, it was 16 months, but since Zarqawi fled at the end of 2001, and the year 2002 intervened, it’s hardly a violation of common English usage to say “two years before the war.”
And more importantly, this doesn’t falsify the colossally obvious fact that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was a haven for terrorists, and a bastion of state-sponsored terrorism. It’s always a source of wonderment when people parse words as a substitute for making a real argument.
Well, Mr. Johnson, if you always use language so precisely, I’ll have to remember to take the rest of what you write with a grain of salt.
I’m afraid none of my six children, at 16 months, could be “colloquially” called two years old.
And speaking of “colossally obvious facts,” what about the colossally obvious fact that both the current pontiff (before he was pope) and the previous one opposed this war? (Before you ask for citations, you may find them here: http://chroniclesmagazine.org/cgi-bin/rockfordfiles.cgi/Catholicism/2005/01/14/The_Pontiff_and_the and here: http://www.catholicsfordemocracy.org/node/7170.)
Please don’t call me “Mr. Johnson,” it’s too formal. I prefer “Countess.”
When an event happened the year before last, people often say “two years ago” because there is rarely a material difference, especially if an event (such as Zarqawi’s arrival in Iraq) that cannot be dated with precision. Young children grow very quickly, so there is a material difference between 16 and 24 months. As an executive editor, you surely know that, right?
But you do want to change the subject to the legitimacy of the Iraq War, which is a subject we’ve visited many times on Catholic Light. I am aware that the current and former popes did not approve of the war. I respectfully disagree. I believe that destroying Saddam Hussein’s regime was an act of justice, and triumphing over the insurgent thugs and murderers will represent a major victory in the war against Islamofascism, and an advance for peace in the world. The restoration of peace and justice is the true object of warfare.
But to return to the subject: what’s your real point here? If there were no Iraq War, what do you think Zarqawi would be doing? Driving a taxi in Amman? Running a flower shop in Basra?
Postscript: If you are going to play the fact-checker, you should be a little more careful. You say, “The Bush administration itself did not claim that Zarqawi was present in Iraq until months after the start of the war.”
That is incorrect: according to CNN, “In February 2003, al-Zarqawi’s name was mentioned on a worldwide stage for the first time, associated with Iraq, when then-Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared before the U.N. Security Council to make his case for the U.S. invasion of Iraq.”
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/08/al.zarqawi.profile/index.html