Friday, June 09, 2006

Zarqawi

Recently posted by Riverbend:
So 'Zarqawi' is finally dead. It was an interesting piece of news that greeted us yesterday morning (or was it the day before? I've lost track of time…). I didn't bother with the pictures and film they showed of him because I, personally, have been saturated with images of broken, bleeding bodies... (And no- Iraqis aren't celebrating in the streets- worries over electricity, water, death squads, tests, corpses and extremists in high places prevail right now.) ...

How do I feel? To hell with Zarqawi (or Zayrkawi as Bush calls him). He was an American creation- he came along with them- they don't need him anymore, apparently. His influence was greatly exaggerated but he was the justification for every single family they killed through military strikes and troops. It was WMD at first, then it was Saddam, then it was Zarqawi. Who will it be now? Who will be the new excuse for killing and detaining Iraqis? Or is it that an excuse is no longer needed- they have freedom to do what they want. The slaughter in Haditha months ago proved that. "They don't need him anymore," our elderly neighbor waved the news away like he was shooing flies, "They have fifty Zarqawis in government."
The Cheney administration is butchering people in Iraq for one reason and one reason only - because it can. That is the alpha and the omega of our reason for being there. I like to think that at some point in the not-too-distant past, my nation was better than it is now, and that it will be possible to move it back to that point. Even if it does, this crime, reducing another nation to anarchy on a whim, is irreducible. This may not cause as many casualties among Americans as Viet Nam did, but it will do more harm to the nation than that earlier debacle.

Anglachel

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