Re: Zarqawi gets owned

[William]

You'd think that was the case from the frowns on the faces of the liberal newscasters this morning.

You're delusional

[William]

Zarqawi infiltrated Iraq after we invaded, so the so-called Iraq/al-Qaeda connection is still bogus. The MSM has failed reporting this critical fact.

Anyway, I'm glad he's gone, though-- as ever-- I'm not happy that we had to kill another human being, no matter how vile.

The hydra comment wasn't far off, as Zarqawi became something of a symbol, at no point wielding much power in the region. However, he was beloved by Sunni sympathizers, the remnants of Saddam's army, and random villagers about the country who found themselves in disarray. What power he had was already in decline, as people started realizing that it's no fun being blown up.

[William]

Bin Laden disliked Zarqawi, BTW:

    As they sat facing each other across the receiving room, a former Israeli intelligence official told me, 'it was loathing at first sight.'

According to several different accounts of the meeting, bin Laden distrusted and disliked al-Zarqawi immediately. He suspected that the group of Jordanian prisoners with whom al-Zarqawi had been granted amnesty earlier in the year had been infiltrated by Jordanian intelligence; something similar had occurred not long before with a Jordanian jihadist cell that had come to Afghanistan. Bin Laden also disliked al-Zarqawi's swagger and the green tattoos on his left hand, which he reportedly considered un-Islamic. Al-Zarqawi came across to bin Laden as aggressively ambitious, abrasive, and overbearing. His hatred of Shiites also seemed to bin Laden to be potentially divisive—which, of course, it was.

[William]

But even she knows that Saddam Hussein hated all forms of terrorists, as they threatened the stability of his rule. He was a vile dictator, nothing more or less.