Abu Musab al-Zarqawi reportedly arrested in Iraq
Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi, whom the US occupation authorities declared to be the “target number one” in Iraq, has been arrested in the city of Baakuba, the Emirate newspaper al-Bayane reported on Tuesday referring to Kurdish sources.
This means all the violence is going to stop now, right? Just like it did when we took Baghdad? And killed Uday and Qusay? And captured Saddam Hussein? Everything’s going to be all better now right?
UPDATE: a day later and zero Western sources have picked up on this story, that I can find. Al-Jazeera joins Russia and China and a Kurdish news service in reporting it, is all. If this is any more than a rumor I’d expect someone in the West to be picking it up soon now. So I’m kinda doubtful here.
I completely understand your frustration, but he’s a Bad Guy who needed to be caught, and the violence won’t stop, any more than it stops when other Bad Guys are caught, no matter where they are, or why they’re bad.
Man will be Depraved until The End. Everything will be better in the end. If it’s not better, it’s not The End. ;)
Not sure that’s good theology.
I think we’ve got a lot of violence coming at us because when you use violence, you get violence back. We’ve been applying violence to Iraq, in both overt and covert forms, for a long, long time. This is the logical consequence of our escalating it.
If we don’t want violence, we’re going to have to stop using it ourselves. As long as we go in there killing and bombing, we can expect killing and bombing back at us. If not immediately, eventually.
If you do surgery with dirty, infected instruments, you make the patient worse. That’s what we are doing by trying to fight violent dictatorship with violent war.
The theology will forever be debatable. The core of THIS discussion is whether Man and Earth are getting better and better, or worse and worse. But I doubt we’ll figure it out in the comments section of a blog.
As for violence in Iraq for a long time, I’ve long wondered how much of our current situation is a direct result of the Crusades, with all their corruption and slaughter.
I wish people didn’t have to pay for the sins of their ancestors, but they do.
I don’t think people necessarily have to “pay for” the sins of their ancestors — they do have to deal with them, and decide whether to continue them or renounce them.
People on the whole may or may not get better or worse, but particular groups of people, and individuals, can become more violent or less violent, at any time they choose to.
I’m still looking for a second source to confirm that this has actually happened. Do you have one, Ed?
And fwiw, Saddam wasn’t directing the insurgency. Nor were his sons. This guy is/was. I think you and I both share opinions on the war itself, but when someone is captured who is immediately responsible for the deaths of so many hundreds of Americans and Iraqis, you can’t really compare it to the deaths/capture of the aforementioned.
I haven’t seen it anywhere else, which makes it seem less likely as the day goes on. We’ll see.
But Jonathan, we’ve been told that this guy is “behind the insurgency,” but do we really know that? He was trotted out as the big bad guy when Saddam wasn’t there to be the big bad guy anymore. Do we really know he’s behind it all? Does he really have the power to walk into Iraq and magically convince hordes of Iraqis to reduce their country to a bloodbath? Or might our own bombs and missiles and depleted uranium and overweening arrogance and disregard for law, and the thousands and thousands and thousands of civilian deaths in the war we created have something to do with it?
If he has been captured, I predict the violence will continue with no noticeable abatement and the powers that be will be forced to come up with a new bad guy.
Whether or not Zarqawi is caught, it is possible that the attacks will continue. There’s relatively recent precedent in the French attempt to control Algiers. Despite the fact that the French consistently managed to take out the leadership of the insurgency, they nonetheless failed to ultimately take the insurgency out–this despite a consistent technological and military advantage.
It’s documented in a film called The Battle of Algiers. This doesn’t mean that it will inevitably happen the same way in Iraq, but does point toward the possibility.
Ed- I agree somewhat, in that I think it’s highly likely that the violence will continue. There is no magic bullet. As for al-Zarqawi’s direct involvement in their orchestration, I dunno. I guess he has been kind of trotted out as Public Enemy #1, but before the insurgency, did anyone of us really know who this guy was? There must be a reason we do now.