June 8, 2006
Wanted: New face of evil, will train the right candidate
The official reaction to the news of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s death via American airstrike is somewhat muted. Our Fine President and his boys are trying hard to sound stern and recognize the importance of this accomplishment without completely avoiding the reality of the situation. Killing al-Zarqawi is not a magic bullet to end the bombings, beheadings, kidnapings and other atrocities plaguing Iraq. It’s actually a little refreshing to see Rumsfeld try his best to stay resolute and not make too big a deal of this. But I’m not sure this is evidence of a lesson learned and a more reality-based White House, I Our Fine President and the gang might be a little sad to see their nemesis gone.
It’s been a long chase and he’s been a terrific foil; all shadows and videotapes and countless acts of merciless violence and death. The administration first brought up the concept of al-Zarqawi just before the war began with the since debunked myth that he was the link between Saddam Hussain and Osama bin Laden. Throughout the last three years he’s been the only face of a complex enemy that can’t be summed up in a sound bite or easily explained to an unwilling audience. The loss of al-Zarqawi is good for the world as a whole, but now the boys in Washington are going to have a much more difficult time explaining why the violence has not waned or wavered throughout our three-year-old occupation.
Iraq is suffering through a slow-burning civil war because there was vast social injustice and discrimination under Hussain’s regime. The nation he ruled with fear and violence is really made up of a number of ethnic and religious peoples with a once suppressed majority in power and unhappy with a minority’s cruel rule of the past. That same minority wants back the power they lost. Within these two sides there are many smaller pieces each with their own grudges, goals and designs on power. Add to the mix lots of weapons that were poured into the country as we and the Soviet Union armed the region throughout previous decades.
Our Fine President never talks about bin Laden anymore. He changed the subject toward Hussain, but he was caught and now is simply an entertaining defendant in the wackiest trial in the Middle East. We caught just about all the other al-Qaida faces we’d been introduced to, showed them off in hilarious cracked-out celebrity style mug shots and have since vanished them from the face of the Earth never to see a trial for fear they’ll talk of what our government did to them. Or so they say. After Hussain was sufficiently clowned, al-Zarqawi was the new face of evil. Our PR army even tried to clown him a bit before we caught him playing up his blooper reel and making themselves look a bit silly for not catching such a buffoon sooner.
But now, Our Fine President and his posse are all alone with no new enemy to hold up for their public. I don’t think we’re quite ready for war with Iran or North Korea so the leaders of those nations are not likely to be the next target. Maybe, just maybe this success amidst the blunders in Iraq could force our government’s attention back toward our real enemy, bin Laden.