Ding Dong the Murderer is Dead

Let's Celebrate
In what may be the coming of age for the Iraqi forces and their continued growth in their own security the biggest organizer against their success, al-Zarqawi, was killed. Good.

Not good that a person was killed. Good that a murdering terrorist will not kill anymore. It is like the death penalty on a global jurisdiction.

So let's celebrate...the leader is not leading anymore. It is the same celebration as when Saddam was toppled.

A few (very few?) on the Left will dismiss this because it is not bin Laden. Well, considering the same bounty was on al-Zarqawi's head as is on bin Laden's head ($25 million) I think the kill was important and significant.

Lots of stories about the killing...on Google News there are, in the first 24 hours, over 2,000 related stories. That is significantly more than a normal story...so even the media recognize this is important.

So let's celebrate. Let's enjoy the moment. There was a sudden moment in the enemy where there is a void in the leadership. The void will be filled, but maybe not as well. It will take time for the enemy to return to its level of organization. Yes, they are cells, but al-Zarqawi's presence and oversight will have to be replaced and that will take time.

Another benefit of this victory comes from the very nature of the organization the enemy. Very few people know entire plans. Most of the terrorists only know spokes of the whole wheel. The people at the top of an operation know the whole wheel of operations and then conduct the orchestration of moving all the spokes in unison. How many various operations have died with al-Zarqawi.

"Terminated" and "open war"
Some thoughts about the story itself...

"Today Zarqawi has been terminated," Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told a televised news conference also attended by Gen George Casey, the highest-ranking American commander in Iraq, and other senior officials.

"Every time a Zarqawi appears we will kill him," Mr Maliki added. "We will continue confronting whoever follows his path. It is an open war between us."

I like the language here.

"Terminated" and "open war".

There is recognition from the leaders actually in Iraq that demonstrate what is really going on. It is a war against the Muslim "extremists" looking to purge the world of non-Muslims and non-Muslim "extremists". One of the front lines happens to be Iraq and the Iraqi leader understands that.

"Terminated" and "open war".

We are not in Iraq because of oil. We are not in Iraq to finish "daddy Bush's unfinished job", per se...well, kind of we are. Bush I should have gone all the way to Bahgdad, but we are not there to repair his legacy. We are there to prevent unstable groups/countries from maintaining, developing or obtaining weapons of mass destruction. We are there to move the front line from the U.S. (where it was on 9/11/01) and Europe (where it is secondarily) to their backyards. We are there to put pressure on the rest of the enemy like Iran and North Korea...and to send a message to the "friends" that are not friend like Saudi Arabia.

"Terminated" and "open war".

Iraqis get it. Why do so many in our country fail to get it? Perhaps making such good progress in the War against Terrorists is a double edged blade. We are too effective at keeping the terrorism from our own nation and the short-memory public forgets the magnitude of the imperative to kill our enemy. Iraqis are there, the war is not here. Iraqis understand the need for terms like "terminated" and "open war", here people won't even use the word "Muslim" to describe the terrorists caught in Canada.

Let's Not Celebrate Too Soon
Let us not forget that we are in a war. Our enemies are direct and indirect. The direct enemies were struck with a big blow. But they will recover a bit. al-Zarqawi is now a martyr and that will eventually energize his terrorists. We have won a battle but there is a war yet to fight and win.

But our other concern needs to be the indirect enemies. Remember, the people who swore up and down that Iraq was in a civil war, what a disaster Iraq has been, we should get out because there is nothing we can achieve...on and on. They will not be satisfied at all with any development. (Nor will they credit Bush for any part of the successes.) So keep in mind that while the real enemy has been dealt a serious blow it comes despite their indirect support from the Left of the U.S. and the Left of Europe and the Left of Africa and the Left of Asia and the Left of, well the World. While the real enemy has been dealt a serious blow their recovery from it will be aided by the continued droning (falsely) of how nothing in Iraq is going right. It will be aided by the continued calling for an end to assisting Iraq's forces with our own. Their recovery will be aided by the constant naysaying of the Left...especially the Left in the United States.

As I alluded to earlier many people here do not understand the magnitude of our war...or the realities of war. Remember Nick Berg? He was beheaded by terrorists, by the enemy. His dad had this to say about al-Zarqawi:

Berg, whose son Nick was beheaded in Iraq in 2004, had a different reaction to the news that al-Zarqawi had been killed in an air strike, saying he felt “no sense of relief, just sadness that another human being had to die.”

“As the poet John Donne said, any man’s death diminishes me. It doesn’t bring my son back, and this will just bring a new cycle of revenge killings,” Michael Berg said.

Al-Zarqawi’s organization took responsibility for the execution of Nick Berg. When an Islamist Web site showed a video of a man severing Berg’s head, the CIA said al-Zarqawi was probably the one wielding the knife.

The video was published with a caption saying: “Abu Musab al-Zarqawi slaughtering an American.”

Worse than that is he would rather believe in the terrorists and the enemy than his own protectors.

Michael Berg said he was not convinced that al-Zarqawi’s organization was responsible for his son’s killing. “I have been lied to by my own government,” he said.

Asked what would give him satisfaction, Berg, an anti-war activist and candidate for Congress with the Green Party, said: “The end of the war and getting rid of George Bush.”

This is why I say the Left is an indirect enemy in this war. Berg's blindness in the situation may be caused directly by his partisanship...but its effects are the same. We need to kill and destroy our direct enemy, the terrorists; and disarm the indirect enemy, the sympathizers, the rationalizers, the peaceniks, etc., who are predominately on the Left (though growing on the Right as well).

So, celebrate the removal of a leader of the enemy for a bit. Just remember that we won one inning in the baseball game that is the War against Terrorism.