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Zarqawi's Final Atrocities
Human Events Online ^ | 06/08/06 | Richard Minitier

Posted on 06/08/2006 2:17:06 PM PDT by MikeA

If you are looking for the legacy of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, do not look in the concrete rubble of so-called safe house in Baqubah that became his final resting place. Instead, look less than 10 miles to the west, on the side of the road in the desert town of Hadid, for a pile of cardboard banana boxes.

Inside those boxes were nine human heads.

Some of the heads still had their blindfolds on. Iraqi police are still attempting to identify the murdered men.

Days earlier, in Baquba, Iraqi police found another eight severed heads. One of those heads belonged to a prominent Sunni Muslim imam, who preached peace and tolerance.

For the past few weeks, U.S. military intelligence analysts had seen a spike in beheadings—a specialty of the Zarqawi network.

Of course, Zarqawi will be remembered chiefly as a beheader. He apparently enjoyed wielding the knife and slowly hacking off the head of Nicholas Berg of West Chester, Pa. In a video that Zarqawi’s followers proudly posted on the Internet, Berg screams in pain in seven long minutes as Zarqawi saws through his neck.

Zarqawi also is believed to have beheaded Eugene Armstrong of Hillsdale, Mich.

Zarqawi is also believed to have beheaded Ken Bigley, the Liverpool, U.K.-based engineer who came to Iraq “to help people,” in October 2004.

Now it is Zarqawi’s own head that is capturing the world’s attention. Displaying his head has several immediate benefits: it boosts the morale of Iraqi police and military officers, who have been taking increased casualties in the past few weeks and were spooked by the Zarqawi video released last month. In that video, Zarqawi made a point of firing an M-4 and an M-249—two automatic weapons that are only used by U.S. forces. If he can take guns from the hands of Americans he killed and turn those weapons against the world’s sole remaining superpower, maybe Zarqawi is invincible after all. Yesterday’s air strike has already reversed the downward spiral of Iraqi police morale, one source told me.

Nor can Zarqawi be easily replaced. He had a kind of rogue-ish charisma that resonated in the Arab world. He was featured in Arabic-language pop songs and feted on Arabic soap operas. His persona drew hundreds of Saudis, Syrians and other foreigners to fight alongside him in Iraq. There is simply no one else in the organization who has his aura.

At the very least, the beheadings and suicide attacks will decline sharply.

Mr. Miniter is author of Disinformation: 22 Media Myths That Undermine the War on Terror and "Losing bin Laden."


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: armstrong; baqubah; beheadings; berg; bigley; decapitation; engineer; eugenearmstrong; hesdeadjim; hillsdale; iraq; kenbigley; liverpool; m249; m4; nicholasberg; nickberg; uk; video; wot; zarqawi; zarqawikilled; zarqawivideo
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To: Verginius Rufus

Mr. Berg is certifiably nuts.


81 posted on 06/08/2006 8:34:01 PM PDT by oyez (Appeasement is insanity)
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To: Muzzle_em

"He has truly lost his mind."

Probably at birth.


82 posted on 06/08/2006 8:44:11 PM PDT by TET1968 (SI MINOR PLUS EST ERGO NIHIL SUNT OMNIA)
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To: oyez

Mr. Berg being nuts doesn't mean he couldn't win the Democratic nomination...consider Pete Stark, Dennis Kucinich, or Cynthia McKinney, among others. Moonbats are part of the Democratic coalition.


83 posted on 06/08/2006 8:44:44 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Texas Songwriter

And the MSM hates just as much. I was watching CNN and the predictions are doom and gloom, like the military should never have killed the Z man for fear of repercussions, and the civil war is raging with more causalities than ever. Berg and Murtha and all the "experts" who paint the worse picture possible... I couldn't watch any more. These people don't see it as a victory at all. But I will celebrate because it is worthy event that one less evil bastard is gone!


84 posted on 06/08/2006 8:47:22 PM PDT by Blind Eye Jones
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To: oyez

Someone needs to Photoshop that picture with "Bush's Fault" and sell T shirts and posters.


85 posted on 06/08/2006 8:47:45 PM PDT by HereInTheHeartland (Never bring a knife to a gun fight, or a Democrat to do serious work...)
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To: Chucky is a girlie man
Good post--here is a sample of what that Master Strategist came up with...

...but I have to wonder why US and Iraqi forces didn't try to capture him?...Granted a capture would be risky, there could be a firefight, there could be booby traps, and the targets could somehow escape, but those are risks the patrols face every day.

WOW! That's BRILLIANT!! What an analysis!! Who would have figured he might ESCAPE? Or foreseen the RISK...this guy is a GENIUS (sarc. alert)

86 posted on 06/08/2006 8:54:57 PM PDT by Buffalo49 (September 11--Never Forget)
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To: Buffalo49

I saw that post..and the first thing I thought was...if we had gone in and had a firefight, we lose 10-15/20 soldiers, they'd be complaining that since we knew where he was, why didn't we just drop a bomb..

sound about right?? they're experts at talking out of both sides of their mouths..


87 posted on 06/08/2006 9:02:50 PM PDT by GeorgiaDawg32 (I'm a Patriot Guard Rider..www.patriotguard.org for info)
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To: Alouette
I hope it was a long and excruciatingly painful 10 minutes.

Whether it was or wasn't, the next few hundred million years of eternity in hell will be more than excruciating for him. Then the next few hundred million can begin, and then the ne..........

88 posted on 06/08/2006 9:08:26 PM PDT by epow
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To: GeorgiaDawg32


Now all that's left is to bury his rotten corpse in a gutted pig's carcass and SRAIGHT TO HELL HE GOES!!
89 posted on 06/08/2006 9:09:56 PM PDT by One4Indictment
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To: One4Indictment

his last words..."does anyone else hear anything??"


90 posted on 06/08/2006 9:14:22 PM PDT by GeorgiaDawg32 (I'm a Patriot Guard Rider..www.patriotguard.org for info)
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To: MikeA
The right thing was done. He was a coward, and a murderer (that definition is the killing of innocents). He was never a soldier, he was a coward, murdering, zealot of a religion that permits that kind of thing. He deserved much worse than he got. But, he's dead now and I could care less. It's like squashing a bug.

May his 72 virgins all be Helen Thomas. Tell me where they will bury him and I'll get a 6 pack of beer and come to piss on his grave, over, and over, and over again.

91 posted on 06/08/2006 9:18:14 PM PDT by timydnuc (I'll die on my feet before I'll live on my knees.)
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To: Verginius Rufus
That is frightening.
92 posted on 06/08/2006 9:20:00 PM PDT by oyez (Appeasement is insanity)
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To: AmericanInTokyo

ROTFLMAO!!!


93 posted on 06/08/2006 9:21:32 PM PDT by Protect the Bill of Rights
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To: AmericanInTokyo

There is no sense of eternal peace in that face is there? I think eternal damnation is a good descriptive.


94 posted on 06/08/2006 9:23:16 PM PDT by Protect the Bill of Rights
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To: MikeA
Plus it means he probably was alive for just a minute or so after being nailed which is nice to know, so he had a minute or so to realize we finally nailed him, that we won and he lost.

I hope it was several long and painful minutes!

95 posted on 06/08/2006 9:23:27 PM PDT by Cementjungle
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To: don-o

WOnder what the message was on the bomb.
Oink oink works for me.


96 posted on 06/08/2006 9:24:36 PM PDT by Protect the Bill of Rights
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To: MikeA
International reaction

An American Expat in Southeast Asia

97 posted on 06/08/2006 9:25:43 PM PDT by expatguy (http://laotze.blogspot.com/)
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To: oyez

Now that's one dead piece of crap.

Wave bye-bye to the dead piece of crap.

98 posted on 06/08/2006 9:29:43 PM PDT by SerpentDove (We will not stand by and allow politicians to destroy our country through open borders.)
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To: AgThorn
Michael Berg and Cindy Sheehan Two people capitalizing on their offsprings death ...

I wonder what Ann Coulter thinks of THESE guys!!!

99 posted on 06/08/2006 9:35:54 PM PDT by It's me
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To: MikeA

Awesome! That explains the bloody mashed potatoes coming out his nose!


100 posted on 06/08/2006 9:45:36 PM PDT by blasater1960 ( Ishmaelites...Still a wild-ass of a people....)
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