To make myself clear, in Using Two 500-Pound Bombs to Kill Zarqawi Wasn’t Sporting, I am not judging the US for taking out a city block to get one man, public enemy number one, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, I am just saying that I don’t believe it is sporting so to do — dynamiting a pond to get a fish, effective but it’s just not cricket, wot.
Sadly, in a war in which you can’t use an American-made .50 sniper rifle to terminate public enemy number 1 with extreme prejudice at a mile-and-a-half, then you certainly must call in air support to get your man (at least until we can work the kinks out of the satellite-based pulse cannons, although, like the .50 sniper rifle, I bet pulse laser weapons from space won’t be okay with NATO either). Just because I omitted it in the first article, I wanted to congratulate our flyboys both for allowing a mad killer to meet his maker and for serving their country in a time of war.
More news on the death of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi at Washington Post, CNN, Fox News
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More context:
‘Bush did not mention that it was his invasion of Iraq that fully allied Zarqawi with al Qaeda. Prior to the war, terrorism experts considered Zarqawi more of a rival than a partner. And he did not mention that four years ago–before Zarqawi had become a major terrorist figure and before he had become responsible for the deaths of hundreds (if not thousands)–the Bush White House chose not to take him out when it could.
In March 2004, NBC News’ Jim Miklaszewski reported that the White House had three times in 2002 turned down a Pentagon request to attack Zarqawi, who then was believed to be running a weapons lab in northern Iraq–in territory not controlled by Saddam Hussein’s government. Miklaszewski wrote that “the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.” That is, the Bush White House let Zarqawi alone so it would have an easier time selling the war in Iraq.’
It is all about the long game, baby. Killing Zarqawi in March 2004 would have been too short game! If we had killed him in 2004 we wouldn’t have been able to blow him up yesterday. Sometimes it is better to save the best for last, or at least for when approval ratings are super low. What kind of strategist are you? So short-sighted.