Left-Wing Kooks

Just in case anyone wonders why liberals are sometimes referred to as "left-wing kooks," here is a little sampling of some of their reaction to the demise of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. All of these comments come from The Daily Kos , one of the more popular liberal blogs. There were over 400 comments on Zarqawi 's death, but this will give you an idea.

I've classified these comments into three basic groups:

      1. The U.S. should not have killed Zarqawi; we should have captured him and given him a fair trial.

      2. The U.S. had just been waiting for the time when the news of Zarqawi 's death would have maximum propaganda value for President Bush. He had been dead already for some time and we just had him on ice, waiting for the best time to drag him out in front of the media; either that or we had him as a prisoner and killed him when the time was right.

      3. Zarqawi never existed; he's a mythical figure invented by the Bush administration.

The comments in brackets […] are mine. The inappropriate language has been edited. Other than that, I've copied these comments exactly as they were written, spelling and grammatical errors included.


Group 1: Should have captured him and given him a fair trial:

Deserved

While I may agree with you that "This is the one monster who deserved to die." This method violates everything my America stands for. It violates the rule of law and invokes the rule of force in what should be a criminal, not a military, matter. To give Al-Queda status by declaring that this is a war, rather than arrest and prosecution for crimes committed, the Bush Administration has given Al-Queda much more status than they deserve.

by Johann


I've said that forever

Our biggest mistake was declaring "war" on Bin Laden, and thus elevating this f---ing loser creep and his freaky organization to the status of a 'nation.' Did we declare 'war' on David Koresh?

We should have focused on Bin Laden with laser-like law-enforcement capabilities and taken the b---ard out. We shouldn't have turned his brutal and evil attack into the whole fiasco that is Bush's "war."

Whackos get their info thru the Christian right. We'll bring them out to vote against something and make sure the public lets the whole thing slip past them.

by chemsmith


Finally, a voice of reason

I am not going to mourn the death of someone like al-Zarqawi. The world can do with far fewer people like him.

I am also not going to take joy in the death of another human being. What next, dancing in the streets? That will play well on al-Jazeera.

Is this what we have been reduced to? A nation that rejoices at the death and suffering of others. How are we to distinguish ourselves from al-Qaida? [Oh, I don't know, maybe by not flying airplanes into buildings full of civilians, or maybe by refraining from cutting people's heads off.] Will we have won the war on terror when we become the biggest terrorist.

I have to agree with Micheal Berg. al-Zarqawi will make a far better martyr than a human being. The cycle will continue.

We will not solve the problem of violence with greater violence.

We are not winning the war on terror, we are amplifying it.

On a daily basis, we affirm the foundations of terrorism, that fear, suffering, and death can force people to see your point of view, to agree with you.

I would much rather have seen al-Zarqawi stand trial for his actions, to sit and see the misery and suffering he used his life to create paraded before him and those like him. [Yeah, that really had an effect on Zacarias Moussaoui.]

I would much rather have seen him sit in a cell and contemplate his life or stew in his own hatred than to have gone out in a blaze of glory for his cause.

This would affirm the rule of law. This would say we are a nation trying to solve a problem, not a nation seeking revenge.

There is danger here though. A review of al-Zarqawi's actions is a review of our own. al-Zarqawi did not exist under Sadam, we created him, we made him famous. If not for the U.S. al-Zarqawi would have been nothing, as would have Sadam and Osama bin Laden. [So we caused Saddam to attack his own people with chemical weapons and Osama to orchestrate 9-11?]

al-Zarqawi is dead and a hundred al-Zarqawis compete to replace him. Mission accomplished.

by beerm o


Texas Death Machine

This is what we can expect from Bush Inc. and the Texas Death Machine: unilateral death with no possibility of appeal.

Al-Zarqawi should have been placed under arrest and tried in a court of law, preferably the The International Court of Justice at the Hague. He should have been turned over to the U.N. as soon as possible as opposed to what usually happens in these cases: being secreted away to some Rumsfeldian torture chamber where Cheney's fiends can unleash a bloodfeast.

by CheChe


Summary Execution American Style

Whatever happened to arrests, trials, lawyers and judges?

Oh yeah, this is Bush 2006, not 21st Century America.

Whatever. There is no glee in death. There is no joy in executions. There is no "military justice".

The Constitution died the day Bush was choosen by the Supreme Court. I guess my tears are dry now.

by weirdscenes

Group 2: U.S. has just been waiting for the time when the news will have maximum propaganda value for President Bush:

next up -- terror alert

i've been waiting for one for some time now since Bush's numbers have been in the dumps. As for the Z guy, I'm not thoroughly convinced of the story. It hard to believe anything this administration has to say anymore. But, I must admit this is one mighty fine rabbit to pull out of their a** to try and save their hides come November.

by blue drop


Perfect timing

just in time to hide the fact they're trying to cut the estate tax for the uber wealthy and plunge us into a trillion dollar more of debt.

by DisNoir36


yes the timing of Zarqawi's death

does seem too good for Bush to be true. It reeks of distraction politics.

After all, when even the WaPo admitted not long ago that the Pentagon was "playing up" the threat of Zarqawi (see article below), one must wonder (as many of us already have) whether or not the WaPo's confession can be translated to mean that no individual named Zarqawi in fact ever existed: [Since when has the Washington Post had the authority to admit and confess to what the Pentagon is doing?]

perhaps (just perhaps) he was a psyops fabrication or a composite that was based only partially on reality (hence the Jordanian charges).

I will await more details about his murder to see if I am being overly paranoid, but Zarqawi has proved too cartoonish a figure for far too long...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawi
Jordanian Painted As Foreign Threat To Iraq's Stability

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 10, 2006; A01

"...The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to internal military documents and officers familiar with the program. The effort has raised his profile in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have overstated his importance and helped the Bush administration tie the war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The documents state that the U.S. campaign aims to turn Iraqis against Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, by playing on their perceived dislike of foreigners. U.S. authorities claim some success with that effort, noting that some tribal Iraqi insurgents have attacked Zarqawi loyalists..."

by gnat


I suppose Osama will be caught in October,...

...just in time for the November elections. [They predicted the same thing for the 2004 general election.]

by Really Liberal Democrat


Wow...

Cool. Just in time for the elections.
My cynicism is on 'high' this morning. Sorry.

A vote for GOP is a vote for WW3

by RElland


amen

like all of this administration's great victories in iraq, this one comes at a rather convenient time, no? hate-gay amendment tanking and suddenly it's hey, look at this shiny thing over here!

and if it really is true, i get cold comfort from it. extra-judicial execution is murder. ask the israelis how that's been working for them for the last 30 years.

better for us, the iraqis and the world if this evil thug had been dragged before a court to face a judge and a jury of his peers. you know, like they used to do in america? [I could have put this comment here or above. It would fit either place.]

by Soodi


all a set up

The US already had Zarqawi in custody. He was one of the high-value prisoners kept from Red Cross scrutiny for national security reasons (those reasons being his value for psychological ops like the recently released "bonus" footage that the army showed of Zarqawi not knowing how to properly load or fire his own gun, despite all those years in terrorist training camp). Because there's a lot of political heat on Bush at the moment, they killed him and are now making a triumphant noise about it. This has now crossed the line into blatant treason. [Wow! Is the word "kook" strong enough for this guy?]

by meirux


So, I see Bush finally decided to play his ace...

in the hole. Well, one of his aces-in-the-hole.

I wonder when Bush will finally decide to trot out bin Laden from wherever he's being kept and kill him off, too?

by Seemabes

Group 3: Zarqawi never existed:

Of course, there is no proof anywhere that this..

guy actually exists.

Who knows, I mean all we've really seen is some pictures and video of him in the media, which could easily been anyone from anywhere.

And it's not just me, many people have said he is a myth... [many of your fellow kooks]

And to believe that he was any sort of a factor in Iraq is just bunk, he would have been a nat on a flys a** in terms of how important he is to the violence and anarchy in Iraq, hell he was probably in hiding from the militias anyway...

That is of course, if he even existed at all...

by laughingriver


yes, i was thinking about that

it's never been ascertained that there is/was in fact such a person. but i guess we now know that there was, huh? i mean, his fingers survived the bombing raid and they got a set of prints off him! and even if they hadn't, his face was untouched, and they got a match with a face recognition scan!

people of a certain age (48 and older) may remember how "carlos the jackel" was responsible for each and every act of terror committed in the world in the late 1970s, and how he could snap his fingers in a safehouse in caracas or cairo and spontaneously kill dozens of people in europe and israel. awful as these people are, the MSM (and it should be said the US government) turns them into omnipotent bogeymen capable of bringing down all of western civilization with a coded phone message. it's an insult to the intelligence, but millions of people like to be insulted in this fashion, it seems. they always fall for it.

by hind


Agreed..

It's really interesting that people are so eager to lap up this announced news on face value without any proof whatsoever.

Show me a corpse with a DNA match, and then we can talk. And even then, I don't see how this helps things at the end of the day.

by SpaceCowboy


Zarqawi is not dead

because he was never alive. Purely a PsyOp boogeyman.

by Cartoon Peril


Did 'Zarqawi' Even Exist?

I've never been satistactorily convinced that this so-called "Zarqawi" guy even exists.

The pictures and clips they are constantly showing of him never seem to be the same person.

by CheChe


Osama who?

what ever happened to that guy?

I seem to recall he was important for a reason, but everybody seems to have forgotten...

So let's make up a new bad guy... and then pretend we killed him...
Yeah... that's the plan...

Call me cynical. I really don't believe al-zarqawi ever even existed.

by Team Slacker

That's just a small sampling. These people are truly whacko!