Yeah, I don't have security clearance or anything, so I probably don't have anything to add to the "we killed Zarqawi" celebration, but that's never stopped me before.
Earlier this year, Orson Scott Card wrote:
What the Iraqi people needed to see was not just a show of American might, not just a lot of boots and guns. They needed to see the fundamental decency of American soldiers. ...
They have seen it. It doesn't get reported by journalists holed up in safe places in the city, but incidents like this one really happen: Some American soldiers on the street of an Iraqi city are near some Iraqi schoolgirls when a truck carrying insurgents pulls up to block the intersection: An ambush!
The Americans immediately and instinctively grab the girls and put them behind them, so that the Americans are shielding the girls with their own bodies.
This is not what the anti-American propaganda says Americans will do. And the insurgents, for reasons known only to them, get back in their truck and drive on.
Instead of vast arrays of storm troopers, they see young Americans behaving decently and bravely and kindly. It's part of our strategy. It works.
Interestingly, the Zarqawi operation was massivly coordinated with allies in the Middle East that don't always act like allies (Jordan comes to mind). However, the combination of Zarqawi attacking muslims (mostly Shi'ites, but also Egyptians and Jordanians), and
the general decency of US soldiers seems to be working in our favor:
What is remarkable about American soldiers is that, on average, there has never been a more humane group of soldiers in the history of the world. Sure, Yanks have been resented as occupiers or conquerors -- what occupiers or conquerors have not been? ...
With our highly targetable weaponry, America has virtually renounced damage to civilians as a method of war. In our ground engagements, our soldiers are able to be far more selective in targeting than any army in history.
No army has ever been as self-restrained as our army is today. And that is not because of pressure from the Left. It's because our soldiers are decent American citizens who are serving their country, not getting vengeance or indulging authority fantasies.
Just a few quotes
from Tony Snow's press conference:
Just to give you a little bit of context on this, Zarqawi moves into Baquba, into an area called HibHib, and what happens -- over the weekend, they found nine heads in a box. They beheaded people and left the heads in a box. They hijack a bus full of students and they slaughter the students. That's what Zarqawi brought to Baquba. ...
If you take a look, for instance, at some of the al Qaeda memos to Zarqawi, where you had direct pleas, will you stop beheading people, it's bad PR; ... the practice of killing Iraqi civilians, surprise surprise, is not all that popular with Iraqi civilians. ...
Why are you so hellbent on saying, we're going to get out tomorrow? ...
Q Do you expect this to affect the calls for immediate pullout one way or the other?
MR. SNOW: That's up to the people who are calling for immediate pullout. I mean, the people who are making calls about the war have to ask themselves a question, what is the best way to win? And I will let them answer for themselves.
UPDATE:
Interesting information about how al Qaida was seeing Iraq when Zarqawi was still alive.
