I think you raise a very good point, but have you considered that we’ve tried the alternative tactic over and over again without success?
This zarquawi might be little more than a front man. i saw his video 9of him trying to fire an automatic rifle). it was obvious that he knew nothing about using a rifle-a friend had to help him. So is he all that important? Who knows, but maybe a lot of the group’s plans died with him-I hope that was the case.
This is absurd. The few Iraqis I’ve met IRL (a handful, admittedly) hated that man with more virtriol than I can properly describe. ANYTHING, in their opinion, is better than Saddam. Granted, currently, it’s not a whole lot better, but…
Since the next bomb went off this morning, killing 19, I guess the answer is not very long.
Everything ‘makes a difference’ in the trivial sense that it changes something. If I get out of my chair and walk across the room and back, I’m burining a few calories that I would otherwise not have burned. Will it make a meaningful difference in my efforts to keep my weight under control? Maybe if I make a habit of it; certainly not if I don’t.
Getting back to Iraq, does Zarqawi’s death increase the likelihood of a more reasonable outcome in Iraq? Does it bring closer the day when the violence will recede to levels akin to that of a civilized society? Something along those lines is what I’m asking about when I ask, “Does it make a difference?”
The reality is that Iraq’s basic security situation has been getting steadily worse for the past three years. Has it been getting worse over time because Zarqawi’s organization has been getting more effective over time? Or has it been getting worse, first due to a Sunni insurgency that was going to happen anyway, and more recently due to the upswing of sectarian strife between Sunni and Shia? If the latter, it’s tough to explain why Zarqawi’s death, desirable though it is, will make a difference in what’s happening with Iraq when summer ends.
Why ? And so what ? The troops stand around while we bomb things; big whoop. As for morale, that just makes them more likely to fight in the upcoming civil war.
As for the civilians, what makes you think they don’t regard this all as a propaganda show ? As pointed out, we left him around on purpose; I doubt they are going to regard anything we do as well meaning or useful. I don’t, and I haven’t been subjected to conquest or had family members killed or tortured by Americans.
Not to mention, I’m sure they’ll notice we droped a nice, indiscriminate bomb instead of sending in ground troops; after all, who cares if we kill dozens of innocents and maybe miss the target; it’s not like Iraqi lives matter. < on preview > Like Gozu said >
To be blunt, this is like the leader of the Crips getting shot by the Mafia; it’s no reason to cheer the Mafia.
And I’ve read interviews with Iraqis saying the opposite. Lacking a poll ( not done by Americans or the Iraqi government, obviously ), I guess we’ll have to guess.
How recently did you meet thses Iraqis ? If it was a while ago, we’ve had time since then to catch up in the hatred. From what I see, we’re somewhat less tyrannical, but far less competent at running Iraq, and you suffer and/or die just as easily from incompetence. Not to mention, he kept the religious loons in check; were any of those Iraqis you talked to women ?
Why is that absurd? Is it any less dangerous to be an Iraqi now than it was four or five years ago? Sure doesn’t look like it.
Well, perhaps an actual poll will make you more cautious about making this type of “guess” in the future.
Poll taken in January of '06 by World Public Opinion.
Well, judging by his posting record and his attitude in general towards evidence, probably not.
I’m sure nobody would be surprised if there’s retaliation, possibly including the bomb this morning. The bigger question is ‘how large a role was he playing at this point?’ When the news was breaking early this morning, for example, ABC quoted someone in the military as saying that most of the violence in Iraq right now is sectarian and not really related to Zarqawi or Al Qaeda. That would lead you to think this won’t make a big difference in the actual fighting. But even with that, maybe it will have an effect on morale for the military and for civilians in Iraq.
Would you care to be more specific in your insults ?
Understanding we’re both going off purely anecdotal evidence, me calling the statement “absurd” was, well, a bit hasty. To clarify:
One of the people I’m referring to (Yara is her name) is, obviously, a woman and with whom I’ve spoke most extensively. I met her during the lead-up to the war & we still get coffees these days. How she tells it is that the Shiite population, being far more repressed & harrassed during the days of Hussein, were & are happy to have him out of power. Since the majority of his ire was focused on that sect, it makes sense that they’d be the ones most pleased that he’s gone. Of course, on the flip side, I’d wager the interviews you’ve read were with Sunnis, who, while not necessarily well-off during Saddam’s rule, could more or less assume that if they kept their heads down, they’d be safe. Again, this is how she tells it and, for the record, left the country between our early '90s attacks & the current ones.
As for this: (sorry, just copy & pasted—didn’t get the author)
Apologized about the “absurd” thing above. I think it’s less dangerous in some ways, more dangerous in others, but, overall, there can at least be hope for change, whereas when you had Saddam in power, there was none. Not thoroughly uplifting, I know, but I’d choose uneasy transitional partial-chaos over tyrannical, life-threatening order. I realize reasonable people can disagree about that too.
So has madmonkl28. And?
-Joe
William Clarke, who is in a great position both to know and to talk about it, says it won’t make much difference either way.
On a more hopeful note, it seems the “new, legitimate Iraqi government” controls almost all the Green Zone by now. The rest of the country is sure to follow.
Zarqawi Killed - Will It Make A Difference?
I guess it depends on what ‘A Difference’ is:
From the perspective of the overall strategic (propaganda) war between AQ and the US? Certainly. Its a major propaganda chip for the US to have wacked him. Morale wise its a blow to AQ that one of their ‘top guys’ got himself wacked deliberately by the US (i.e. we hunted him and got him in the end), while its a morale boost to the US that we managed to get so high profile a target. At the strategic level its the equivelent of taking out a major general on the opposing side. Doesn’t matter if AZ was or wasn’t REALLY a major general…he had been put forward as a mover and a shaker in AQ and taking him out is a positive to the US and a negative to AQ.
From the perspective of the war/insurgency in Iraq? I doubt it will make much of a ripple there to be honest. As others have pointed out someone (and maybe someone less bloodthirsty but more intelligent…deadly combination for us) will take his place and probably already has. AQ, while bloody bastards, are really bit players in the Iraqi drama in any case (IMHO)…the real insurgency seems to be from the Sunni’s. And I doubt that AZ’s death will make any difference to them one way or the other.
From the perspective of the tactical war between the US and AQ…or to rephrase the tactical terrorist activities of AQ against whoever? I don’t think it will effect these much if at all. No matter how important AZ was (and no one REALLY knows the answer to this…except those key players in AQ) terrorist organizations by their very nature are decentralized…i.e. tactical decisions are pretty much in the hands of the individual cells and even strategic decisions are probably few and far between. (my post is my cite 
…I read this months ago in an analysis on AQ and how its organized but I’m too lazy to look it up). So I don’t think there will be much impact on the tactical side of AQ from AZ’s death.
-XT
And accepted.
I’m not quite a Hobbesian on this issue, but my take is that it still takes a pretty exceptional dictatorship to be worse than plain old anarchy and chaos. In the former, you only have to worry about one bastard. In the latter, danger is every which way.
Regardless of how things work out in Iraq, ISTM that 50% of the population is inevitably worse off in the future than under Saddam. That would be the women of Iraq, of course, who, whether Sunni or Shia, appear destined to live under some variant of sharia law where they will have to bury themselves under cloth, even in the heat of an Iraqi summer, where they cannot go anywhere unescorted, where they are regarded as dependent creatures who aren’t allowed lives of their own. And that’s in some hypothetical future when it’s safe for them to walk from their doorstep to the grocer.
AQ isn’t a very significant factor in Iraq anyway, as evidenced by William Clarke’s remarks in ElvisL1ves’ cite. Its effects on the insurgency in Iraq will be negligible at best.
You have to be careful with Hitchens, though. He loves a rhetorical flourish so much that he frequently winds up making utterly dishonest arguments. For example, in his most recent piece, he argues that Zarqawi was working for Saddam through the 90s. His evidence is that the Kurdish Ansar al-Islam started killing “Saddam’s enemies.” The people Ansar were killing were certainly Saddam’s enemies, but that’s a set of which “Kurds” is a subset. Hitchens knows full well that when an armed resistance movement has a some success, it’s members usually splinter and start killing each other over the meager spoils. He phrased it the way he did to make it seem like the only explanation could be that they were in Saddam’s employ.
Will it make a difference? Nope, not really. It’s not a country, it’s an idea. There’s no flag, there’s no army. There’s nothing to declare war against (in the traditional definition).
So one head is off the hydra. For now. It remains to be seen whether or not this head ends up a martyr as Bin Laden is/has.
The problem is, that bastard happens to hate a large portion of his population (Shiites) and has no problem exterminating them for whatever reason he sees fit. Basically, as it’s been explained to me, Shiites rightly feared for their lives and the government actively sought them out for questioning, torture, or extermination. So, actually, it sounds pretty similar to the current situation, in a sad way: your average Iraqi is simply not safe, whether at the hands of a dictator or sectarian violence or stray bombing or any other number of hazards. The only source of optimism is the hope that a decent, more humane government will be solidified and respected without having to resort to martial law…which, right now, doesn’t seem incredibly likely.
Continuing:
Again, I just have to stress that I don’t believe life under Saddam was safe. The violence I think was certainly less random, but it wasn’t necessarily safe to do anything, especially if you’d vocally oppossed the government. So, again, while now it’s random violence, it used to be systematic, which to me isn’t any better. It’s just a different terrible scenario.
As for the point about Sharia law, well, can’t argue. I’m also a bit ignorant on if that’s an innevitability (the ennacting of Sharia law, that is) or if that can presumably be avoided in favor of treating women like human beings. I’m not holding my breath though.