Death of a Terrorist

I heard the news this morning that an US Air Force strike had killed al-Qaida’s Iraq leader Al-Zarqawi and I was glad to hear that he had finally met his end. But the more I listened to various news outlets the more saddened I became.

They were not praising the success, but condemning the attack and the civilian casualties, small though they were.

I am not a ghoul or hard hearted person that doesn’t care about the fates of civilians, no. I do, however, recognize the tactics that Al-Zarqawi and others like him have used for centuries.

They rely on the fact that America (and its allies) go above and beyond in our attempts to minimize or eliminate civilian casualties … they understand that we do not like to kill innocent civilians and unarmed people … they know this and they use it to their advantage, as a weapon against our troops and as a shield against retaliation.

I would be willing to bet that our casualties in Iraq would probably be about half of what they are now if we were less concerned about minimizing civilian casualties. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try and minimize the loss of civilian life … that is something we should continue to do … rather I’m saying that no one will ever recognize that effort. We could go for a full year without so much as injuring a civilian and then 1 stray bullet hits a mother walking her child to the new school we built and America will be dragged through the streets in the press for ‘killing innocent civilians.’

Al-Zarqawi and his like purposefully surround themselves with civilians for that reason … knowingly using the people as a shield to make them harder to get at because ‘civilians might get hurt.’

The result is that sometimes you’ve got to take the shot, no mater that innocents might be harmed. You just try and take the best shot you can.

Al-Zarqawi was in a pretty well populated neighborhood surrounded by civilians in the hopes that we would be too concerned with civilian losses to strike at him … he was wrong.

We could have carpet bombed the neighborhood and wiped it flat in order to make sure that he didn’t escape … we did not … we dropped 2 500lb bombs directly into the house that he was known to be in. I am sorry that some civilians were injured and/or killed in the attack … but I put their blood firmly on the hands of Al-Zarqawi who chose to hide among them like a coward placing them in the line of fire to try and stem US retaliation against him.

Are we safer now? I would say that in the long term, yes the strike against Al-Zarqawi has made us safer. In the short term, on the other hand, I’d suggest we be very very alert.

That may seem backward to some … after all didn’t we just kill one of their top leaders? Shouldn’t that cause them to crumble to dust and blow away? No, Terrorists don’t work like that … A strike like that is more likely to cause them to become very active and visible … lots of attacks and the bigger the better to show that they are not out of the fight. Both to try and keep their own resolve up and to try and throw US public opinion back home further into the ‘we need to pull out now’ column ….

In the long term, however, we have showed those that might consider replacing Al-Zarqawi that we WILL find you and we WILL kill you and we will not stop until we do ….

And that IS a message that they understand.