He's Dead~No, He's Alive~No, He's Really Dead

Zarqawi, even in death, has more lives than the proverbial cat, & look for even more resurrections in American elections this fall.

This article from the Washington Post recounts the difficulty the U.S., overeager to launch the first news of its successes in taking the nefarious evildoer out, is encountering now.

First, he was killed in the airstrike—much more convenient, palatable to the mind's eye & a lot less politically messy.

Later, it seems that he actually survived briefly, but died later of the wounds he received in the attack.

But wait, there’s more: an eyewitness claims to have seen American forces beating him to death after he survived the airstrike.

“The man, who lived near the scene of the bombing, told AP Television News on Friday that he saw US soldiers beating an injured man resembling al-Zarqawi until blood flowed from the victim's nose.

“When asked about the man's allegations, military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said he would check. In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Jeffrey Gordon said Saturday he was unaware of the claim. ‘We frequently receive allegations which prove to be unsubstantiated,’ Gordon said.

“The Iraqi, identified only as Mohammed, said residents put a bearded man in an ambulance before US forces arrived. He said the man was found lying next to an irrigation canal.

"'He was still alive. We put him in the ambulance, but when the Americans arrived they took him out of the ambulance, they beat him on his stomach and wrapped his head with his dishdasha, then they stomped on his stomach and his chest until he died and blood came out of his nose,’ Mohammed said, without saying how he knew the man was dead. (A dishdasha is a traditional Arab robe.”

If any of this about the big Z surviving the strike is true, why didn’t we capture him alive for the intelligence value?

Or, better yet, force him to stand trial for war crimes, & don’t give me that bullshit about you can’t try an “enemy combatant” for war crimes because that characterization isn’t recognized by war crimes tribunals. Lest we, collectively, have lost our good American sense or have contracted amnesia en masse, that's a completely disingenuously made-up appellation precisely to avoid having to play by the well-established rules of war. Ones that, by the way, served well in wars more valiantly & nobly faught. (If it looks like a duck & quacks like a duck …well).

Not much mystery there.

Dead men can’t testify.

And again, that really annoying question, why hasn’t this happened earlier?

Because “The Man” in the White House dropped the ball, that’s why. Too focused on invading Iraq under the guise of combatting terrorism instead of actually addressing the terrorists themselves. http://www.slate.com/id/2108880/