Why Al Zarqawi’s Death Is No Victory
By Sally Bishai
You may have already heard about the death of the godfather of al Qaeda’s
(Check http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/08/iraq.al.zarqawi/index.html or http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5058304.stm for more facts.)
See, just because one bad apple is out of the way doesn’t mean that the world is automatically a safe place. Consider that:
1- Osama’s still around.
2- Zarqawi may not have been the baddest of the bad. (In other words, we have no way of knowing who was the driving force behind him, if any, and if this mentor is still around. Osama notwithstanding, obviously.) But let’s pretend that Zarqawi was one of the Top 5 Beasts of All Time, and that this really was a coup... May we never forget that:
3- For every one that dies, another hundred (may) spring up in his place.
4- Some of these hundred might be even more bloodthirsty than he was.
5- One of these might be so ambitious that he’ll try to prove himself by doing something even worse than Zarqawi did, in the interest of proving “there’s a new sheriff in town.” And in the interest of “making his mark,” as well as several other hackneyed clichés that I won’t pain you by including here.
Actually, even if someone got Osama, aka “The Big One,” there’s always the chance that:
1- He was merely a poster child and the real beast is still out there, Or, he’s the real thing and:
2- As in my above analysis, “The New Guy” would just try to make a bigger splash, both for his own ego and for the task of establishing his new “sovereignty.” And for feeding his own hatred.
At any rate, let’s hope I’m totally wrong in my Sally-istic (pessimistic.. I mean “realistic”) view here, but if I’m not, I send many prayers for safety and peace to all of the people in
Even more so, however, I pray for “the baddies” out there that necessitate such strong prayers for safety in the first place.
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