Wednesday, September 28, 2005

that's a lot of number 2

yesterday the news wires were abuzz about the death of abdullah abu azzam, reported to be abu musab al-zarqawi's number two man. everyone was so excited. even rush limbaugh, only he was excited because he thought others were not excited enough.

i guess i wasn't that excited. it seems like every other day one of zarqawi's "top lieutenants" is captured or killed. in fact, it's happened 33 times. is zarqawi running a top-heavy organization or what?

the theory seems to be that getting rid of zarqawi's aids will lead to a reduction in the amount of violence in iraq. but if that's the theory, it seems to me that it's been rebutted the 32 other times this happened. either most of these alleged "top lieutenants" are not all that important, or they're not really top lieutenants.

it wouldn't be the first time that the administration has branded someone with an important label to make it seem like their efforts are effective. look at all those "20th hijackers".