Zarqawi dead

[Joe]

Enjoy your virgins, fucker.

Male virgin demons, hopefully. In hell, with thorned cocks.

[theski]

Enjoy your virgins, fucker.

Male virgin demons, hopefully. In hell, with thorned cocks.

Covered in Bacon..

[Battlehymn Republic]

Anyone think that the death of a figurehead will actually be harmful for their cause? I mean, it shows that even the higher-ups aren't untouchable by U.S. bombings. And at least this will boost the morale of the Iraqis actively against the Islamicists.

Unfortunately, I'm betting that there's many among there who are against the U.S. and the Iraqi gov't as well.

[Davis 51]

Fuck yeah. Burn in hell, Zarqawi.

At this point, I honestly don't care whether it does any good in Iraq. If it doesn't, that makes no difference. He's still dead. If it does, that's just icing on the cake. This fucker deserved it.

[brianeyci]

Anyone think that the death of a figurehead will actually be harmful for their cause?

You're a traitor to America. Obviously you have visited the osama homo-bortion pot and commie jizz-porium one too many times. Doubt is a sin, every sperm is great and killing Zarqawi is a masterful victory for America in the war against terror. Now shut up and eat your apple pie.

Brian

[Edi]

Actually, a lot of the ordinary Iraqis have been really fucking fed up with all the bombings and killings and Zarqawi's death has been greeted with considerable enthusiasm by the general populace (at least in parts of the country). They had a pretty big collection of comments from the citizens of IRaq in our main evening news today and the mood was more celebratory than anything else.

You have to remember, Zarqawi was the one whose name was associated with car bombings in particular and with a cavalier disregard for the lives of anyone not belonging to his largely foreigner based jihadi group. I've seen some articles in the past few months that suggested Zarqawi had changed his methods of operation somewhat so that he had been forging closer ties with other resistance groups that would have killed him on sight less than a year ago, and he'd been doing it largely on charisma and personal influence of some key people. Hopefully his death will wreck any more developments of that sort and lead to renewed strife between the insurgent groups.

Edi

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Enjoy your virgins, fucker.

Male virgin demons, hopefully. In hell, with thorned cocks.

Covered in Leathery Burnt Bacon..

Fixed for you.

[fgalkin]

The War Nerd had an good article on just how signifigant Zarqawi was about a year ago.

You're quoting the War Nerd?! He's like the RSA of armchair generals, for chrissakes!

I mean, every time I want a good laugh, I re-read his take on Victor Davis Hanson, and it cracks me up every time.

One of my favorite examples of Roman "pacification" policy was what happened to the Helvetii, a Celtic tribe that used to live where Switzerland is now. Europe was a feisty, tricky place in those days, like Africa is now. Tribes were always on the move.

The Helvetii decided they'd make a move on Northeastern Gaul, grabbing the land and wiping out the Roman-vassal tribes occupying the land. The entire Helvetii tribe numbered about 370,000, and from that they could field about 110,000 fighting men-every male who could hold a spear. They smashed into the settled Gaul tribes easily, grabbed a swathe of territory and prepared to keep advancing until they had enough good land to support the whole tribe.

What the Helvetii hadn't factored into their big move was the Romans. Julius Caesar got a message from his Gaul vassals pleading for help against the Helvetii. At this point he had six legions under him in Gaul, almost 300,000 men. But he wanted more, because he had something a little more drastic in mind than just defeating the Helvetii. He was out to exterminate them. So he called up another two legions, which meant he had 400,000 trained soldiers against 110,000 part-time tribal warriors.

It was no contest. The Romans surrounded the Helvetii and started stabbing their way through the mass of warriors, then the civilians. As they advanced, the legions would herd a few saleable-looking women and children away from the killing. They were sent to holding pens in the rear to be sold as slaves. The main body of Roman soldiers kept working through the mass of Helvetii, stabbing and stabbing. Roman soldiers were taught to use the short sword-"gladius," which is where "gladiator" comes from-to stab, not slash. Stabbing made a deeper wound, more likely to tear up a guy's guts and give him a fatal infection. The stab was also quicker than the big dramatic downward smash those hammy heavy-metal barbarians were addicted to.

At the end of the battle, they had slaughtered 220,000 men, women and children-60% of the whole tribe. Must have been exhausting too. Imagine the sheer hard work it took to kill that many screaming, scrambling people with the Roman short sword, not much bigger than a Bowie knife.

We could do it, way more easily than the Romans. We'd burn only as many calories as it takes to press a button. If we had the will, we could wipe out the whole population of the Sunni Triangle in a few days. If we used neutron bombs, we could do it without even messing up the area too badly. It would sure stop the insurgency.

linky



Scooter meets the Strategic Defence Instatute!

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Elfdart]

This one says it best:



In a perfect world, he would have been beheaded on videotape with an olive fork by the kin of those he murdered. This will do, though.

[Frank Hipper]

My brother was telling me how a rumor that Zarqawi was actually a CG creation of Rumsfeld's in order to provide a ready-made poll numbers boost via a "victory" has been repeated at his work.

Human stupidity truly is boundless.

[Battlehymn Republic]

Anyone think that the death of a figurehead will actually be harmful for their cause?

You're a traitor to America. Obviously you have visited the osama homo-bortion pot and commie jizz-porium one too many times. Doubt is a sin, every sperm is great and killing Zarqawi is a masterful victory for America in the war against terror. Now shut up and eat your apple pie.

Brian

Your sarcasm has been defeated by neglecting to read my actual post.

I am eating the victory pie here.

I'm suggesting that the U.S. actually has profited by knocking out a figurehead. I'm saying that Zarqawi's death is bad for al-Qaeda's cause.

You terrorist.

[PrinceofLowLight]

The War Nerd had an good article on just how signifigant Zarqawi was about a year ago.

You're quoting the War Nerd?! He's like the RSA of armchair generals, for chrissakes!

I mean, every time I want a good laugh, I re-read his take on Victor Davis Hanson, and it cracks me up every time.

One of my favorite examples of Roman "pacification" policy was what happened to the Helvetii, a Celtic tribe that used to live where Switzerland is now. Europe was a feisty, tricky place in those days, like Africa is now. Tribes were always on the move.

The Helvetii decided they'd make a move on Northeastern Gaul, grabbing the land and wiping out the Roman-vassal tribes occupying the land. The entire Helvetii tribe numbered about 370,000, and from that they could field about 110,000 fighting men-every male who could hold a spear. They smashed into the settled Gaul tribes easily, grabbed a swathe of territory and prepared to keep advancing until they had enough good land to support the whole tribe.

What the Helvetii hadn't factored into their big move was the Romans. Julius Caesar got a message from his Gaul vassals pleading for help against the Helvetii. At this point he had six legions under him in Gaul, almost 300,000 men. But he wanted more, because he had something a little more drastic in mind than just defeating the Helvetii. He was out to exterminate them. So he called up another two legions, which meant he had 400,000 trained soldiers against 110,000 part-time tribal warriors.

It was no contest. The Romans surrounded the Helvetii and started stabbing their way through the mass of warriors, then the civilians. As they advanced, the legions would herd a few saleable-looking women and children away from the killing. They were sent to holding pens in the rear to be sold as slaves. The main body of Roman soldiers kept working through the mass of Helvetii, stabbing and stabbing. Roman soldiers were taught to use the short sword-"gladius," which is where "gladiator" comes from-to stab, not slash. Stabbing made a deeper wound, more likely to tear up a guy's guts and give him a fatal infection. The stab was also quicker than the big dramatic downward smash those hammy heavy-metal barbarians were addicted to.

At the end of the battle, they had slaughtered 220,000 men, women and children-60% of the whole tribe. Must have been exhausting too. Imagine the sheer hard work it took to kill that many screaming, scrambling people with the Roman short sword, not much bigger than a Bowie knife.

We could do it, way more easily than the Romans. We'd burn only as many calories as it takes to press a button. If we had the will, we could wipe out the whole population of the Sunni Triangle in a few days. If we used neutron bombs, we could do it without even messing up the area too badly. It would sure stop the insurgency.

linky



Scooter meets the Strategic Defence Instatute!

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

And in the very next column:

I got a lot of flak for my last column, some of it justified. I made a lame, amateur mistake about the size of a Roman legion, adding a zero, and got called on it by a lot of alert readers. A Roman legion of Julius Caesar's time had 5,000 men, not 50,000. That's the kind of little mistake McClellan used to make when estimating the size of Lee's forces. And since McClellan is my least-favorite American commander of all time, associating myself with him is about as low as I can grovel.

I don't see what's hilarious about the mistake. Getting the number wrong by an order of magnitude is big, but just takes a slip of the finger (and the eXile isn't exactly the most exactingly edited paper.) The rest of the article still stands even with the corrected facts. And I don't see how someone making that mistake and immediately apologizing for it automatically invalidates everything that comes from his direction until the end of time.

[felineki]

Scooter meets the Strategic Defence Instatute!

That's StratIgic Defense Instatute, and don't you forget it!

[fgalkin]

It's not the mistake, it's the bullshit descriptions of butchery and the whole "eeevil Romans killing the poor barbarians" crap. Plus, the sheer irony of him criticizing a classical scholar while making a ridiculous error. And no, it wasn't a "slip of the finger." He doesn't say it once, but twice, which means that he honestly thought a legion is 50,000 men strong, a riduculous assumption for anyone who knows anything about the Roman Empire. It's like publishing an astronomy article while using the Ptolemaic system.

Frankly, having a guy with no military training, any serious amount of study, or any military connections whatsoever analyze military strategy is like having a customer service rep analyze the technology of Star Trek.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[CaptainChewbacca]

The Daily Show sendup of Zarqawi was AWESOME. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

[Joe]

Amazingly, someone has managed to acquire pictures of Zarqawi's virgins:





And last but not least, the official oral sex administrator of Paradise:

[CJvR]

In a perfect world, he would have been beheaded on videotape with an olive fork by the kin of those he murdered. This will do, though.

I would have prefered giving him a transfusion of pig blood, quite deadly both physicaly and spiritually.

[Golan III]

In a perfect world, he would have been beheaded on videotape with an olive fork by the kin of those he murdered. This will do, though.

I would have prefered giving him a transfusion of pig blood, quite deadly both physicaly and spiritually.

yeah it's too bad the ammo loaders at Balad didn't have more time, they could have speed-taped some pigs to the sides of those JDAM bombs. That'd have been funny.

[Glocksman]

Whether you're against the war or not, only an idiot could fail to see this as a Good Thing™.
Enjoy your eternity in Hell being sodomized, motherfucker.

[Broomstick]

The picture they're showing of his face is pretty intact on CNN. I was expecting his face to be totaled like Saddam's sons... he was intact enough so they could visually identify him. Don't know what that means in terms of a 500 lbs bomb though, but Saddam's sons were killed by a TOW missile IIRC.

It depends in part on whether you're killed by flying shrapnel/direct blast vs. shockwave and overpressure. Small explosive devices tend to kill with flying debris and direct blast and heat/fire. Larger bombs can kill just with the shockwave, leaving the body largely intact but causing the eardrums to rupture (which may result in ears leaking blood), causing fatal lung damage, or rattling the internal organs around so much they cease to function due to the battering against the skeleton and millions of tiny blood vessels breaking and leaking precious bodily fluids internally. You can also get things like brain fluid leaking out of the nose or ears, and, uh, "anal speepage" as sphincters relax in death. In that case the damage is massive, but microscopic, and the skin continues to hold everything together.

Of course, a direct hit by a 500lb bomb doesn't leave much identifiable.

[Ubiquitous]

My only surprise is that they used a couple of 500lb bombs rather than dropping a 2000lber, you know, just to make sure.

[Sarevok]

Good riddance. Now the question is who is going to suceed Zarqawi.

[theski]

The picture they're showing of his face is pretty intact on CNN. I was expecting his face to be totaled like Saddam's sons... he was intact enough so they could visually identify him. Don't know what that means in terms of a 500 lbs bomb though, but Saddam's sons were killed by a TOW missile IIRC.

It depends in part on whether you're killed by flying shrapnel/direct blast vs. shockwave and overpressure. Small explosive devices tend to kill with flying debris and direct blast and heat/fire. Larger bombs can kill just with the shockwave, leaving the body largely intact but causing the eardrums to rupture (which may result in ears leaking blood), causing fatal lung damage, or rattling the internal organs around so much they cease to function due to the battering against the skeleton and millions of tiny blood vessels breaking and leaking precious bodily fluids internally. You can also get things like brain fluid leaking out of the nose or ears, and, uh, "anal speepage" as sphincters relax in death. In that case the damage is massive, but microscopic, and the skin continues to hold everything together.

Of course, a direct hit by a 500lb bomb doesn't leave much identifiable.

I think Saddams sons were killed in a gunfight.. IIRC

[Chardok]

Well, here's to another head lopped off of the hydra. *Raises glass*

*waits for regrowth*

I also heard that there was a woman and two children or somesuch killed in the strike as well. If true, I'm sure some will say "OMFG!111 BABY KILLARS!1!! DIE AMERICAN PIG DOGS!111oneone" THAT, my friends, will be a rallying point. Especially given the only passing mention the collateral damage got in the news.

[Ace Pace]

-- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was alive when U.S. troops reached him after the U.S. bombing raid, but died "almost immediately" after, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said.


I wonder how he died, internal wounds of some sort?