Headlines and Motives

The death of Abu Musah Zarquawi was covered in all papers in the US. But in the LA Times coverage one wonders what the intent of a story placed in the center of the page was. The story in the right column details the atrocities that Zarquawi was guilty of and his absolute brutality. He was responsible for "hundreds of deaths." He was truly an evil man, blinded by a bizarre interpretation of Islam and of politics. There is little question that he was personally responsible for some of the most horrendous crimes in this conflict. Will this end the conflict? No one has claimed that it will. Obviously any insurgency movement is more than one person.

Mr. Zarquawi was labeled as a "high tech" terrorist. Many of his atrocities were videotaped and put up on the web. Presumably he is not likely to do another video. And if the forces are at all lucky the site where they caught him will yield intelligence that will help to break down the network he built up - things like computers and hard drives are likely to be found and will be valuable for at least a short time.

The story in the center of the page was a bit different. "He was More Symbol Than Sweeping Leader" seems to have been written with a purpose. The opening paragraph states "His somber face, fiery invective and bloody legend helped lure foreign volunteers and case to the insurgency in Iraq" By its very nature an insurgency is less organized than a traditional military. But presumably with the death of this symbol - contributions will be harder to come by, and foreign volunteers may think twice about vactioning in Iraq. The Times story correctly points out that the motives of the insurgents are mixed. Some are there as a "holy" war (Zarquawi) was one of them. Others are Baathists who want to re-establish the dictatorship toppled by US and British troops.

Zarquawi is credited as being a "charasmatic" leader. As Madison correctly pointed out in Federalist #10 - one way to control charasmatic movements is to kill them off. Yesterday's bombing of his "safe' house got rid of one of the leaders of one of the movements that is trying to destabilize the new government. The Bush administration, to its credit, claimed nothing more. But in the continuing effort by some in US journalism, they felt they had to respond to what might have been claimed.