Terror Balloon

On 9/11/2001 the Saudi Wahabbists of al-Qaida and the current administration (hereafter referred to as BushCo) both got lucky. Al-Qaida's attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon succeeded beyond their expectations. And BushCo got the cataclysmic event they had been hoping for which would justify their launching of the Perpetual War.

Never has the fakery of the so-called war on terror been more obvious than in the case of the late Abu Zarqawi. Zarqawi was an American product, a phantom conjured up in the steamy heat of the neocon mythology kitchen, and his successor, whomever it might be, will be the same kind of "made in U.S.A." inflatable doll for conservatives to fantasize with.

In her story on Zarqawi which appears in the Atlantic (accessible only to subscribers) this month, Mary Ann Weaver says, ""During my time in Jordan I asked a number of officials what they considered to be the most curious aspect of the relationship between the U.S. and al-Zarqawi, other than the fact that the Bush administration had inflated him. One of them said, 'The six times you could have killed Zarqawi, and you didn’t.'"

I guess for a time we needed him alive, just like we still need Osama. You need something scary to conjure up and keep the children (in this country called "the voters" or "public opinion") in line.

Patrick Cockburn at Counterpunch says, "The ease with which Iraqi police and US special forces were able to reach the house after the bombing without encountering hostile fire showed that Zarqawi was never the powerful guerrilla chieftain and leader of the Iraqi resistance that Washington has claimed for over three years."

Cockburn also observes that with Zarqawi snuffed, BushCo will have to find some other bearded, scowling Islamist boogeyman to put on the scary wanted posters they put up in the post office and run on Fox News.