The Big Question

The New York Times has a long article this morning (“At Site of Attack on Zarqawi, All That's Left Are Questions”) about the airstrike on Zarqawi’s hideout. Much of it was based on a briefing for reporters with Army Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, a U.S. military spokesman. The article neglects to address the allegations that Zarqawi had the crap beaten out of him before he died, except to assert that a military official said “(Zarqawi) had suffered no gunshot wounds, trying to dispel suggestions that someone had delivered a coup de grâce at the scene.” However, the LATimes, also basing an article on the Caldwell briefing (“Questions Remain About Zarqawi's Final Minutes”) reported, ”An Iraqi police lieutenant who said he was among the first people at the scene told The Times on Saturday that after Iraqi police had carried Zarqawi to the ambulance on the stretcher, U.S. troops took him off the stretcher and placed him on the ground. One of the Americans tried to question Zarqawi and repeatedly stepped on his chest, causing blood to flow from his mouth and nose, said the lieutenant, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “A man identified only as Mohammed, who said he lived near the Zarqawi hide-out, told Associated Press Television News that he had witnessed Americans beating Zarqawi. "They stomped on his stomach and his chest until he died and blood came out of his nose," he said.” As to the observation that there have been several versions of the details of the bombing and its outcome, Maj. Caldwell said, "There is no intention on anybody's behalf to engage in deception, manipulation or evasion." If that’s true, it’s the first time the military, the White House and the Associated Press have not intended to deceive, manipulate and evade. Two 500-pound bombs turned the Zarqawi house into rubble last Thursday and left a 40-foot-wide deep hole. How then, is it possible that Zarqawi's head and upper body were intact enough to be shown on television around the world? By Saturday, the result of the airstrike on Thursday had been removed and the hole filled in. There will be an autopsy of this body that escaped the devastation of 1000 pounds of explosives soon, we are told. And at that time, it will be disclosed exactly where Zarqawi was when the bombs fell. To count on no deception, manipulation or evasion regarding this autopsy and any further disclosures would be naïve in the extreme. As those disgusting, manipulative, deceptive and evasive Army ads say, “This is the Army”. First, the military knew that if Zarqawi were in that house there would be nothing left of him after the airstrike. Therefore, it was imperative for him to be out of the house (and dead) because he had to be fingerprinted so that it could be claimed a positive identification had been made. So, if any sane fugitive is out of his hideout and hears planes roaring overhead, does he stay rooted where he is or run like hell? He runs like hell unless it’s the same idiot who was purported to be Zarqawi who didn’t know how to shoot the gun he was holding when the homemovie was made of him in the desert, which was probably a desert in the United States. For sure he runs like hell unless, could it be? he’s already dead. Or he starts to run, is apprehended and beaten to death and then the bombs fall. Choose your scenario: 1. Zarqawi is inside his hideaway. He’s eating a crunchy candy bar and doesn’t hear the planes overhead. The house gets bombed, everything, including women, a child and other occupants are blown to smithereens but Zarqawi’s body remains intact. However, he dies. He’s videotaped and fingerprinted and taken away for an autopsy. 2. Zarqawi is outside of his house, he stands like a statue while planes drop bombs, he’s badly injured but lives long enough to be placed on a stretcher. He tries to get off the stretcher, he says a few words and he dies. He’s fingerprinted and videotaped. 3. Zarqawi is outside of his house, he hears planes, he starts to run, military personnel who have been waiting, apprehend him, beat him to death and leave him far enough from the house so that he’s not pulverized when the bombs fall. He’s fingerprinted and videotaped. 4. A Zarqawi-type is beaten and taken to the house that Zarqawi’s spiritual adviser is known to inhabit. The look-alike is left outside the house and planes drop bombs. After the airstrike the patsy revives and tries to stand up. American soldiers beat him to death. Fingerprints and videos are taken because who the hell knows what Zarqawi’s fingerprints may look like. Whatever. But you can be assured that what really happened is not going to be in the final cut of the White House/Military version. If Zarqawi ever existed in the first place. If his fingerprints exist. If identifying scars and marks exist. If there is an autopsy. If the military and the White House ever tell the truth about anything.