It's on the same day, the day that the USS Cole, completely restored, slips away from
the dock and heads for the open sea. The Cole was attacked while refueling in Yemen's port of Aden on October 12,
2000. No crew member is left from that day. All that remains is 17 gold stars in the corridor leading to the chow
halls. There is one star for each sailor killed by the suicide boats.. The mastermind of that plot? Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
It is Wednesday, June 7, 2006. There is a small village called Hibhib that sits some right clicks above Baquba.
Next to that village is a fortified farm house. Normally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi never stays anywhere more than 12
hours but he delays his visit to 18 hours in order to meet with six of his senior aids, including two women intelligence
officers.
One of the visitors is his psychotic "spiritual" advisor - Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman.
Across the street from the safe house, members of Task Force 145 watch the comings and goings. Tipped on the visit
by a local member of al-Qaeda, they seek proof that Shiek Rahman is actually coming to visit Zarqawi. By early
evening they have their proof.
Because the house is isolated from the village, collateral damage will be minimal. The fortified house offers too
many ways for their target to slip away if there is a ground attack. They call to the heavens for justice.
Justice comes in the form of two F-16s carrying 500 pound laser guided bombs.
The first plane paints the target and the second launches one bomb. It splits the house in half. Zarqawi and his
aides are meeting in the basement. The two planes reverse roles. The second bomb obliterates the insides of the
farm house. The TF 145 folks move in to establish identities of the corpses.
Notified that the raid has been a success, central command launches 19 other TF 145 strikes in Baghdad and they
sweep up massive amounts of intelligence on computers and in files. It is a major dismantling of the AQ organization.
Of the 75 middle managers deployed by AQ, some 72 of them have been captured or killed.
Cell leaders, financiers, facilitators, suppliers and ordinance makers are being rolled up. AQ is proving to have
limited resources and a very shallow pool of expertise. The Task Force has degraded the organizations effectiveness,
leadership, ability to network and operational security. The operation demonstrates to local AQ members that their
ideology is wearing thin. So thin that trusted members will take the risk of selling out for money.
By any standard, the American military has performed brilliantly.
To be sure, Zarqawi was one of the most despicable human beings that ever existed. He killed with his own hands
and murdered by his order thousands of people - , infidel and Muslim alike. His contribution to asymmetrical warfare,
however, was substantial and must be understood if it is to be defeated.
The first example? Zarqawi's death was announced on his own website. "We are bringing the good news of the
martyrdom of our Sheikh," the site said. Jahadist bulletin boards and chat rooms were overwhelmed with laudatory
spin and pledge to continue the holy fight.
Evan Kohlmann, a terror analyst, says that Zarqawi created the idea of a comprehensive information war carried
on via the Internet. He used the Internet to provide a steady supply of disinformation (readily picked up and re-broadcast
by the MSM). He provided visual support to the media and the public. He even recruited by Internet.
A master of propaganda warfare, Zarqawi produced martyrdom videos, military success stories and repulsive images
designed to shock the West and inspire his followers. He starred in his own beheading videos. When public acceptance
of that ran out, he switched to suicide bombers and their results. He even went to full-length productions to create
a persona full of charisma and military prowess.
He understood what the Washington Post's Philip Kennicott calls the Panoptic War. That is a world of instant cameras,
cell phone snapshots, e-mailed pictures and other such technologies. They produce a "nonstop, immediate and
ubiquitous visual record" of the sender that breaks the monopoly of government on information. The imagery
simultaneously clarifies and misleads. They create two different senses of time - the immediate and the methodical.
More people see pictures than read reports, for example.
In Zarqawi's world, for example, the power of stirring images such as Abu Ghraib may be used to provide more coverage
to a handful of bad soldiers than to tens of thousand of good ones risking their lives to better ordinary Iraqis.
As James Joyner says, "if it bleeds, it misleads."
Part of Zarqawi's downfall may have been that he was an in-front-of-the-troops, in-the- action kind of military
commander while the more cerebral Osama was fading into a runaway who was hiding in caves far from the action.
The dime might have been dropped at Osama's order.
In the Middle East, it is becoming obvious that the appeal of radicalized, violent cults is fading. Muslims don't
like killing Muslims. Most don't like killing at all. In the end, AQ is all about murder.
Donald Sensing notes that "If al-Qaeda is not in fact the keeper of the true faith, then the rest of the Muslims
must unite to destroy al-Queda in order to insure the survival of Islam itself. The Muslim world needs to understand
that the struggle is not the radical cultists against the West. It is the Islamists against Islam. The religious
appeal of violent Islam is losing its grip. The cult was built on the idea that America was weak and weak-willed.
If it is strong, then Allah is not on Osama's side. The strong horse gallops on but the rider has fallen off -
a victim of illusion.
06/09/06
The
Death of the Black Prince