Iraq Claims Al Qaeda in Iraq Leader al-Masri Dead
The Iraqi government claims al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri has been killed.
Iraqi officials have received reports that the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq was killed by Sunni tribesmen, but the chief government spokesman said Tuesday the information has not been confirmed. The statement by spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh followed a welter of reports from other Iraqi officials that Abu Ayyub al-Masri had been killed. Iraqi officials have released similar reports in the past, only to acknowledge later they were inaccurate.
U.S. officials said they could not confirm the reported death.
Al-Dabbagh told Al-Arabiya that word of al-Masri’s purported death was based on “intelligence information,” adding that “DNA tests should be done and we have to bring someone to identify the body.”
It strikes me that 1) al-Masri is likely not dead; 2) the Iraqi government should hold off on making such pronouncements until they have more evidence; and 3) even if al-Masri is dead, very little will change.
UPDATE: Steven Taylor, citing a BBC report, makes an important distinction between this and the host of other dead or reportedly-dead terrorist leaders: “US officials have long talked of friction between al-Qaeda and other Sunni insurgent groups. The reported killing would suggest there are real tensions for US and Iraqi officials to exploit.”
The optimists among us have been predicting that, way prematurely it turns out, for years. It would be nice if it finally happens but I shan’t hold my breath absent decidedly more examples.
We’re doing DNA testing over there so we don’t have to do it here…
Surely it will happen. The issue is that it would happen a lot faster if they didn’t have a common cause, i.e. us, staring them in the face.
When we get out of dodge a lot of factions currently working together are going to pull out the long knives.
Yeah, and then it can be Rwanda or Darfur all over again.
Possibly. Bad stuff happens in the world. We have neither the capacity nor the right to fix all of it.
But the bad stuff also opens the possibility of good stuff following. How would US history have proceeded if a foreign superpower had intervened in our civil war? Sometimes blood has to be spilled to make progress. Sucks, but it’s true. And the only ones who can make that progress are the people there. It’s them that have to do the bleeding (in both senses of the term).
This is “Dance, Monkey, Dance!” stuff, James, and they tricked you into your soft shoes. On Mission Accomplished Day they just happened to come up with a report that al-Masri is probably you know dead though we don’t have a body but we’ll verify it if we can but isn’t this great news though he’s probably not actually dead.
Ask me what the –
Timing!
As it happens, President Lincoln had to put a lot of effort into making sure that didn’t happen. England and its mills, in particular, were in desperate need for the south’s cotton and for that reason, as well as a few others, considered recognizing the Southern Confederacy, which certainly would have been considered at the time as joining the war on the other side given the blockade the Union had imposed on the South. It was only with the Emancipation Proclamation that England was dissuaded from recognizing the Southern Confederacy, primarily due to its own abolitionist zeal and sense of morality.
President Lincoln did the right thing, but as is often the case, for reasons which are much more complex than they first appear.
They tricked you into your soft shoes.
Well, except that I discounted the story in three different ways in the first sentence…
James, I think your qualifiers were in the second sentence, though I digress in pedantry.
I hope it is true, not just for the obvious reasons, but also because we can take some comfort in knowing that are enemies are that much more uncomfortable with who they can trust as they lay down their heads each night.
Oh, and one more thing, when Tlaloc wrote:
That seems to be a restatement of Duranty’s omelette making aphorism, which isn’t exactly a positive association.
It’s not our omlette to make, or not make. It’s not our eggs, nor our skillet. In fact it’s not even our kitchen.
So let’s get out of our neighbor’s kitchen and let them decide for themselves if they want an omlette.
And yes if they cook recklessly so that it threatens to burn down the neighborhood we may have to put on our volunteer virefighter hat and put out the blaze.
We’ll deal with that if it happens.
Maybe we should just give them all pancakes.
It’s just a thought.
“Welcome to the American Socialist Kitchen. Today, you will all have pancakes. Tomorrow, you will all have Democracy. You’re welcome.”