Great Man

Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki says that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and a number of aids were killed Wednesday evening when US jet fighters dropped two 500-pound bombs on a house in Hibhib, near Baquba in Diyala province, 30 miles NE of Baghdad. Local residents of the area provided the intel. So Zarqawi has been killed. Founder of al-Queda in Iraq. Organizer of terror. Mad bomber. Producer of snuff films. Hell hath expanded its borders, slightly. May he be buried with maggots.

Without Napoleon, there would have been no Napoleonic Wars. The times in themselves were not right. He made them right. He shaped the world to his will. He was a great man. Did I say good? No. But great.

Without Lincoln, there would still be a Confederate States of America. Lincoln was that unique combination of a politician and a man of iron principle. He would not be bowed, he would not be broken. By force of will and with consummate skill he cajoled and wheedled and flattered and compromised, and exercised raw force, until the war was won. Did I say there were no mistakes? No. But any other man would have counted the cost, and thought a United States not worth the price. Or he would have been too fierce, too intemperate, too forthright, and would have lost Congress to the Democrat Copperheads in the ’62 elections, and the cause would have been lost. Lincoln was the essential man.

Hitler was a great man. No, I did not say good. But his influence was without match in the 20th Century. Time Magazine got it wrong – it wasn’t Einstein but Hitler who was Man of the Century. Too bad, eh? But without him, there would be no UN, no NATO, no European Union. There would be no Israel , and thus no spur to Islamism. There would be no Islamism, with its roots so clearly buried in Nazi doctrine.

So now Zarqawi, along with Hitler, is being sodomized by Satan in hell. It’s the only just thing Satan can do. Hurrah for Satan. But while Zarqawi partook of his full measure of Hitler-like evil – of Satanic evil - he enjoys no part of greatness. To be the organizer of car bomb terrorism is not a great thing. To froth Allahu Akbar at the camera over the screams of a beheading-victim is horrifying – doubly so – but it is insane and pathetic, not great. His influence will last only as long as the families he has harmed remember their pain. That’s too long, but it has no part of greatness.

Christopher Hitchens makes a case for the importance of Zarqawi's removal. I am in full accord with him. But as to whether or not it truly was Zarqawi himself who alone chose the targets of his lackies, or whether he was simply a deciding vote who directed the bombs to an obvious target, I do not know. Perhaps he was a genius of evil. I doubt it, but I don't know. Attacking the UN in Baghdad, killing the sane and probably benevolent Shiite Ayatollah Hakim, stealing any respite of peace from the oppressed Iraqis after a third of a century of Baathist torment, targetting all Shiites in Iraq simply to destroy any possiblity of compromise - these were shrewd moves. But they place Zarqawi not on any plain of greatness, but rather in the rogue's gallary of gangster thugs waging a turf war.

Alas, it would be better if Zarqawi had been great. If so, then his delayed dispatch into the dirt would make a difference. If he had been the essential man, then his loss would cause crippling dismay and confusion to the enemy. As it is, some other hateful hack with a poisonous tongue and a more-poisonous spirit will step eventually into Zarqawi’s still-smoldering shoes, and the business of chaos will proceed apace. Himmler could not have replaced Hitler. Hamlin – or Johnson, in reality - could not replace Lincoln. But any venomous anti-Semite with a glib tongue and a butcher’s soul can take Zarqawi’s place. And in any case most of the violence originates not from some infernal Islamist centralized HQ, but from loosely organized cult-gangs. Zarqawi had his greatest effect as a symbol, not as an individual. Now he is the symbol of a dead terrorist - oh, wait ... that's the reality. I can't think what he may be the symbol for. Um, the symbol for a bankrupt religion of hate? - but that's still too literal.

In any case, we are not fighting men. Our adversary is a faith, that appeals to the most ignorant and basest part of mankind, that believes in an abstract enemy responsible for all the woes which its own culture is too shallow and weak to take responsibility for. In itself this is no rare thing. Many unbalanced people blame outside forces for their own self-generated failures. In just this way, many religionists blame Satan for every little bother. But that we are the Satan of the Mosque Lady of Islamism is just an unfortunate embarrassment for us, which will ultimately prove to have been for them a very stupid choice. They should have chosen a different enemy – a weaker one. Because this particular Satan - us - just got done sodomizing Zarqawi, royally, and being young and vigorous, we're ready to go again. Grrr.

As for us, we are bearing the pain of our own irresponsibility, our own harvest-time fiddling rather than reaping. But we are a great people, who have shaped the world into what it presently is. And we will shape it again, should we find the fortitude, into a likeness more pleasing to our values. In the meantime, we will continue to send down these little Zarqawis as they raise themselves up – send them down into the cold darkness of death and the hot torment of hell. Get in line, boys. Hell has plenty of room, for such little people.



J