Snerk! Got him.

What? He couldn't clear his M-249 in time?

Ain't no virgins where he's going... well then again...there will be at least one hehe "Welcome to Hades Prison Boy. You sure do got a purty mouth...""

The only way that someone else will rise again, is if the media build someone up- they are good at that so it won't be long.....

Heh... kind of reminds me of the Bob & Tom skit where Harry Caray provides color commentary for the first afterlife baseball game, Heaven versus Hell... "Looks like Lucifer is sending out the first round of al Qaeda fighters killed in the war on terror onto the field, and BOY, do they look surprised!"

First, I want to say that I thought Zarq was going down and he probably knew he was infiltrated and it was a matter of time. His last video had all the ear marks of a martyr's video. Only good reason to show his face is to give the last "rite" where he urges his compatriots on becuase he was waiting for glorious martyrdom. Not to mention, he had to know something was up since we were everywhere he was within days. He was running and running. You can run, but you can't hide. Second, someone was right when they mentioned some people will not be happy: The father of a U.S. contractor believed slain by al-Zarqawi said he did not see any good coming from the terror leader's death. Michael Berg, whose 26-year-old son, Nicholas, was taken hostage and beheaded on videotape in 2004, said al-Zarqawi's death leaves the terror leader's family in grief and likely will spark fresh violence. "I see more death coming out of al-Zarqawi's death," said Berg, a pacifist running for Delaware's lone U.S. House seat on the Green Party ticket. During a visit to Islamabad, Pakistan, Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar said al-Zarqawi's death was only a minor loss to the anti-U.S. resistance movement. "We are dead sure that assassination of any of the people (like al-Zarqawi) who are resisting will not ... end the resistance," said Zahar, a hard-line Hamas leader. Some Muslims in Somalia, where Islamic militant militiamen just seized control of the capital and surrounding areas, expressed sympathy for al-Zarqawi. "His death is a bad news for all Muslims because he was facing a great, superpower enemy of Islam in the United States," said Shamsa Abdi, a mother of six. I think the most important aspect of this is that it puts the others on notice that they too are not invincible. It let's those that support them know that, contrary to popular belief ghost dances and magic bullet proof vests blessed by the holy spirit(s) don't actually work. Much better not to piss us off. Allahu Akbar!

Maybe al Qaeda was his raisin d'etre. (Sorry.)

Dear Michael Berg, Sorry your son was stupid, sorry, I meant *beheaded*. But as for your statements today - bite me. Sincerely, Princess Crabby

(dons CCC cap) Look Mike Berg may be a jerk. But capping on the man's son is just poor taste. The kid's dead. Nick Berg was over there doing exactly the kind of things Kat talks about(building good relations with the locals by working to rebuild infrastructure) that are critical in winning the hearts and minds(don't forget that the most important real estate is the 6 inches between the ears. An enemy is only really defeated when he believes he is. Ceasar understood this.), and neccessary for the Pax Americana that Princess Crabby wants. That kid wasn't stupid. He was maybe careless. Idealistic. But stupid? That's a touch unfair. THe father may be a whack job for all I know and deserve approbrium hurled at him in the form of light speed kitchen sinks(or just catapulted at him with high accuracy). But Nick Berg is someone I could easily see myself being friends with on a college campus. Big hearted. Smart. Funny. Industrious. Good kid. Weird parents, but good kid.

Sorry Ry, Sticking with the original assessment of the kid. My recollection was that he wasn't with any particular aid agency. He was there on his own doing some shady thing that no one ever fully explained. He wasn't winning hearts and minds. I do *not* have the same opinion of the Red Cross workers, etc who have been taken hostage. Or the private workers. Nick Berg had no business being there.

Either way, he was a victim. Now what I would look for is that there will be a brief struggle for leadership. Particularly since we most likely had names and places of people (and have been taking some of them out before), but several people will go down. The problem is that the next person may be even more dangerous than Zarqawi. Not that this guy will be more violent. It's like the mafia, the guys who were best able to run the organization were the low profile guys who kept security tight and kept operations on the down low. He will most likely decrease general hits and start looking for really high profile targets, infiltrating the green zone, military posts, government agencies, etc. The next guy will not be as foolish as to believe that attacking the Shia is good or instituting Islamic courts and arbitrarily killing people for not having the right Muslim behavior and look. He'll be looking to get back some of that good will that Zarq has been squandering and he may be more difficult to catch. the other problem for the next leader will be money. Unless he is well known and accepted (proven to be the appropriate leader after multiple people insist they are the leader) some people will be less than willing just to turn money over. The usual suspects will be hard pressed. They will also need to have some sort of established name within the organization, it may be difficult to recruit or get recruits to their cells. It's going to take some re-organization. Now, that doesn't mean they are down and out, just that we have a possibility of making enough moves to seriously depress the organization. Keep in mind what happened in Afghanistan. Once the original organization was seriously damaged, OBL and Zawahiri had to retreat to Pakistan, but there was a base there they could operate from so they took their time to rebuild some of the communication, money, material and recruitment networks. They had a ready made base of recruits in Pakistan as well as established routes for jihadists around the world to travel there. That's why we see an increase in "Taliban" activity in Afghanistan. However, an interesting point in Afghanistan/Iraq paradigms. You note the number of actual fighters in Afghanistan who are doing direct battle compared to number of IEDs and VBIEDs as opposed to Iraq where the weapon and tactic of choice is IED/VBIED with small sqaud size follow on attacks and then immediate dispersion. In Iraq, explosive materials are much more available than fighters. If there had been that many fighters willing to go head to head and that much support, they would not have limited themselves to these weapons and tactics. Suicide bombers last year used in tandem were very expensive manpower losses. It had a chilling effect on recruits who imagined that they would be doing what the mujihadeen in Afghanistan once did with all the glorious warrior trappings. Instead, they got three week or less indoctrination and strapped to a car. Whenever you see people using stand off tactics (including us), there is an aversion to risking casualties and loss of manpower. Zarqawi's own letters regarding the 30 to 40 fighters per area (though insisting they could increase it as necessary) indicated the problem as well. I believe they were unwilling to increase this with just any recruits because of the security situation it would incur and that which probably led to Zarq's demise. In Afghanistan, on the other hand, there is a large supply of madrasa educated Pakistanis who have a chip on their shoulder over Musharef and our continued support of him which they see as hindering the implementation of their Islamist state in Pakistan. So, there are plenty who are willing to die. Further, they are less likely to get international news and other resources outside of the propaganda produced by local papers and the clerics in the mosques (particularly since Pakistan does not have a really high literacy rate). Unlike the people within the immediate area of Iraq (saudi arabis, Jordan, Syria, Yemen, etc) that get both and therefore are subject to their own government and our own information war that probably keeps some of them from joining (the story about the reluctant suiciders that did not see glory in it compared to the old mujihadeen tactics, nor saw glory in killing other muslims was probably one of the best). Further, those nations have much more control of their borders so, even though we had some beef with syria and others for not doing "enough" it's likely they were much more help, being in control of much more of their population and smaller border area, than the Pakistanis who have nominal control of the Afghan/Pakistan border and no control of Waziristan where these men can filtrate at will. Further, it is easier for people to travel to Pakistan and there are two decade old safe houses and networks as opposed to the fairly new Iraq situation. As far as ordinance, by far, Afghanistan had less ordinance available than Iraq, even with the number of cache's we've found, theyve been noticable short on large artillery shells and the like that the Iraq AQ liked to use to build IEDs. After two decades of war in Afghanistan, available munitions from the Russo/Afghan war were probably depleted. It means those groups are much more reliant on transporting munitions and weapons into the area than the Iraqi insurgents/terrorists. Small arms, munitions, RPGs and mortars from Pakistan were much more available. In other words, manpower and small arms for mass attacks is cheaper in Afghanistan than in Iraq while large munitions for IEDs and VBIEDs are much more prevalent and cheaper than men in Iraq. Finally, the territory and type of terrain also decides weapons and tactics. Iraq is flat with large populations in designated areas. There are roads and airports, among other things, that allows for easier transport of troops and oversight from UAVs which precludes large training camps in the middle of nowhere, unnoticed by any neighbors. As opposed to Afghanistan which has a much larger area that is barely accessible, with nomads and farming complexes. It's easier to build a large camp and complex for training on platoon and company size attacks unnoticed.

"Sorry Ry, Sticking with the original assessment of the kid." ANd that's totally up to you MAggs. That's your call to make, you made it, and I disagree with some of it. Such is life. We'll just agree to disagree on this and I'll go put another dime in the jukebox. Though I will say this: not every successful effort at winning hearts and minds originates with an established organization or with the gov't. See Mike Yon for example. He's done more to give the US public a look at the positive in Iraq than the US gov't. No backing from an established source for him. Milblogs seem to be better at waging the war for domestic hearts and minds than the DoD. Again, with little help from established sources(and scowls for some from the gov't.). Kid may have been doing his own thing, he may have even been doing nothing more than trying to score himself a cheap buck, but rebuilding Iraqi infra. cheaply as he intended to do was bound to buy us some points with the Iraqis. What matters is he was doing something that was putting a positive face on the US. Now, for that dime in the jukebox.

Maggie is right about Nick Berg. I have been in Iraq for 2 1/2 years working on UXO clearance. We have lost some guys in spite of careful planning and intel, mostly our security specialists to IEDs, but we also have lost 2 UXO techs to IEDs. However, we have been able to keep our KIA count pretty low by doing the job and not taking stupid chances. None of us are stupid enough to venture out among the local population and expect every one we see to give us a big hug. Nick Berg could have made a gazillion dollars and felt like he was doing something important working for one of the companies contracted to either the US or Iraqi gov'ts, but he chose to venture out on his own. Now that I hear the old man's life views, it makes me wonder if he shared those views, had a disdain for the military and yet wanted to do something exiting and noble. I guess we will never know for sure. But I can tell you that the consensus in Baghdad is he died of terminal dumba**.

oldloader - mmmmmmmmmmm "Maggie is right....." I love how that trips off your tongue baby!

"Oldloadr briefed on June 9, 2006 10:38 AM Maggie - I calls 'em as I sees 'em" Yes, but there's the added bonus of being in Princess Crabby's good graces. Doesn't that just *make* your Friday?