As in most cities, the Seattle newspapers are decidedly left leaning. You just can’t get away from it.
But on the subject of Zarqaqi’s death, at least one paper has decided to not play hard-left Democrat sycophant.
The Seattle Times Editorial Board column
Scratch One Problem
Abu Al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born murderer, was an impediment, a distraction on Iraq’s path toward self-determination.
His death in a U.S. air raid means that extraordinary efforts and resources focused on him can now be directed other places. This is a not a happy day or a sad day for the Middle East. It is a fleeting moment of brutal pragmatism. In a country rife with home-grown sectarian violence and bloodshed, al-Zarqawi held his own interests, not those of Iraqis, at heart.
It continues on with a relatively even handed couple of paragraphs.
But then again, I’m comparing it to the Seattle Post Intelligencer who goes whole-hog on the Dennis Kucinich trip
The Seattle PI Editorial Board
Iraq War: One down
The Jordanian Ahmad Fadhil Nazzal al-Khalayleh was a corrupt and violent man long before he called himself Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The world will not miss the “slaughtering sheik.”
His death at the hands of U.S. forces — his whereabouts apparently betrayed by Iraqi senior leaders from his terrorist network — has to be counted as a blow against the insurgency there.
The only thing more damaging — and satisfying — would have been to have al-Zarqawi in the courtroom dock with Saddam Hussein, answering for his crimes.
And those crimes were manifest, including the deaths of perhaps thousands of Iraqi civilians and the grisly beheadings of at least two U.S. hostages.
But the exact impact of his death on the insurgency in Iraq, let alone what the White House calls “the long war” on terrorism, is unclear. Al-Zarqawi reportedly had lost favor with many Arabs after the bombing of a Jordan hotel, and his brazenness may have made him a rival, rather than acolyte, to the reclusive Osama bin Laden.
Has the insurgency really been decapitated by the death of the “prince of al-Qaida,” or, hydra-like, will a dozen more leaders rise in his place? Will his death encourage the fledgling Iraqi government to assert itself and will it embolden the Iraqi people to support that government?
Celebration of his death is tempered by the fact that it was a U.S. war of choice that set the stage for al-Zarqawi’s rise to bloody stardom.
You see, it is all America’s fault that the guy even mattered. If you ask the PI Board, he wasn’t a problem child until we stepped in. He probably wasn’t even in al-Qiada until we went all military on Islam.
I’m glad they’ll be going out of business soon. I bet they can’t even guess why.