voor de niet-klikkers hier een belangwekkend deel van dit gesprek gekwoot:

[i]Well, for a start, al-Zarqawi met Osama Bin Laden in 2000 in Kandahar, and it was a meeting in which he refused to join Al Qaeda because he could not share Osama Bin Laden’s view of far-away enemy, i.e., the United States. He was very much focused on the existing Arab regimes, in particular Jordan. He managed to carve within the Taliban regime a very little niche —- a little camp in Herat, whereby, you know, he started to train future suicide bombers who would be active in Jordan [audio lost]. After the fall of the Taliban regime, he escaped in Iraqi Kurdistan, because he had some contacts there; and it was because of that, because of his presence there, that the Kurdish secret service alerted [audio lost] Al Qaeda man in Iraq had arrived. And, of course you know, that was false information. But the information was embraced by the United States because, in the moment in which they could not find proof of any weapons for mass destruction, the only chance they had to justify intervention in Iraq was to link Saddam Hussein with international terrorism, i.e. Al Qaeda.

So al-Zarqawi became that link, that fictitious link. And that was sufficient to transform a very small leader of an even smaller group of Jihadists into number two member of Al Qaeda in the world. That is really what made al-Zarqawi. From that moment, not only us in the West, but also people in the Muslim world believed that al-Zarqawi was the number two of Al Qaeda. So, people start flocking to join his insurgency. Money starts flowing towards that insurgency. So that was the beginning of the myth. And today we have not at all killed the myth. Unfortunately, because, you know, it’s very easy to create these myths. It’s very, very difficult to destroy them. [/i]

Stofwolken, logisch. Het enige wat ik wil aangeven dat er m.i. meer dan genoeg redenen zijn om te stellen dat vanochtend op alle media op dezelfde manier gebrachte nieuws, plus de feestelijke racties in de weblogs gestoeld zijn op een beeld wat niet klopt.

Verwacht niet van mij dat ik hier uit mijn hoed tover wat wel de waarheid is, maar de rol van de zarkaiaan wordt wel erg opgeblazen “vanuit bepaalde hoek” dan het indertijd met Arkan, of (voor mijn part) Nasr Oric in de joegloslavische oorlog gebeurde. Die deden hetzelfde. En DAN NOG weet ik niet met redelijke zekerheid wat de rol van Z. nou eigenlijk is geweest. (Dat het geen heilige zal zijn geweest, weet ik ook wel.)

“Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy operations director for CJTF 7, called Zarqawi “the most capable terrorist in Iraq today” in a briefing to reporters in Baghdad. Zarqawi has been convicted of terrorist crimes in absentia in his native Jordan, Kimmitt said. He also is a prime suspect in several terrorist attacks in Iraq, including the Aug. 29 mosque bombing in Najaf that killed religious leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim and the Aug. 19 bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, Kimmitt added.”

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Feb2004/n02122004_200402122.html

Dat was dus het pentagon in feb 2004, toen die hele Zarkawi nog niet bij veel mensen bekend was. Dan nu de WaPo van 2 maanden terug:

“The Zarqawi campaign is discussed in several of the internal military documents. “Villainize Zarqawi/leverage xenophobia response,” one U.S. military briefing from 2004 stated. It listed three methods: “Media operations,” “Special Ops (626)” (a reference to Task Force 626, an elite U.S. military unit assigned primarily to hunt in Iraq for senior officials in Hussein’s government) and “PSYOP,” the U.S. military term for propaganda work.
One internal briefing, produced by the U.S. military headquarters in Iraq, said that Kimmitt had concluded that, “The Zarqawi PSYOP program is the most successful information campaign to date.”
Kimmitt is now the senior planner on the staff of the Central Command that directs operations in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/09/AR2006040900890_pf.html

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmit zegt het zelf al: hij heeft al die tijd fabeltjes over zarkawi verteld.

Enfin. Ik denk dat Carlos (pacicfist of niet) niet zo goedgelovig moet zijn voordat hij mensen dood wil. De vergelijking met AH brengt ons trouwens weer op vertrouwd sargassoiaans niveau.

Ik zou zeggen ontoelaatbaar jeuken begint bij waar de tegenspeler uw jeukgrens legt. Zoiets als: “hoe ver tolereren we de intoleranten”, sort of dan.