No, I fall back on the I meant exactly and precisely what I wrote defense. No more, no less.

I’ve said it once; I’ll say it again — Righties cannot read.

You clearly said rightie blogs 1 and 2 said the exact same thing as Kos in your original post, and now you try to split enough hairs to escape.

Not working, I’m afraid.

(And yes, Zarqawi is a monster who needs to be eliminated. It’s just that he’s far from the only monster we’re dealing with. As Cole points out, serious historians don’t buy into the “great man” theory of history. Especially with reference to the mayhem in Iraq, the idea that a single man is going to come along and cause all these problems, such that the problems would suddenly go away if this one man was eliminated, is, frankly, childish.)

I didn’t say #2 claimed Armando was “celebrating.” #1 and #3 made that claim, and the primary source of the claim was #2. In fact, #1 and #3 were misrepresenting what #2 wrote, weren’t they?

But #2 was also misrepresenting Armando, although in a different way. He titled his post “Armando: Zarqawi Wasn’t a Problem.” This is not what Armando wrote. Armando wrote “Zarqawi is not and has not been the source of our troubles in Iraq.”

Now, what does that mean? Let’s look at the word “source.” From the American Heritage Dictionary:

1. An acquaintance who is in a position to help: connection, contact. See CONNECT. 2. A point of origination: beginning, derivation, fount, fountain, fountainhead, mother, origin, parent, provenance, provenience, root1, rootstock, spring, wel1. See START.

I believe we are dealing with definition #2 here.

The source, fountanhead, mother, rootstock, point of origination, etc. of the violence in Iraq is the INSURGENCY. If you remove Zarqawi, the INSURGENCY will still be there. It might slow down a tad, but it will still be there. However, if you remove the INSURGENCY, Zarqawi would probably have to take his business out of Iraq. That seems to be what Armando is saying, and it is what I believe also.

This is not to say that Zarqawi hasn’t done a lot of bad things and is not very dangerous. Of course he has done bad things and is dangerous. But Zarqawi was operating out of Iraqi Kurdistan for some tme before the invasion, and wasn’t able to do nearly the same amount of mischief he is doing now becaue of the INSURGENCY.

Get it?

You accuse me of a staw man argument based mostly on your low reading comprehension skills and denial of the plain meaning of the word “source.”. In fact, yours is the staw man argument. You and Confederate Yankee misrepresent what Armando wrote. In fact, Armando and most of the rest of us lefties realize full well that Zarqawi is a real bad guy who needs to be taken out, which is why it was a damn shame the Bush Administration didn’t do that the several times it had a chance before the invasion.

He stated Armando was incorrect in stating, “Zarqawi is not and has not been the source of our troubles in Iraq.”

That is a fact. 1,000 dead bodies of civilians attributed to him thus far are the indisputable evidence.

He also states that Armando was clearly wrong about the situation being “intractable.”

Increasing Sunni involvement in the political process has proven this point by Armando false as well.

Perhaps I stated it wrong earlier (way different from lying, Barbara), but Armando is clearly incorrect on both counts, unless you honestly believe that Zarqawi, as the #1 terrorist in Iraq, “has not and is not the source of our troubles.”

Zarqawi is not the only source, to be sure, but he is indeed one of several primary sources and is also , and his organisation is the greatest single threat to non-military targets in Iraq.

Neither Confederate Yankee nor Armando ever claimed that Zarqawi started the insurgency. Nice strawman.

While I make have misstated something, it seems you are more than willing to simply make charges without any truth behind them at all.

It’s important to understand that righties are always on defense. Even when they attack, attack, attack, it’s defense. Even when they are in the majority (not their current status), it’s defense. Righties are fueled by a subconscious inferiority complex and a deep-seated resentment of everyone and everything they subconsciously feel inferior to. People who disagree with them and their worldview are not just a threat to their ideology but to their fragile self-identity. They must attack.

And yeah, I know the subject of discussion is more narrowly focused here: not on whether Zarqawi’s death would end the insurgency overall, but whether the attacks on civilians would be reduced. The point is that the claim that the death of a single man would have this magic pacifying effect is yet another example of the kind of rosy-colored fantasies that have been the basis of the right-wing thinking on Iraq since before the war even started. Zarqawi is not the bogeyman. He’s just one actor in an incredibly chaotic situation, and if he was killed there are plenty of others to take his place. Don’t these people ever get tired of being wrong?