Saturday, June 10, 2006

Zarqawi Killing: US Conduct

A report in Forbes raises questions about US conduct when Zarqawi was killed. It says an Iraqi at the scene saw US soldiers beating an injured man. It's probably a case of "he said, she said," but it gets more credibility because of the allegations of US misconduct at Haditha and other places. The other bad precedent is the bloody carnage that occured when US troops found Saddam's sons Udai and Qusai. In the light of all the problems with Saddam Hussein's trial, it would be understandable if the US did not want to nurse Zarqawi back to health, and then try him. But that's the way it should be.

In any case, I am not a big fan of using air strikes to kill individual people. It is difficult to limit "collateral damage." I still remember an old Mad Magazine report that in Chile, Salvador Allende committed suicide by a "self-inflicted air strike."

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