Why didn’t we capture Zarqawi instead of killing him? (photo: Reuters)ABC News got a big scoop on the other broadcast networks tonight by being the first by an hour or more to report that U.S. and Iraqi forces had located Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a Baquba safehouse and killed him along with seven lieutenants who were meeting there. U.S. helicopter gunships may’ve provided the firepower which killed him. CNN is now reporting that Jordanian intelligence and possibly members of Zarqawi’s Iraqi network may’ve provided intelligence information beginning as early as two weeks ago allowing the Iraqis to pinpoint his location.
I find it hard to believe that NBC continued broadcasting Jay Leno and CBS continued with David Letterman while a competitor scooped them with news that the third most wanted man in the world had just been killed.
But what astonishes me even more is that the U.S. decided to blow him to smithereens instead of capturing him. After all, this is the second or third most wanted terrorist in the world. Wouldn’t capturing him alive have been an extraordinary coup? Either he provides you with extremely helpful information about his network and activities as some captives have done; or if he clams up you put him on trial before the world for his crimes as an example of what happens to people who do the things he’s done.
Not knowing the background for this operation, there may’ve been some reason that rockets were called in instead of forces to capture him. But on the face of it this looks like a typically rash and hasty decision by the Bush Administration at the expense of a future potential intelligence bonanza. In fact, it makes you wonder whether Bush and Cheney looked at the mess the Iraqis have made of the Saddam Hussein trial and said: “It’s just not worth it to capture and try him. Let’s just get it over with and embrace rough justice.”
UPDATE: Glad to report that this NY Times reporter is asking the same question as I. Here’s the answer U.S. forces provided to him:
As American commandos surrounded the house where they believed Mr. Zarqawi to be, the commander on the ground decided to call in the airstrike. It was not clear why the American officer decided against storming the house and capturing Mr. Zarqawi, which would have given the Americans a chance to interrogate him.
One reason, General Caldwell said, was that such an assault might have cost many American lives without any guarantee of taking Mr. Zarqawi alive. Another reason, asserted by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld on Thursday, was that Mr. Zarqawi might have escaped, as he had many times before when the Americans had him in their sights.
“You have to ask yourself: is it worth putting American men and women’s lives at risk to go in to what was probably a heavily fortified and guarded thing, in order to grab him?” General Caldwell said.
If I were in U.S. intelligence the answer to that question for me would be: “hell yes.” If you take this guy alive and you get him to talk think how many lives you save. Think how many Al Qaeda operations you thwart. Think how many Al Qaeda operatives you freak out by letting them think that Zarqawi is spillinghis guts to you. I’m for a little less blood lust and a little more consideration of the long-term benefits of bringing him in alive. But blood lust appears to have won out.
Another warning: no doubt the Bush Administration is going to be crowing tomorrow as they did after Hussein’s capture. But i say here exactly what I said then. Zarqawi was an important agent of terror in Iraq. Things can’t help but be a little better without his catalytic influence. But I see Zarqawi as a symptom of Iraq’s problems, not as a major cause. Zarqawi resonated in Iraq because its underlying problems presented him such fertile ground for terror operations. Nothing in the conditions on the ground in Iraq have changed with his death. His network will undoubtedly go on. I see very little changing there unless and until the U.S. decides to leave and/or the various Iraqi factions of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds figure out a way they can live with each other. I don’t see either one of these developments happening anytime soon. Therefore, the chaos we’ve witnessed there over the past few years will continue and very little will change.
So if you hear talking heads tomorrow talking about a new day in Iraq, don’t you believe it.
Ya got it right!
Sort of like the Saddam Hussein question in reverse.
I have to disagree, first I dont think he would have talked, second their would have been more hostage taking on a grand scale to blackmail the US into releasing him.
They wouldnt have had to confirm that they had him to anybody but it seems that for some idiocy makes it incumbent for the military to explain everything they do or did in front of the cameras. Had this been the situation in 1945, the Enola Gay would have been shot down.
I dont doubt either that he would have died fighting rather then give up. And even if captured the wacko leftists would have said he was entitled to the miranda rights and let him plead the 5th.
I think your opinion is very naive as regards this animal.
Thank You
Ah yes, it’s sheer ‘idiocy’ to expect that the military should have to explain itself and its actions. They’ve proven themselves so capable & so full of integrity that we should give them a blank check when it comes to killing Iraqi insurgents. I’m sure that by doing so we’ll never regret it.
And again yes, we ‘wacko leftists’ respect such quaint old concepts as due process and U.S. constitutional guarantees. They too have proven themselves unnecessary in the Brave New World presented to us by George Bush and his cohorts.
Actually, it’s too bad he didn’t live–then the U.S. troops who found him could’ve lined him up behind the farmhouse wall and shot him like a dog just like Saddam used to do to his alleged opponents. How do your views make us any different from Saddam or from Zarqawi himself for that matter?
But what astonishes me even more is that the U.S. decided to blow him to smithereens instead of capturing him”
My dear Mr. Rambo, from your PC, or your Starbucks, it is a simple matter to plan and carry grand strategies, and perform deeds of chivalry, but to the soldier, an artillery barrage or a bombing, in place of a ground assault, is perferred. If you were crawling in front of Zarqawi’s house, would you be to be the first through the front door shouting “your under arrest?”
“The soldier” is not the one who determines whether a suspect is murdered in cold blood or apprehended so that he may face trial. Those decisions are made by the military and political echelons. If I were a soldier and my commander told me that a terrorist needed to brought to justice w/o being murdered in cold blood, then I would follow orders. That’s what soldiers do. But that is not what happened in this case. The Bush Administration determined that Zarqawi should be eliminated post haste.
Should you wish to continue posting comments, cut out the sarcasm or you won’t be commenting here in future.
It is very telling that you refer to the elimination of al-Zarqawi as “murder in cold blood.” I guess in your warped world view, assassinating Adolf Hitler would have also been considered “murder in cold blood.” It’s evident that your demonization of the Bush administration has so warped your perspective that you are unable to recognize good news from Iraq even when it bites you on the bottom. It is also important to note that the United States military authorities reaped an intelligence bonanza in the safe house where al-Zarqai was killed, a fact you conveniently choose to ignore in your tendentious writings. It is also the case that many high-profile terrorists are captured alive when it makes military and practical sense to do so. Witness the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, where the element of surprise was used to ensure that he could be apprehended without a bloodbath. But then you would probably object to that approach too, since the commandos didn’t “knock and announce” before entering the house where Mr. Mohammed was residing, a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment.
We all should feel blessed that that eminent Iraq expert (certainly with sterling academic credentials I’m sure), Brad Crystal has deigned to set us right in our errant ways.
Pls. forgive me. I thought our nation was a nation of laws and that one of those laws involved guaranteeing everyone due process. And even if you argue he was a terrorist who didn’t deserve the benefit of those laws, treating him like a cockroach fit to be exterminated only makes us look like an exterminator or perhaps just a whole lot more powerful cockroach than Zarqawi was.
Ah yes, just like our beloved president, let us preach the “good news:”
And this is from but the last four days and taken from a single news source. There’s much more bad news in the period since Zarqawi’s murder than I list here.
So what’s Brad’s “good news?” We killed Zarqawi & got a supposed treasure trove of intelligence data. Big deal. How is that supposed to stop an entire country from continuing to careen toward civil war? The only way to mend this broken down country is for us to get out & get out now. Bush unfortunately is “neck deep in the Big Muddy and the big fool says to push on.”
When you kill a terrorist you’ve only killed a symptom, you haven’t killed the root cause of the illness. The root cause is our presence there. Or at least its one of the root causes. And NOTHING can stop this runaway train, not even a day or two of alleged “good news,” from crashing into smithereens when it reaches the bottom of the hill.
Poor Brad. He really hates that Fourth Amendment. So inconvenient. I bet he believes in it for people like him who may never be investigated by the government. He only believes we should throw away the Constitution when it comes to “bad guys.” And who are the bad guys? Certainly not Brad. But quite possibly Muhammed, Abdul or Farooq. And what happens to those souls when they’re not guilty of anything? Brad’s already thrown their rights away since they’re bad guys & don’t deserve any. How do you undo the consequences of Brad’s deluded thinking once the cat’s out of the bag and the damage is done?
Let me respond to two of Richard’s most naive absurdities:
1) “I thought our nation was a nation of laws and that one of those laws involved guaranteeing everyone [including Abu Masab al-Zarqawi] due process.”
Dude, get a clue! Since when do America’s due process laws extend to Iraqi-based terrorrist kingpins who routinely behead civilians and sponsor suicide bombings? Your contention that al-Zarqawi should have been read his Miranda rights is comical. I ask you again, would it have been “murder in cold blood” for American forces to have assassinated Adolf Hitler in the summer of 1941 when the Einsatzgruppen extermination program was in full swing?
2) “Poor Brad. He really hates that Fourth Amendment. So inconvenient.”
This couldn’t be further from the truth. The fact is that I believe the Fourth Amendement to be a bedrock of the American system. But your notion that Fourth Amendment rights should have been extended to 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed when he was captured in Karachi by Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) reveals a profound misreading of the US Constitution. The Fourth Amendment protects all U.S. persons anywhere in the world and all persons within the United States from unreasonable searches and seizures by any person or agency acting on behalf of the U.S. Government. Sorry Richard, but Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was not entitled to Fourth Amendment protection at the time of his capture no matter how much you might wish it were so.
As Zarqawi wasn’t a citizen, he wasn’t entitled to American due process rights. That’s still a far cry from dropping bombs on him. Where do we get that right along with the rights to kidnap, ship to third countries for imprisonment, and torture terrorist suspects? Or do we just act as we wish w/o regard to international norms & the precedent of our past conduct? And what will we do when foreign countries some time in the future repay us the favor by treating our own citizens the same way?
Returning to Zarqawi’s death–that’s called extrajudicial assassination. What the Israelis do to the Palestinians regularly. Is that what our nation should become: a serial oppressor of those we conquer? Because if that’s your model then just look at what 39 years of Occupation have gotten Israel. The enmity of almost every state in the region, thousands of dead Israelis and Palestinians (most civilians on both sides), no peace. That fate could be ours if we just hang in there like you and General Bush advocate.
Now that’s interesting, you believe the Fourth Amendment is bedrock of the American system. But I bet you don’t believe it extends to all citizens now do you? You don’t think the U.S. did anything wrong in murdering a U.S. citizen in Yemen in a rocket attack a few yrs. back? I’d welcome hearing that you don’t approve of that act. But I’m pretty certain I’d be disappointed in yr response. And if you approve of that assassination can you explain how you differentiate between which U.S. citizens deserve the protection of our laws and which don’t? Ah yes, I bet you’ll say U.S. citizens who are terrorists don’t deserve those protections and everyone else does. Problem is the Constitution doesn’t make that distinction & we generally go by what the Good Document says rather than what you’d like it to say.
As with all propagandists you mangle things I say and turn them into statements I never made. Where did I say that Mohammed had Fourth Amendment rights or that agents should’ve knocked on his door before apprehending him? That’s your stupid extrapolation of what you’d like me to have said. Nice try but no cigar. In my last paragraph I was speaking of American citizens with Arab-sounding names who deserved the protection of the Fourth Amendment. I was not talking about non-citizen terrorists & nothing in that passage except your own fervid imagination says so. I thought since I was comparing you to them that you would understand the parallel I was drawing. But that nuance seems to have eluded you.
Besides, my precise pt. is that I’m in favor of apprehending terrorists WITHOUT killing them just as happened with Mohammed. I don’t expect anyone to treat them to tea & crumpets. But not blowing them to bits would be a nice rule to follow.
So I see you’re now resorting to ad hominem argumentation (calling me a “big fat jerk”). How pathetic that is coming from someone who purports to be a serious scholar. I find it curious that you still refuse to respond to my question as to whether you would have objected to assassinating Adolf Hitler in 1941 because it would have been “murder in cold blood.” Do you honestly believe that assassinating Hitler (or Himmler or Heydrich) would have been the improper thing to do had American forces had the opportunity?
With regard to the Fourth Amendment, the fact is that I staunchly believe it extends to all U.S. citizens. So you’re dead wrong in presuming my point of view to be otherwise. I’m just grateful that effete pacifiists such as yourself remain on the fringe of the American (and Israeli) political scene.
I thought better of that phrase shortly after I published it & removed it before I saw yr most recent comment. I don’t know that I’d call it an ad hominem attack, but it was an attack. And I thought better of it. But I don’t take kindly to people who deliberately mangle my arguments for their purposes.
If you have a blog you’re entitled to answer those questions you wish to answer from yr readers & not answer others. I have the same right. You pose questions you somehow believe will “show me up” or place me in some sort of rhetorical trap. I don’t necessarily choose to answer them. Besides, did it ever occur to you that I was thinking of what my answer to the question might be but hadn’t come up w. a response that satisfied me yet? I know you don’t believe in ‘benefit of the doubt’ for folks like me. But I give myself the benefit of all the time I need to answer any question posed to me here.
And now that I have given it some more consideration I don’t find the question at all relevant to the current situation. Adolf Hitler is in a sui generis category in my opinion. His crimes were far more systematic and maniacally efficient than anything Zarqawi could muster. Zarqawi didn’t exterminate most of the Jewish population of Europe as did Hitler. You can argue: it’s not for want of trying. But the pt. is that they haven’t done so and cannot do so. Zarqawi hasn’t conquered much of Europe as did Hitler. Zarqawi & Al Qaeda in themselves don’t even pose a long term threat to Iraq’s existence (forces & sectarian groups within Iraq will determine the nations’ fate). Zarqawi was a deadly, murderous thug. The world is about a penny’s worth (OK, maybe a dime’s worth) better off for him being out of it. But he doesn’t even come close to a Hitler.
That’s the problem with all the national security terror-mongers. To them, Zarqawi is on a par with Hitler. 9/11 is equivalent to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the War on Al Qaeda is a fight for the preservation of civilization, Saddam had WMD, etc., etc. All of this is melodramatic overstatement that serves the purpose of provoking fear and paranoia in American hearts. I’m in favor of fighting terror as you are. But not with overblown rhetoric and analogies (in your case) and outright lies (in Bush’s).
So am I correct in inferring that you WOULD have supported the assassination of Adolph Hitler in 1941 but only because he perpetrated wickedness on an epic, systematic scale? The problem with your line of reasoning is that it allows you to make exceptions to your rule proscribing “extrajudicial assassination” based on criteria of your choosing. Aren’t we really then just arguing about where to draw the line rather than whether it is acceptable to have such a policy of “extrajudicial assassination” in the first place? Would you have supported Hitler’s assassination in 1941 but not Himmler’s or Heydrich’s? What about Eichmann or Goring or Mengele? Weren’t all of these men epic evil-doers too? Or should they have been spared “extrajudicial assassination” simply because their badness did not quite rise to the unique level of Hitler’s?
The removal of al-Zarqawi from the world scene is far more significant than you are willing to acknowledge. It sends a message to the insurgency that its leaders can’t operate with impunity, that they are not as invulnerable as they claim to be. And it means that a loathesome architect of mass murder will no longer cause harm to others. If that’s not a really good thing, I don’t know what is.
“Exceptions,” did I say that word? No, I was speaking of one specific sui generis example of someone for whom I felt my moral system could bend the rules. I think the kingpin of a totalitarian system which came damn close to conquering all the territory from Great Britain to Russia & which killed 6 million Jews (not to mention Gypsies, gays, Communists & so many others) deserves special treatment.
Thank you for making my point for me: Israel (during better and more morally rigorous days) DID capture him ALIVE, bring him to justice and execute him after a trial. What a quaint notion. One of the worst criminals of the Nazi regime who killed far more than Zarqawi could’ve ever dreamed of killing and Israel didn’t shoot him in his bed clothes or drop a bomb on him. Give us back a little bit of those olden, golden days when leaders had a few moral compunctions.
I’m not going to go into yr other hypotheticals. I prefer history as it really happened rather than as it might have happened. I’ll leave the hypotheticals to you.
Quite preposterous. The insurgents don’t need to see Zarqawi in itty bitty pieces to know that they can’t operate with impunity. They already know that if they’re caught they’ll fry in places like Abu Graibh (or whatever’s taken its place). Furthermore, there are many places in Iraq where insurgents DO operate with impunity like Fallujah at one time and Ramadi now (where we’ve sent 10,000 troops to try to root them out). And once we root them out of Ramadi there’ll be another city & then another where they will reign with impunity.
It’s true that “a loathsome architect of mass murder can no longer cause harm to others.” But there are oh so many running to take his place. Counter-insurgency will not work in Iraq. As soon as you put out one fire ten more start. It’s doomed and only you neocons haven’t heard the news.
I think you COMPLETELY missed my point about Eichmann (and others of his ilk). You wrote:
“Thank you for making my point for me: Israel (during better and more morally rigorous days) DID capture [Eichmann] ALIVE, bring him to justice and execute him after a trial. What a quaint notion.”
My question to you was NOT whether it would have been appropriate to assassinate Adolph Eichmann in 1960, some 15 years after the end of World War II when he was all but incapable of rendering further harm to humanity. OBVIOUSLY, the right thing to do in 1960 was NOT to assassinate Eichmann but to capture him and put him on trial, as Israel so honorably did. The question I raised is whether it would have been appropriate to assassinate Eichmann in 1941 when he was actively organizing mass deportations of the Jewish people to extermination camps. This is the question you have failed to answer. To me the answer is patently obvious. Assassinating Eichmann in 1941 would not only have been permissible, but obligatory, from a moral perspective to help mitigate the grievous harm he was inflicting on millions of innocent people.
Similarly, if al-Zarqawi had somehow eluded our forces and remained at large 15 years from now in a South American hideout, I would NOT advocate assassinating him. But as long as he posed a mortal threat to the Iraqi people and American forces (which he most certainly did in June of 2005), it was fair game to kill him rather than risk the bloodbath that would have doubtless occurred in an attempted capture.
Correction: Meant to say June of 2006 in the last paragraph.
Nazis for me, as a Jew who lost relatives in the Holocaust, and as someone who is a student of Jewish history, are in a moral category that I reserve for those in the lowest ring of Dante’s Inferno. I wouldn’t have wept if someone had killed Eichman then.
But you have to understand a few things. Besides my moral distinction between Nazis and other evildoers, the battle against Nazism was a multilateral world struggle in which the U.S. had numerous allies. The world agreed that Hitler was unalloyed evil. Today, we have no such consensus. Yes, most of the rest of the world believes correctly that Zarqawi was little better than pond scum. But virtually no one agrees with our rationale for starting the war to begin with. That is why few except for the true believers think that his murder will amount to a hill of beans as far as the overall Iraq conflict is concerned.
Returning to WWII, we’d actually declared war on Hitler using a legitimate Congressional mandate to do so (as opposed to Bush’s sham Congressional resolution which hardly anticipated the mess he’d get us into). When a country goes to war knowing more or less what it’s getting into there can be much greater consensus around issues such as murdering Zarqawi. But we’re a deeply divided country regarding the war (in fact, the majority now opposes our involvement) partly because of the way Bush prosecuted it to begin with & partly because most people now understand we can never win (or whatever you might call a positive outcome).
Actually in July of 1941 (the timeframe presented in my hypothetical question), the United States had not yet declared war on Germany. Even so, if American forces had taken out Hitler, Eichmann, Himmler or Heydrich at that time I can’t imagine that you (or most civilized people) would have objected on moral grounds. I still find it strange that you use the term “murder” to describe the killing of al-Zarqawi. Whether you agree or disagree with the Congressionally mandated decision to invade Iraq, the fact remains that what’s going on there right now IS a war, and killing the leader of a brutal insurgency cannot legitimately be termed “murder” under any reasonable definition of that word.
My online dictionary describes “murder” thus:
Wouldn’t you say we showed “premeditated malic” in Zarqawi’s murder? And Since the U.S. has never attempted to justify legally at least one U.S. citizen/alleged Al Qaeda operative it has murdered let alone Zarqawi, I feel comfortable calling his killing “unlawful.” They’ve certainly never bothered to make a case for it other than they wanted to get the somfobitch. As for the last two usages, they certainly fit this murder.
You ask: Wouldn’t you say we showed “premeditated malice” in Zarqawi’s murder?
First, I do not accept the false premise of your question. The killing of al-Zarqawi was NOT a murder. The words “unlawful” and “malice” (which underpin the definition of murder) are not applicable in this case. Here is the dictionary definition of malice: “The intent, without just cause or reason, to commit a wrongful act that will result in harm to another.” There was ample just cause and reason for U.S. forces to kill al-Zarqawi based on the fact that he posed a demonstrable mortal threat to both our military personnel as well as Iraqi civilians during a time of war.
Look, two can play the dictionary game. You conveniently omitted the other definition of the word to which I referred when I wrote that the U.S. showed ‘malice’ by murdering Zarqawi:
And that’s certainly what we did to him.
Can you quote me a U.S. legal/Constitutional basis for the doctrine of extrajudicial or targeted assassination?
Actually, the definition of malice that I presented is a legal definition, while yours is not. The fact remains that under the law “malice” requires an absence of “just cause or reason.” There was ample “just cause and reason” to kill al-Zarqawi given the fact that he posed a demonstrable mortal threat to military personnel and civilians alike. Killing a brutal combatant during wartime is not murder when capture is not a viable option. It would have been criminal NOT to have killed al-Zarqawi once our forces were presented with a clear opportunity to do so, unless we had reason to believe he would have surrendered peacefully. And I don’t know of any sane person who seriously believes al-Zarqawi would have surrendered without a horrible bloodbath.
Here is the legal definition of malice as it applies to murder:
“When applied to the crime of murder, malice is the mental condition that motivates one individual to take the life of another individual without just cause or provocation.”
No, now you’re changing your story. In your earlier comment you wrote:
Now you claim:
It can’t be both. Which is it?
Besides, what is ludicrous about this conversation is that the discussion of murder began with my quotation of the definition of “murder” from a dictionary, which included the pharse “premeditated malice.” So what does a supposed “legal definition” of “malice” have to do with anything, when the origin of our lexical dispute centered on a dictionary definition of “murder?”
Besides, I notice that you haven’t presented any legal or Constitutional justification for targeted assassination. Therefore all yr other pretty arguments saying we HAD to kill him, etc. are based on military/political decisions divorced from any legal or Constitutional norms.
I’d like to put this conversation to the sleep it so richly deserves. Your last comment restates sentiments you’ve already expressed in this thread. So let’s give it a rest. Feel free to comment on some other thread as long as you have some new ideas to present. But this one’s over for the two of us.
If you are looking for a LEGAL justification for assassinating terrorist leaders and combatants who pose a mortal threat to civilians, I would refer you to numerous legal scholars who have written extensively on this subject, particularly Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School and Professor Robert Turner of the University of Virginia School of Law. Professor Dershowitz writes: “Under international law, combatants are appropriate military targets until they surrender. They may be killed in their sleep, while preparing military actions or while participating in any other activity. They need not be arrested, or even given a chance to surrender.”
Professor Turner states that “under international law, and legally under Executive Order, there’s no prohibition against intentionally targeting Osama bin Laden or others who are engaged in an ongoing campaign of terrorism against the United States. There may be some pragmatic considerations for doing it or not doing it that are fairly obvious to everybody, but it’s not a legal problem.”
I make it a rule never to trust or respect anything Alan Dershowitz does or says. He is totally lacking in credibility for me as a source on anything, even the weather. Dersh just wrote a piece claiming that the U.S. has something to learn fr. the Israeli policy of targeted assassination aka extrajudicial assassination. I guess Dersh is hoping that in addition to the IDF generals who eventually will answer to the International Court of Justice or some national court of justice for war crimes, a few U.S. generals would join them in the dock.
I note that neither of your sources indicates which aspect of international law supports their questionable theories. Nice try, but doesn’t convince.
And pls. do honor my request not to continue this thread.