Nobody's going to morn the death of Al Zarqawi, me included, but there are some important questions about how and why he died that need asking.

From the available reports on the incident, it seems clear that the U.S. knew exactly where he was, and had plenty of troops surrounding the building before they called in an airstrike and dropped (depending on the story) one or two 500-1b. bombs directly on him.

It seems like they really wanted to kill him, not capture him. There is even a witness report that when they discovered he was not dead, his US captors beat him and made sure he died of his "wounds." Whether or not that report is correct, the bombing itself was certainly meant to kill him.

Now that's mighty curious when you think about it (which not many in the mainstream media are bothering to do).

Vengeance may be sweet, but when you have the chance to catch the leader of a gang and get the kind of information about his followers that you could never hope to get any other way, you're giving up an awful lot when you blow him up. If I were a GI, a Marine, or an Iraqi Shi'ia, I'd have been much happier if he were now a captive and experiencing the tender mercies of his interrogators. who might be learning where the others are who keep trying to blow me up with IEDs and suicide bombs.

I remember thinking, and writing, the same thing when the U.S., early in this occupation, had Saddam Hussein’s two sons trapped in a building and, instead of waiting them out and capturing them, with all the information they surely had about the whereabouts of the old man and of the organization of the Baathist resistance, the military blew up their house with rockets and bombs.

In Zarqawi's case, killing him with bombs meant, incidentally, the killing of an innocent little girl, aged 5-7 according to reports, and her mother and father. It could be that her parents were not so innocent (in which case sais la non vie), though we don't know that--they may have been pressured into letting him stay in their home--but the little girl who died to satisfy America’s bloodlust was an innocent.

Remember, this was done on orders of an administration that claims to believe every life is precious.

So let's get this straight: there was no justification for bombing that house. The U.S. military had Zarqawi in a perfect trap. He was surrounded. There was nowhere to run. There was a predator drone monitoring the site from above in case he tried to slip away.

So why did they kill him?

My guess is that it's the same reason they killed Saddam's two sons: The U.S. is not particularly anxious to have these guys talking about what they know about the U.S. in Iraq.

In the Saddam boys' case, they might have told tales of U.S. assistance to their father. At a minimum, they might have made it clear that there were no weapons of mass destruction, and at the point they were caught, the administration was still funding a desperate search to find anything (there is even talk that they may have been considering hiding something so they could find it).

In Zarqawi's case, there is speculation that he was something of an American creation. Certainly the U.S. left him alone before the war and during the war's early stages, when he and his gang or terrorist thugs were operating out of northern Iraq under the protection of the U.S. no-fly zone.

At the least, we can say that the Pentagon and the administration (because the decision about how to handle Zarqawi was surely made at the very top by The Decider and his advisers) made a stupid decision in killing him, rather than capturing him. If we think more suspiciously, there may have been method to the administration’s madness.

They don't want these kinds of guys talking about what they know.

And for that, a little girl paid the price.

For other stories by Lindorff, please go (at no charge) to This Can't Be Happening! .

To find out more about the new book, The Case for Impeachment, click here. For early review quotes, check out the “Impeachment News” box on the top right of the homepage at This Can't Be Happening! .

A- Zarqawi has been almost captured several times. He literally ran from a checkpoint last year. He does two things very well. He arranged the murder of hundreds perhaps thousands of people with suicide bombs. and he up to now, has gotten away with it. He would have been a much better prize had been taken alive, for intelligence value. Somebody made the call that he would not escape again. fine by me.

Saddam was taken without a shot being fired although a soldier had already armed the grenade they were going to toss into his spider hole. Odai and Quesay his sons were also surrounded and asked to surrender, but people who torture others for a hobby might be a little anxious of their expected treatment. Not from US troops I served in Iraq during Desert Storm and my son currently serves with the 3rd expeditionary Marines. What really scares Iraqis is the fear of being turned over to their own people. US soldiers are softies by comparison.

In any case hes dead and you should be happy. I am.

Who?

Oh- the boogeyman of the WAR ON TERROR.

al-CIAda attacks!

Who's next? Could be any of us.

Roger, Roger.... Haven't you learned? Damnit... you're making SENSE. Thats a direct violation of LAIMC protocol. You'll be banned in no time.

neither you or your other nick 'Roger' is making any sense.

A- Zarqawi is a fiction of the CIA and this don't wash any better then when you psyops knuckle heads saturated the MSM with this tired fiction.

OOOOoooo we're all SO relieved

Our government will protect us from the 'terrists.

Whaaa whaaa

You'd better watch your tongue before the Illuminati controlled, Halliburton built robots come to your house tonight in black helicopters and take you to their secret underground base in Guantanamo, where delusion, paranoid whiners are tortured by being forced to sing God Bless America in front of an American Flag. And if you're really naughty Dick Cheney will personally come down there and brainwash you using the "Exxon Method". You'd better lock your doors now and buckle the chinstrap on your tin foil hat.

And would you like to tell us about all the the conspiracy theories that come with like the Al- Zarqawi morphs who were paraded around until you put the public to sleep...?

Ho hum.

No wonder he outlived his use.

... and it will achieve victory without him.

"50 million Iraqis can't be wrong."

Wasn't he the one who said the insurgency was in it's "final throes" two years ago?

Ho hum.

I guesss now it is in the final "final throes".

No.

Really!

Ya believe me.

Don't ya?