I thought some of the reactions from the Jordanian blogosphere (specifically Jordan Planet) were quite interesting. I think all bloggers shared a certain joy to the news but all in their own way. Some put forth some demanding questions left more or less answerless. Remember this is a guy who not only came from Jordan but justified attacks on Jordanian civilians less than 7 months ago, so the wounds are still fresh.
So I thought of doing my own little round up. I already said my piece earlier on so I’m sitting this one out. And not to bore you with lengthy excerpts I’m going to do this in notable quotation form:
Fadi Haddad: “So the Z-guy has been tossed into history’s dumpster…But I hate to say that the Z-ideology is still walking around..Zarqawi was not just an individual..he was a by-product of many Zarqawis and a producer of even Zarqawier…”
Khalaf has a more political analysis of the event but concludes with: “I pray that after the elimination of Zarqawi, more will be done to move Iraq towards peace, unity, freedom and prosperity. I would be proud if Jordan can play a positive role in this regard.”
Although I disagree with Amino on this point it was nevertheless interesting: “Are we solving terrorism through terrorizing the terrorist? Now thatâ??s a lot of alliteration for one sentence, but what would you be if you face violence by violence?”
Oleander: “The Arabic concept of “revenge” comes to mind, or what we call in Arabic Thar, it is an old Arabic custom that the family of a victim will not accept condolences for his death until the killer has met the same fate, or has been brought to justice”
Natasha made me laugh with this…
“To all the skeptics out there, it seems that Zarqawi wasn’t a “US invention” or a “creation by Jordanian intelligence” after all! What will the conspiracy theorists say now? “We need proof!” “We want to see the corpse.””
Hareega made me laugh as well with the post entitled: Ten Reasons Why Zarqawi Cannot Watch The World Cup. Number 4: “He doesn’t have ART”.
Roba, one of the first to break the news on our humble blogosphere simply wrote 3 eternalized words that spoke volumes: “Zarqawi Is Dead”
Jad brought out the fireworks (obtained legally I’m sure) and said: “Do we really need a better reason to celebrate than this one? I donâ??t think so.”
Haitham Sabbah: “One pig down”
Eman asks the important question that everyone here has also grappled with but ends with some optimism: “One canâ??t but wait and pray this will mean less suffering for our dear innocent Iraqi brothers and sisters, because apparently, theyâ??re the only ones paying the price for this whole war.”
Issam says while this is good news for Jordan it’s potentially bad for Iraqis, suggesting: “A new jihadist leader will surely succeed Al Zarqawi. Most probably, he will be an Iraqi, making him better able to unite together the causes of of jihadism and nationalism…a new leader may focus his struggle on targets within Iraq”
The death of Zarqawi is “supposed to feel good, right?” asks Lina. But she has more pressing questions about what needs to be done to prevent the Zarqawi-types from ever surfacing in our society.
Thanks for the round-up Nas, I’ve been offline for almost two days and missed all of this!! I guess I’ll be the one who’s coming to the party late but nevertheless sharing my thoughts..
Thanks for the round up.
You know, one question is asked over and over again: how after such an aggressive strike with all that bombing, the corpse was still there to be identified and withdrawn from the ruins!
Lina, no problem, I’ll update it to include your post
Eman, yeah I thought about that too but apparently he died of wounds from the bombing. I’m no military expert so I can’t imagine in my head exactly what the bombing was like. In my head I’m seeing an image of this bomb landing right on top of his head which is probably not what happened.
We saw the corpse on TV. Reports today mention that he did not die immediately but was able to movea bit and mention a few words before he died.
Zarqawi’s Last words:
Yifda7 3ard el ART… Lolaha kan ma jeet 3ala hada el Bait
Q, loooooooooool funniest thing ive heard all day 😀
By the way, I was the first to report the story, even before it was released by CNN.COM (4 Minutes after the announcement)… (and Roba reported it after more than 10 hours)
The first to announce it were the Australian media, then followed the rest of the world
Q, now lets not get picky over the details 😀