That seems to be the rumor in the Arab press:
A fitting end, if true (though it might actually be better for him to live a long time with nails and ball bearings buried in every pore). Let’s hope it’s true, and that they can find DNA evidence to verify, and if it is, good riddance to rotten rubbish.
As the terrorists entered the street, a volley of shots rang out and the three insurgents slumped to the ground.
Each terrorist had been killed by a single head shot – the snipers having spent the past few days rehearsing the ambush in minute detail.
The SAS troopers had been warned that only a direct head shot would guarantee that bombs would not be detonated.
I suspect that as time goes on, and the Iraqis get ever more disgusted by the “insurgents,” and less fearful that the Americans will abandon them, the intelligence needed to do more of this will get better and better. Of course, calls like Murtha’s latest one do nothing to help.
This war continues to resemble something out of Monty Python:
The speaker on the tape, identified as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, also said the group’s suicide bombers did not intend to bomb a Jordanian wedding party at an Amman hotel last week, killing about 30 people…
…Al-Zarqawi accused the Jordanian government of hiding casualties among Israeli and American intelligence agents, and he insisted al-Qaida in Iraq was not targeting fellow Muslims.
“We want to assure you that … you are more beloved to us than ourselves,” al-Zarqawi said, addressing Jordanians.
See, he’s right. This was supposed to be a happy occasion. Let’s not bicker and argue about ‘oo killed ‘oo.
…people died.
No, really.
Remember (hey, they won’t let you forget!) the standard anti-Bush^H^H^H^Hwar talking point–that Saddam Hussein never cooperated (and never would have cooperated) with bin Laden or Al Qaeda? Well, let’s make “boogie to Baghdad” a phrase known across the web.
Saddam Hussein’s defense team has lost 1100 lawyers. Like the old joke of what you call a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the ocean, it’s a good start.
I was some combination of amused and befuddled by this. I had no idea that he had so much legal ballast that could be tossed. It would seem that the trial will require a soccer stadium just to hold the defense team. How many lawyers are left?
I suppose the next step is for his remaining lawyers to move for a mistrial on the basis of lack of adequate legal representation.
[Update an hour or so later]
The more I read this story, the stranger it seems, and I have to wonder at the reporter who passed it on without asking the obvious questions.
How did these people become Saddam’s “lawyers”? Why so many of them? Who is paying for them? I don’t know what percentage of the population of Iraq is lawyers, but don’t they have something better to do, anyway? Has there been a lot of lawyering not going on because of the large contingent on Saddam’s defense team?
And if so, is this not actually bad news for the Iraqis, since they’ll now, being relieved of the burden of defending the former predator-in-chief, return to their own predation on the wealth and welfare of the country?
[Update at 10:15 AM PST]
Fox is reporting on the story now. No answers to my questions, but they do say that the presiding judge claims that “…the withdrawals will have no effect on the work of the court.”
Heh.
Rioting has broken out in the city center of Lyon.
Norman Podhoretz completely dismantles the ongoing Democrat (and anti-war) big lie that Bush “lied us into war.”
As he says, it’s sad, indeed frightening that they continue to get away with this:
What makes this charge so special is the amazing success it has enjoyed in getting itself established as a self-evident truth even though it has been refuted and discredited over and over again by evidence and argument alike. In this it resembles nothing so much as those animated cartoon characters who, after being flattened, blown up, or pushed over a cliff, always spring back to life with their bodies perfectly intact. Perhaps, like those cartoon characters, this allegation simply cannot be killed off, no matter what.
Nevertheless, I want to take one more shot at exposing it for the lie that it itself really is. Although doing so will require going over ground that I and many others have covered before, I hope that revisiting this well-trodden terrain may also serve to refresh memories that have grown dim, to clarify thoughts that have grown confused, and to revive outrage that has grown commensurately dulled.
Joe Wilson’s ongoing duplicity is chronicled in detail, but everyone in the Democrat establishment is clearly shown to be the hypocritical political hacks that they are, to anyone who cares to examine the evidence, and the actual history, going back to the Clinton administration.
Helen Szamuely says that it’s come time to roll up our sleeves, and go liberate France again.
The country in question and its corrupt political leadership have an extensive track record of supporting tyrannical regimes and terrorists as well as terror masters. Remember who gave all possible help and support to Chairman Yasser Arafat, to the detriment of the peace process in the Middle East? Remember who had close and mutually beneficial relations with Saddam Hussein? I could go on.
It is not only political and financial support that anti-American dictators and various terror masters can hope for. The country in question has provided ideological training to an even greater extent than the Soviet Union had done in the past. Several of the world
Iran says it’s not afraid of the UN Security Council.:
“Iran cannot be intimidated by the Security Council. We do not take such threats seriously,” Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told reporters.
Thanks, again, M. Chirac!