Zarqawi Tape

[erpowers]

What to members of DU think about the new tape put out by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi? I think it is interesting that he has decided to make a tape in which he show his face again. Does anyone think the Bush Administration is trying to use this tape to claim that Zarqawi is more important in Iraq than he actually has been?

[madrchsod]

1. he`s another actor in the play

he`s just one of the actors nothing more and nothing less. i thought he was dead.

[acmavm]

2. I want proof that it IS Zaq in that tape. These recordings pop

up at the most convenient times. I doubt that they're legit.

[tatertop]

3. It is not the same guy featured in photos past

But it does feature nicely in this week's Two Minutes Hate.

[realFedUp]

4. it almost seems that these guys are on the Bush Inc. payroll

some people's terrorists are other people's freedom
fighters and others are just hired hands.

[HamdenRice]

5. His leg has grown back ...I mean, Musab's Dad, the guy from Zarqa

There is so much fishy about the new tape of Abu Musab al Zarqawi and the Zarqawi legend. First of all, his name, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is quite meaningless. Many Arab men nick-name themselves after their first sons. For example, the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, is often called, Abu-Mazen; that means, Mazen's Dad.

So Abu Musab means Musab's Dad. It is not his given first name.

al-Zaraqwi just refers to the town in Jordan he is from, Zarqa. It is not his family name. It means, "the Zarqa guy."

So the name of the most wanted man in the world (remember shrub on bin Laden: "So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him,"), is "Musab's Dad, the guy from Zarqa." This just doesn't seem to me to be a very convincing indentification of the most wanted man on earth.

When you add that the press recently revealed that the US military would play up the importance of al-Zarqawi in order to promote the link between Iraq and al Qaeda in the public's mind, the timing of this tape seems suspicious.

Also of course, Musab's Dad, the guy from Zarqa, was reported for a long time to have had one leg gravely injured in a missile attack, and to have had that leg amputated. In one frame from the new video reproduced in the NY Times, he is sitting cross legged. That's hard to do with peg leg, or even with a gravely injured leg that has healed.

The Times reporting is pretty skeptical. They refer to him only as a "man who identifies himself as" Zarqawi, not as Zarqawi.

Or should I say as Musab's Dad, the guy from Zarqa.

[erpowers]

6. Good Points

You bring up good points and I mainly agree with you. However, I just wanted you to know that a few years ago, about two years ago the Bush Administration began saying that they thought Zarqawi still had both his legs. This admission was suspicious to me in that it came after some liberals and liberal groups started to question how Zarqawi could be having such an impact in Iraq if he only had one leg. So you are right that this video is very fishy.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

7. Maybe they need to put a 'face' on him before they 'capture' him just in

time for fall elections? :shrug:

[donsu]

8. didn't the pentagon just admit that he was made up?

nt