Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the fanatical fiend "whose three-year reign of terror cost hundreds of lives" - slightly fewer than the reign of the Coalition of the Virtuous, then - and "wreaked havoc upon attempts to bring stability to Iraq", whatever those may have been, has been intentionally detrimented by a couple of F-16s with five-hundred-pounders. The forces of freedom were able to strike this blow for democracy and order thanks to "the arrest and interrogation of Kassim al-Ani, one of [al-Qaida]'s commanders in the capital, three days earlier", which shows that even the Coalition of the Anomalous can interrogate a guilty man now and then.

The death of Zarqawi has been "hailed as a blow to al-Qaida", albeit relatively mutedly, and the Vicar of Downing Street himself has prophesied that the death toll in Iraq "isn't going to change with the death of Zarqawi - we should not have any illusions about this." On the other hand, the Americans "hope the combined impact of Zarqawi's killing, the intelligence gained from raids on suspected al-Qaida targets and the appointment of three new Iraqi government ministers, has the potential to tip the war in America's favour". Who cares whether or not people will go on dying when three new mannequins have been appointed in Baghdad and the war has been brought within potentially measurable distance of being a Good Thing after all?

Three other men, a woman and a child were apparently a price well worth paying.