1 Our troops are so disciplined, its almost impossible to imagine them wasting the intelligence value of having Zarqawi alive - only for the temporary pleasure bashing him a few times. You get back at Zarqawi not by physically bashing him, but by defeating his insurgency. "Ahmed Mohammed." Suuuurrrre. The media makes me laugh. I used to date a Ft. Worth cop, and I would ride with her sometimes on patrol. She would frequently need to speak with Mexicans who would have no identification, and would identify themselves with a "John Smith" type of moniker: such as "Juan Lopez", or something. She told me there was zero chance of figuring out if they were wanted criminals, unless she was going to take the time to actually take them to the jailhouse, since there were who knows how many hundreds of "Juan Lopez" in the criminal records system. "Ahmed Muhammed." Hah. Once upon a time, no reporter or editor would've allowed this effectively unsourced allegation into a story. Can you imagine: "Japanese bystander Akinori Oh said American troops found Admiral Yamamoto alive in the wreckage of his plane. The American troops kicked Yamamoto, and suffocated him, until he was dead. No other Japanese civilians came forward with a similar claim, but we're going to publich Mr. Oh's completely credible claim, right here on the Associated Press feed."

2 ibid How we'd love to catch them alive, and carry them off to a dacha in the Urals where we'd keep them alive long after they wished to be dead.

3 I am, of course, not at all surprised the MSM is passing along such an unsubstantiated rumor. I strongly suspect there was at least one video camera along with the troops when ol' Zarq-boy was captured and the video is still being analyzed. As far as him still being alive for a few minutes after the strike, all I can say is I hope he was in excruciating pain, and that someone had the foresight to wave an American flag in front of his face.

4 How is it that our media can't be bothered to get out and report good stories in Iraq, but the first unsubstaniated rumor to surface that places our troops in a bad light, gets broadcast.

5 The MSM is pissed because our troops keep screwing up their plans to win the congress for their buddies the Democrats and impeach the Terrorist Bush. Can you blame them? They run a perfectly good campaign and our guys ruin it by catching and killing Zarqawi before they can humanize him and have him stand trial and trash Bush and Rummy.

6 thats Preston is really dreamy ::sigh::