Mister Zarqawi, He Dead

The world reacts:
Zoloft Pony: “Two 500lb bombs right on his safe house. NOT SO SAFE NOW, IS IT, BITCH?!”
Roger L. Simon: “Goodbye, good riddance, you human nightmare!”
Atrios: “I’m supposed to give the obligatory “YAY USA!” cheer here, but while it’s good to get the bad guys I don’t really think it’s going to improve much. Hopefully I’m wrong.”
Christopher Hitchens: “Zarqawi contributed enormously to the wrecking of Iraq’s experiment in democratic federalism. He was able to help ensure that the Iraqi people did not have one single day of respite between 35 years of war and fascism, and the last three-and-a-half years of misery and sabotage. He chose his targets with an almost diabolical cunning, destroying the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad (and murdering the heroic envoy Sérgio Vieira de Melo) almost before it could begin operations, and killing the leading Shiite Ayatollah Hakim outside his place of worship in Najaf. His decision to declare a jihad against the Shiite population in general, in a document of which Weaver (on no evidence) doubts the authenticity, has been the key innovation of the insurgency: applying lethal pressure to the most vulnerable aspect of Iraqi society. And it has had the intended effect, by undermining Grand Ayatollah Sistani and helping empower Iranian-backed Shiite death squads. Not bad for a semiliterate goon and former jailhouse enforcer from a Bedouin clan in Jordan.”
Will Collier: “Rest in pieces.”
Loast at Fark.com: “Ok, so I’m a communist totally opposed to the US foreign policies at the moment with the exception of genuine humanitarian aid. BUT, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was a farkin’ animal. Murderer, reactionary, fanatic, what you will. Good riddance, that man was a cold blooded killer with no allegiance but his own cult. No shedding tears over a cold-blooded psychopath with hints of a messiah complex. That is, if he really is dead, which is only what the US states, and we all know how truthful those bastards are.”
Scorpinoc at Fark.com: “How about we start a “head on pike” collection in the White House mens room? One head on a pike per urinal. Get some video of the US Presidential staff pissing on the heads of dead terrorists and circulate that through the middle east.”
Caller on the Diane Rhem Show, in tears: “I woke up this morning and learned my country had dropped a bomb on someone’s head….”
Tony Blair: “Every day we hear of the death toll through the fomenting of civil strife: a campaign of murder, and kidnapping and brutality — all of it designed to stifle Iraqi democracy at birth, and al-Zarqawi was its most vicious prosecutor.”
Iraqi blogger Hammorabi: “There were celebrations going on now in the holly city of Najaf and Kerbala. On the other hands there are sadness and shock among his allies in the region and abroad like Al-Jazeera Qatari TV and other Arab pro-terrorists thugs.”
Official statement of Hamas, ie the Palestinian government: “With hearts full of faith, Hamas commends brother-fighter Abu Musab … who was martyred at the hands of the savage crusade campaign which targets the Arab homeland, starting in Iraq.”
MarcC in my comments section: “To paraphrase Jacques Chirac, Hamas missed a perfect opportunity to shut up, when they instead publicly mourned the death of Zarqawi at the hands of the savage crusader campaign aimed at the Arab heartland. And just when everybody was starting to forget the image of the Palestinian fatmas flashing V signs and tossing candies on 9/11. What a bunch of assholes.”
Beirut Daily Star Editorial: “In what now appears to have been his last audiotape, he unleashed a torrent of slurs against Shiites, hopefully revealing to a great many Iraqi Sunnis that his real purpose was not their welfare but rather their cousins’ subjugation and extermination. Without the presence of Zarqawi as a driving force for the perpetual acceleration of the conflict, it might be possible to engage hard-line Sunnis and convince them that their best interests lie in seeking an acceptable compromise that would permit all Iraqis to at last put conflict behind them and get on with the business of rebuilding their shattered country.”
One of Big Pharoah’s Egyptian Colleagues: “Man it’s all a conspiracy. The Americans killed him after he became useless to them. Just like Saddam.”
Egyptian Sandmonkey: “Ding Dong the asshole is dead! Zarqa is dead (He got killed on 6/6/06 nonetheless, anyone else noticed that?). The bloodthirsty Jihady fuckhead is no more, and is hopefully rotting in hell as we speak! Good-bye douchebag, it couldn’t have happend to a more appropriate person!”
Karim Elsahy, One Arab World: “Death aint never been prettier.”
Nouri Lumendifi, The (Algerian) Moor Next Door: “Is it bad that I am happy?”