The word "beaming" sounds to me to describe a too-complete feeling of satisfaction, as if there weren't still serious problems in Iraq. I can't prove that it was intended to contain a whiff of snark, but with lines like:

Zarqawi's death marked a rare upturn in the war for the force of 135,000 American troops Gen. Casey leads, who have lost more than 2,400 soldiers dead and more than 17,000 wounded, with no end to the war in sight

in this "uniformly positive" article, I'm going to go with my gut on this one.

All positive.

My point exactly. Without reading each linked article, the uses you cite seem to refer to unmitigatedly joyous events, like feisty senior citizens putting on a show, or a man happy that he became a rabbi — not a development that, however positive, is but one step in a serious, challenging, and ongoing military campaign.

Used in such a context, it seems a bit sarcastic, as if the death of Zarqawi had left us as carefree as a singer in a musical.

GB, are you serious? Even in the examples I gave you was a child beaming because of his father recovering from a serious disease. For the kid, that's every bit as serious as a war.

And I thought your whole point with this post was that Zarqawi's death is an "unmitigatedly joyous event". Exactly the sort of thing people should be beaming about, right?

I stand by my view. Beaming suggests uncritical, unalloyed joy, which is appropriate if you are a little child whose daddy is getting better, but not if you are the adult leader of a country with serious problems. I found the use of the word in this context subtly suggested that the writer thought maybe Mr. Maliki was a little happier than he should be.

I think Zarqawi's death is a significant, welcome development, and yet it should be soberly appreciated as an important step in a diffcult, ongoing process. I'm reminded of a Harvey Keitel line from Pulp Fiction which I can't repeat here.

But you know what, if it bothers you so much, I'll concede this one point to you. There are plenty of other examples out there of war opponents attempting to minimize the significance of Zarqawi's death, and criticizing positive reactions to it.

GB, I looked at the roundup of liberal reaction and it looks mostly like legitimate points to me. Everyone seems to be saying that this is good news, but it doesn't solve the main problems. What's wrong with that response?

By the way, you might want to add this quote to the anti-war left naysayers:

I’m not so sure this is a significant blow to Al Qaeda, however. Al Qaeda is an ideology, not a military organization with a traditional command structure, and I suspect the actual impact on their day-to-day operations will be minimal.

-Charles Johnson, LGF
Those moonbats just can't resist pointing out the negatives, huh?

Don't worry, it's just the "even a stopped clock..." phenomenon. He'll go back to the talking points soon enough.

I'm perfectly glad to see Zarqawi's corpse and I hope it wasn't a quick death, but a long, slow, excruciating one. However, we knew where he was based on a tip, and I suspect that's indicative of internecine power struggles within the insurgency, which is really dozens of insurgencies. Somebody else decided they wanted him dead and told us where he was. Plenty of Iraqis fighting the occupation don't like the other foreigners killing Iraqis either.

Can't prove it, but I'd bet good money on it. So anyhow, yeah, it's a good thing in terms of the net karma of the planet, and definitely a good thing for the people of Iraq, but it doesn't really make much of a difference in the big picture. It's certainly less significant than capturing Saddam or killing his sons and nothing's really gotten calmer since then. Nor does it mean much against Al Qaeda, since Zarqawi's group is only very loosely related to Al Qaeda proper and even that only recently.

We have a persistent habit in the US of personalizing conflicts ("if we just get this guy..."). That isn't really a useful way of looking at this conflict.

Precision bombs, apostropher, precision.

I liked the response of Mr. Berg, father of Nicholas who's head was sawn off by Zarqawi. He said revenge solves nothing and that he took no joy in it and that it would do nothing to bring back his son.

Now there's a great American, and his son, from all accounts, was as well. The courage and wisdom in Mr. Berg's statement is something of which the Zarqawis of the world have much to fear.

Why do the U.S. media so dutifully use the propaganda word ``airstrike'' instead of bombing or strafing, arguably more descriptive and definitely more precise.

Okay, I was wrong and I admit it. I saw a photograph of the above press conference in the paper version of the International Herald Tribune this morning, and both Maliki and Casey were indisputably, undeniably beaming like they had just won the lottery. The Times writer described their facial expressions precisely.

I'm not sure the full extent of Mr. Berg's comments, as I only heard what National Public Radio excerpted from them. But I'd like to think his point wasn't that putting Zarqawi out of business was a bad idea. Perhaps what he was getting at was:

1. Zarqawi's death will not even come close to solving the the problems that are causing the death and destruction in Iraq.

2. The fetishization of revenge was Zarqawi's raison d'etre. He was about nothing more than vengance. To revel in the same ourselves is to approach his level.

3. Nothing that could happen to Zarqawi would ever bring his son back.

As for your claim that Zarqawi ``spending every day plotting to kill as many innocents as possible.'' That's extremely doubtful.

The evidence is clear that Zarqawi had little regard for human life, but he was not interested in indiscriminate killing. Moreover, he was a real amateur compared with the U.S., which has killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times more innocents.

He had a specific political goal and his operations were all geared toward that. He sought first and foremost to attack U.S. occupation forces and the apparatus that supported them.

It is telling, GB, that you feel free to exaggerate so baldly about Zarqawi. The MSM you complain about so much give you the instructions to do that, and you enthusiastically, obediantly follow them.

``I guess I should have calibrated my condemnation of him to the precise level that you consider to be appropriate.''

It's about factuality, not appropriateness -- another telling formulation on your part. And the issue of demonization isn't just question of etiquette or rhetorical tactics. Demonization is the primary cause of the war in Iraq.

The U.S. justified the invasion by claiming Iraq had WMDs. Yet even the Pentagon itself has admitted that there was no reliable evidence that Iraq had WMD just before the war.

No reliable evidence, yet so many people believed. Why? Saddam was so thoroughly demonized, it was difficult for many people--virtually impossible for some--to believe that Iraq did not have WMD.

Secondly, the demonizatin of Saddam gave the war an unnecessary urgency so that it became impossible for many to draw the now obvious conclusion that the tremendous costs of ousting Saddam by military force were too high.

Likewise, the demonization effect now prohibits some people from caring about details of Zarqawi's background to the extent that they spout utter historical nonsense such as the idea that he was somehow in league with Saddam Hussein.

Setting aside the specific case of Iraq and the war against bin Ladenism, I think its important to try to focus discussion and thinking onto social, economic, cultural and geopolitical circumstances and away from personality cults, be they pro or anti.

Not long ago, Karl Rove made much hay with his statement that liberals should be condemned for seeking ``understanding'' about the threat of terrorism. Here again we see the anti-personality cult at work. Rove's idea is that because our enemies are evil, no understanding is required. They are bad, pure bad, enough said. That attitude has cost us greatly, nowhere more than in Iraq.

TT, you seem to be using "understand" in the doublespeak Japanese-government sense of "agree with, or at least quit complaining about".

Of course, that's not what it means at all. It is quite possible to understand men like Zarqawi completely and still believe they should be killed, Christian homilies notwithstanding.

I don't know exactly what Rove quote you're referring to, so I can't say. But it seems that he was accusing the liberals of wanting us to "understand" the terrorists in the Japanese sense of the word — i.e., to sympathize with and accept their causes and methods.

Rove said: ``liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.'' He also said calls for ``moderation and restraint'' were the response from moveon.org and others with Democratic party ties.

If we overlook Rove's dastardly lies of omission and exaggeration, then it becomes obvious he is essentially correct. Liberals know that understanding terrorists is essential to defeating them efficiently on both the military and ideological fronts. Liberals understand that American PRINCIPLES of due process strengthen the nation, its culture and society rather than weaken it. They also know that moderation and restraint are crucial military and strategic principles that have contributed immensely to America's unprecedented geopolitical success.

As Rove emphasizes, the right wing's response to 9/11 was fundamentally emotional and essentially childish. Indeed, ``conservatives'' like Rove saw no need for understanding and, the record shows, achieved none. Like children, they proved themselves disastrously incapable of moderation and restraint.

Rove's comments were a stunning acknowledgement of the irrational root of our failure to achieve success in Iraq and the region. The emotional need for revenge and to, in Rove's revealing phrase ``brandish steel'' (the 9/11 response he attributed to conservatives) define the Bush administration's response to terrorism.