[Marxism] Was Zarqawi beaten to death by US troops?

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

If Zarqawi  was captured alive, our knowledge of the US govt and how it
functions tells us that it is likely they murdered him.  After all, the
war is supposed to be about "payback."  So Zarqawi's death may be a
graphic one-person "Haditha."

I've got no patience with sententious declarations that "the world is a
better  place without Zarqawi". I probably have very little political
agreement with anybody in the various resistance groups, but one thing I
know is that there is only one real criminal in this situation: the
rulers of the United States of  America.

The world is not better off without Zarqawi, and if the US were to get
away with having tortured and murdered him, it will actually be worse
for his loss.

When 9-11 happened, Fidel Castro very generously offered to cooperate
with the United States against Bin Laden and "terrorism" more broadly.
But this proposal was dismissed without comment.  IT would have been
incompatible with invading Afghanistan and Iraq, threatening Iran,
carrying out wars in Somalia and Chad, and all the rest.  Hundreds of
thousands have died so the US can have "payback" (yes, I know the
"payback" theme is simply the bone tossed to the masses for their
backing of the geostrategic resource conquest strategy],  And the
monster is still not sated.

Due to the actions of the US rulers, for whom 9-11 was primarily a dream
pretext to do whatever they have always wanted to do, people like
Zarqawi and Bin Laden can no longer be treated like pure and simple
murderers and  criminals.  The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan,  the
total support given to Israeli expansionism and exclusion of the
Palestinians, the drive to topple the feeble government of the
Palestinian authority and provoke a civil war among the Palestinian
people,  Somalia, et al. have made the Zarqawis and  Bin Laden into a
real part -- albeit an extremist and politically reactionary fringe --
of a real movement against US domination in the Muslim world.

That doesn't make 9-11 anything other than a brutal massacre, but it is
a change wrought by the actions of the United States and it cannot be
ignored with airy statements about Zarqawi as a petty criminal etc. Fred
Feldman


Al-Zarqawi Was Beaten to Death by US Soldiers, Says Iraqi Eyewitness
Muhammed Ahmed

AP Headline: Iraqi Raises Questions on al-Zarqawi Death

By PATRICK QUINN Associated Press Writer

 Jun 10, 11:15 AM EDT

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) --

U.S. officials have altered their account of the death of Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, saying he was alive and partly conscious after bombs
destroyed his hideout, and an Iraqi man raised fresh questions Saturday
about the events surrounding the end of Iraq's most-wanted militant.

The man, who lived near the scene of the bombing, claimed in an
interview with AP Television News to have seen U.S. soldiers beating an
injured man resembling al-Zarqawi until blood flowed from the man's
nose.

When asked about the man's allegations, military spokesman Maj. Gen.
William Caldwell said he would check. In Washington, Pentagon spokesman
Jeffrey Gordon said Saturday he was unaware of the claim.

The Iraqi, identified as Muhammed Ahmed, claimed that residents put the
man in an ambulance before U.S. forces arrived. The American military
team then pulled the man from the ambulance and beat him, Ahmed said. He
gave a similar account to The Washington Post.

No other witnesses have come forward to corroborate the account of a man
resembling al-Zarqawi being beaten. U.S. officials have only said
al-Zarqawi mumbled and tried to roll off a stretcher before dying.

On Friday, the military said al-Zarqawi survived the dropping of two
500-pound bombs on his hideout. The bombs tore a huge crater in the date
palm forest where the house was nestled just outside Baqouba, northwest
of Baghdad.

Iraqi police reached the scene first, and found the 39-year-old
al-Zarqawi alive.

"He mumbled something, but it was indistinguishable and it was very
short," Caldwell, a spokesman for U.S.-led forces in Iraq, said Friday.

Iraqi police pulled al-Zarqawi from the flattened home and placed him on
a makeshift stretcher. U.S. troops arrived, saw that al-Zarqawi was
conscious and tried to provide medical treatment, the spokesman said.

"He obviously had some kind of visual recognition of who they were
because he attempted to roll off the stretcher, as I am told, and get
away, realizing it was the U.S. military," Caldwell told Pentagon
reporters via videoconference from Baghdad.

Al-Zarqawi "attempted to, sort of, turn away off the stretcher," he
said. "Everybody re-secured him back onto the stretcher, but he died
almost immediately thereafter from the wounds he'd received from this
airstrike."

Caldwell has not mentioned any other physical interaction between U.S.
troops and al-Zarqawi.

But Ahmed told AP Television News that a bearded man was still alive and
was lying next to an irrigation canal. He claimed that  U.S. troops
wrapped a traditional Arab robe, known as a dishdasha, over the bearded
man's head and beat him. His account could not be independently
verified.

AP footage of the date palm grove showed debris - concrete blocks, shoes
and sandals - scattered over a wide area around a large crater. Date
palms were ripped from their roots around the blast site.

So much blood covered al-Zarqawi's body that U.S. forces cleaned him up
before taking photographs.

"Despite the fact that this person actually had no regard for human
life, we were not going to treat him in the same manner," Caldwell said.


The airstrike killed two other men and three women who were in the
house, but only al-Zarqawi and his spiritual adviser have been
positively identified, he said.

>From a helicopter hovering above, a wide swath of destruction could be
seen. The debris around the site included a women's slip and other
pieces of clothing. Charred dresses, torn blankets, thin sponge
mattresses and pillows were in the crater itself.

The debris of concrete blocks and twisted metal reinforcement bars
included a pillow with a floral pattern, sandals and a foam mattress
with the covering torn off. A cooling unit and part of a washing machine
also were in the area.

Lt. Col. Thomas Fisher of the 1st Battalion, 68th Armored Cavalry said
his men showed up at the site about five minutes after the blast and
cordoned it off. He said they had a patrol in the area already.

"We didn't know it was Zarqawi, we just knew it was a time-sensitive
target," he said at the scene early Saturday. "We suspected who it was."


Caldwell also said experts told him it is not unheard of for people to
survive a blast of that magnitude. He said he did not know if al-Zarqawi
was inside or outside the house when the bombs struck.

"Well, what we had found, as with anything, first reports are not always
fully accurate as we continue the debriefings. But we were not aware
yesterday that, in fact, Zarqawi was alive when U.S. forces arrived on
the site," Caldwell said.

His recounting of the aftermath of the airstrike could not be
independently verified. The Iraqi government confirmed only that Iraqi
forces were first on the scene, followed by the Americans.

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