Coming Soon: Bin Laden Never Existed

I've long thought that the mental acuity of the average leftist was highly retarded by a wall of anti-Bush agi-prop (hence the tagline, "liberalism is a persistent vegetative state"), but even still, I was blown away by the blatant paranoia, open delusions, and thinly-veiled hatred of American soldiers manifested on liberal blog Talk Left, regarding the killing of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Starting on Saturday and continuing again Sunday, Talk Left posters began working themselves into a lather over a claim made by an anonymous Iraqi to the Associated Press that U.S. soldiers beat al-Zarqawi to death after his safehouse was hit by two 500-pound bombs.

The claim:

The Iraqi, identified only as Mohammed, said he lives near the house where al-Zarqawi was killed. He said residents put a bearded man in an ambulance before U.S. forces arrived.

"When the Americans arrived they took him out of the ambulance, they beat him on his stomach and wrapped his head with his dishdasha, then they stomped on his stomach and his chest until he died and blood came out of his nose," Mohammed said, without saying how he knew the man was dead.

A dishdasha is a traditional Arab robe.

A similar account in The Washington Post identified the man as Ahmed Mohammed.
No other witnesses have come forward to corroborate the account. U.S. officials have only said al-Zarqawi mumbled and tried to roll off a stretcher before dying.

Now, by even applying basic reasoning skills to Mohamed's claim, one would have to ask how "Mohammed" could see blood flow out of al-Zarqawi's nose with his robe wrapped around his head, but that was easily bypassed by this top liberal blog, which was quick to label al-Zarqawi's killing an act of terrorism by the American military:

Killing Zarqawi and three women in the house with him was not an act of war. It was an act of retaliatory terrorism. By our government. And I don't want it to be in my name.

So according to Jeralyn Merritt, founder of Talk Left, killing a major terrorist is itself an act of terrorism.

The comment left me speechless over the weekend; I could not find a way to adequately explain the moral vacuousness and depraved indifference to reality needed to make such an incredibly stupid comment, and mean it.

But several of Jeralyn's regulars were ready to go beyond her labeling of American soldiers as terrorists, and seemed to float the theory that al-Zarqawi never even really existed at all:

The whole story is so unbelievable to begin with that the AP story only adds to the confusion.

al-Zarqawi has been a psy/ops character made for the American audience since Powell pointed to him as proof aq[sic] was in Iraq.

Why would the last chapter, his death, be any less fictional. With the US military controlling the narrative, anything is possible.

Some where willing to grant the possibility that he existed, but weren't convinced he was a terrorist :

The whole thing is bull. Whatever killed the man, it was not a 500-pound bomb. We know that's a lie, because the building was vaporized and the guy supposedly inside came out looking like he had been slapped by a high-school freshman. Then he died, with hardly a mark on him. Sure would like to see the autopsy report.

It seems that a lot of people are willing to take the word of people who have been wrong about EVERYTHING SO FAR that he was a terrorist, and that his role was important.

That was Saturday.

Sunday's post was even more discombobulated, with Merritt and her supporters apparently convinced that a delay in releasing the autopsy until DNA confirmation was complete as evidence of some sort of a cover-up, with the "discovery" of a second (predictably) anonymous source all the proof they required that al-Zarqawi's death was the result of a brutal beating of an injured man by American soldiers.

It's just heart-warming isn't it? Jeralyn and her followers find it far easier to believe that American soldiers are mindless thugs that would beat a wounded man on a stretcher to death, that believe he actually died as a result of two 500-lb. precision-guided bombs.

Of course, that depends on the silly assumption of those of us outside the "reality-based community" have that al-Zarqawi actually existed. Talk Lefter's don't seem convinced.

From Jade:

All the national and international media reported for the last two years that Zarqawi had one leg. They even told when and how he lost it. The quote often was "how hard is it to find a one legged man in Iraq".

Then we see a video of a two legged Zarqawi and a corpse of a two legged Zarqawi, how did that miracle of science happen?

From Aaron, the "more than one al-Zarqawi" theory:

While the DNA and the fingerprints may prove that this is indeed the terrorist we've come to know as Zarqawi, there does seem to be a lot of conflicting accounts, there may actually be a number of people using this moniker.

[snip]

The more you look at this nice neat little package which has been provided for us since day one, with the Jordanian government immediately stepping forward, and everyone revealing their intelligence sources, that's the moment you know to open your eyes wide, and listen very carefully. Far from being a coordinated attack it looks more and more like they just got lucky even with the help of Al Qaeda, and were able to call in a couple of planes which were on routine patrol. Beware of nice neat little packages when examining such counterintelligence scenarios.

And last but not least, Furillo:

I don't believe a word of what Gen. Casey Said.

Zarqawi never existed. At least the terrorist one.

It's all propoganda. Since when does a sullen Gen. Casey have to confirm what some already know is to use to press to brainwash and bombard us with dogma and story telling.

You see folks? al-Zarqawi never existed. Nick Berg sawed off his own head. That half-hour propaganda video so beloved by CNN's Jamie McIntyre was likely filmed on the same set as the faked Apollo moon landings. It all fits… at least when you're having fits.

Sadly, Jeralyn Merritt and her posters are not that atypical of the average "netroots progressive" that feel that our present U.S. government is the single greatest source of evil on this planet, and that terrorists such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden are just props created by President Bush "to further the neocon agenda."

Can you imagine the looks they would have received in World War II?

I wonder what would have happened to people of this ilk during World War II as they tried to tell other Americans of a conspiracy cooked up by FDR to make his friends in the military-industrial complex filthy rich by creating a pawn called Benito Mussolini. Mussolini of course didn't really exist, since they never did find conclusive enough proof that the body recovered after he was reported killed was really a fascist dictator at all.

Back then, they'd be off to a rubber-padded room for electroshock treatments. Today, they run for office as Democrats.

Merritt and her fellow partisans ask us to believe their current insanity is a self-evident truth. Even the release of the autopsy showing al-Zarqawi was killed by the blast overpressure of the bombs will not be enough to convince them.

Based upon their easy dismissal of al-Zarqawi as a fictional character, one can only assume that from their enlightened perspective, Osama bin Laden is but a figment of our imagination as well.

Silly, silly us.