Was al-Zarqawi a Myth?

[Junkdrawer]

Poll question: Was al-Zarqawi a Myth?

[peekaloo]

1. Keyser Soze!

[Junkdrawer]

8. And he had the limp too...

:rofl:

[NastyDiaper]

2. He *Was* A leader of a significant portion of the insurgency..

..pre war. But thanks to American involvement (brought to you courtesy of the AEI) he became relatively small time.

Probably blew his cover trying to appear more than he was.

[Junkdrawer]

4. OK. I changed the tense. They're crowing so loud that...

they can't bring him back to life THIS time.

[hippiechick]

3. Kkkarl in a turban with a machine gun...

... remember that 'terra' video the summer before the '04 election ? :rofl:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

5. Complete fabrication?

I think several people need a history lesson.

[bunyip]

6. He was a real terrorist, once.

Common criminal who was politicized in a Jordanian prison when he was locked up with radicals.

I think most likely he died in Afghanistan (where he died his first death). Someone picked up the name and ID and reappeared in the next neocon target (Iraq), drawing out Islamist sympathizers and gathering intel.

The Mossad were busted setting up fake Al Qaeda cells in Gaza a few years ago.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/12/08/1038950271656.html

The CIA is larger, better funded, and has a more diverse pool of potential agents to draw upon.

One of the strategic weaknesses of Al Qaeda is that such a decentralized system can have no effective quality control, which makes them vulnerable to 'black' operations that attack their credibility and image.

[Junkdrawer]

7. I've speculated that al Qaeda was an entrapment mechanism...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x88547

[The Stranger]

9. Required viewing.

The Power of Nightmares(BBC)

[Junkdrawer]

10. Downloaded and viewed all 3 hours ( & 3 Gigabytes!) of it...

Its treatment of al-Qaeda was excellent, but I don't buy the Neocon-as-idealist-bringing-Democracy-to-the-world theme.

[Junkdrawer]

11. .