Musings on topics of small or large importance. Especially partial to subjects that include baby boomers, public figures, friends, Corporate America, the Denver Broncos, NASCAR, my previous home towns of New York City and Columbia (Maryland), stupidity (mine and others'), diets and health and who knows what else!

Sunday, June 11, 2006

We Kill Him and Then We Care Whether We Were Fair in His Last Moments?

Would someone please explain to me how this all works? We (the American military) kill Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a violent way -- presumably dropping two 500-pound bombs on a safe house can be considered violent -- and then we're sending in people to ascertain whether the troops on the scene acted appropriately toward him as he lay dying?

What, are we going to say they treated him cruelly? Wasn't the whole point to kill him? Isn't bombing a safe house, and wiping out others in the house also, pretty darn deliberate? If someone is going to go that far to try to kill someone, if he were still alive, wouldn't they do whatever they had to do to make sure they finished the job?

I mean, really, will there be an investigation into whether the troops beat him or didn't provide medical treatment? And what if they did beat him? Will they be punished or reprimanded? Presumably someone thinks it might be inappropriate or, even after bombing the place with the specific intention of killing him, they wouldn't be sending someone to look into it. Where did that idea even come from? Please, someone, explain that to me.