The Egyptian dead?

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No. 2 man in the al Qaeda hierachy and whom we have seen so many times in tapes released by al Qaeda, sometimes with bin Laden, most often alone, may be dead. I love Orrin Judd's pithy comment.

After 9-11 you heard a lot of "analysts" make the same inane point over and over: they only had to get lucky once, we have to be lucky every day. But, terrible as the death and deestruction of that day was, the reality is that the war against al Qaeda pits a relatively few whackos who can't ever show their faces in public against the world's hyperpower, and a pissed-off hyper-power at that. Unfortunately, wiping out the entire command of al Qaeda won't magically end terrorism in the world or do away with Islamicism, but we will eradict at least this organization in no small measure because we can always be on the hunt for them and they can't do anything to stop us.

Compare it to this one:

al-Zawahiri May Be Dead
Or not. Or maybe so. Or not. Or maybe so. I wish I could muster the energy to give a shit, but I just can’t. Possibly getting the #2 man in an organization that perpetrated a four-year old attack which has repeatedly served as a justification for undermining our civil liberties and was tacitly linked to a completely unrelated regime to rationalize an unjust war, when the mastermind of said attack still hasn’t been “smoked out”—either dead or alive—just isn’t making me feel particularly orgasmic.

Just pissed off about Alito and losing yet again, I guess.

UPDATE: Maybe not. Pakistan pissed off, too, although not about Judge Alito.

TAGS: 9/11, al Qaeda, Ayman al Zawahiri, dead