25 million for this guy?

What's going on here?

At his weekly media briefing, Lynch showed brief clips from what he said was the unedited video showing Zarqawi, wearing New Balance running shoes, struggling to handle the machine gun he was shown firing in the version posted on the Internet and aired on television.

Another clip appears to show his aides grabbing the gun's hot muzzle and fumbling with it after he had finished.

Major-General Lynch then made what appears to be the understatement of the day:

"... a warrior leader, Zarqawi, who doesn't understand how to operate his weapons system.

"It makes you wonder".

It certainly does. This latest comical information (assuming it's not disinformation) begs the question of whether Z-man's actions over the past year have been planned or are happening all by themselves. If he's really this hapless you'd think we'd have nabbed him already just like we grabbed Saddam.

Maybe we've allowed him to float around and screw up. Remember, it was reported last year that Iraqi forces actually grabbed him, then let him go. Perhaps he's worth more running around bringing bad PR to al Qaeda and the insurgency than captured. Notice the insurgent leaders and Bin Laden have been careful not to bad-mouth him publicly, yet they don't seem to embrace him, either. Only recently did some in the Iraqi terrorist club decide to distance themselves from him.

Surely the anti-Bush set will use this to bolster or start a conspiracy theory that Zarqawi is actually a CIA asset. I'm thinking he's more in the useful idiot category.

LINKS IN THE CHAIN 5/4/06

One reason Zarqawi might be acting a little weird and desperate of late is the fact his good buddy and probable mentor Mustafa Setmariam Nasar was confirmed captured in Pakistan. Sometimes called 'the red-headed terrorist', Nasar was wanted in connection with several acts of terrorism, and had reportedly been in Iraq with Z-man at some point several years ago.

By all accounts he's a scholar compared to Zarqawi, which should lead us to wonder whether Nasar was of equal or greater importance to the cause of worldwide jihad.

Here he is..










Looks like someone you might see working at the local Bass Pro Shop.