Atrocity-Mongers, Please Report to Wardrobe

As announced this morning on Fox and Friends by Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, it turns out Zarqawi was still breathing when Coalition ground forces reached his newly berubbled safe house.  He even made a feeble escape attempt, but met his maker shortly thereafter.

Now, certainly, having a pair of 500-pound precision guided bombs fly through your window (offing your nine housemates without follow-up fuss) would seem sufficient to plant you squarely in the near-death category, clinging to your wretched existence for a few miserable final minutes before giving out.  Still, the divulgence of Zarqawi's survival of the initial blast will inevitably stir both the conspiracy and the atrocity pots.

We already heard yesterday from the likes of the Arab Committee for Human Rights that showing pictures of the lifeless face of one of the world's most wanted terrorists was a violation of the Geneva Convention.  Now, as one blogger colleague suggested, can we expect tears to be shed over Zarqawi not being read his Miranda rights?  Was he accorded his due POW treatment in the final moments of his lamentable captivity at the hands of American occupiers?

The idea of this argument being made would be almost amusing if it weren't inevitable.  (Update: That didn't take long at all...)

For those more concerned about what impact yesterday's big win will have on the broader war on terror and the Iraq insurgency, the news just keeps getting better.  In addition to the 17 simultaneous raids that were carried out in the hours following Zarqawi's big send-off (yielding a reported "treasure trove" of intelligence), Caldwell announced that another 39 operations were carried out on Thursday, thanks to the intelligence gathered from Zarqawi's not-so-safe house.

The possibility of a tipping point seems increasingly likely.  Just don't tell the mainstream media.