Demagogue

Mary Anne Weaver has written this interesting article in the new edition of The Atlantic Monthly -- "The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi." This excerpt reminds us (yet again) that so much of what the Bush administration has said about Iraq and the war effort is at odds with reality.

Weaver notes:

U.S. officials, for example, had often reported that in 2002, al-Zarqawi had had one of his legs amputated in Baghdad, a claim presumably meant to substantiate a link between al-Zarqawi and Saddam Hussein’s regime. But he was later seen walking in a videotape, clearly in possession of both his legs. Some Bush administration officials called him a Jordanian-Palestinian, but in fact he came from one of the Middle East’s most influential Bedouin tribes.

If you have the time, the entire article is worth a read.