Bashing quicksilver with a hammer

News is we've found the needle in the haystack in Iraq and, with an airstrike, killed Abu Musab al-Zarkawi, the militant who led a powerful insurgent campaign, including suicide bombings, beheadings and the like.

It happened around 3 p.m. eastern time yesterday, but the Bush White House waited to break the news, not actually wanting to look like they were capering and gibbering on the body of a dead man.

That doesn't look very Christian and Christlike, after all. Sorta beggers the point.

Bush says the killing marked a blow to al Qaeda in Iraq and "an opportunity to turn the tide in Iraq."

I guess if Zarkawi's death turns the tide in Iraq, that's good. But I have this awful feeling it won't, and this turning of the tide will go the way of all the other tides, corners, and new beginnings that the administration has trumpeted since they started this horrible war in a country that couldn't fight back except through guerrilla warfare.

And I don't suppose Codpiece and his orcs have considered the martyr factor. Alive, Zarkawi was a problem. Dead, he's an inspiration, a martyr to his many followers. Killing Zarkawi, I'm afraid, will only spawn a hundred more Zarkawis.

I'd like to be wrong, but I don't think I am.