Big media's "Duh" of the week

And it's only Sunday. The AP headline: "Al-Zarqawi's death may not stop civil war"

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi raised hopes that Iraq's slide toward civil war or sectarian disintegration could be arrested, but there are signs that Shiite-Sunni antagonism may now be too deeply rooted.

Al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born Sunni Muslim, played a key role in stoking Shiite-Sunni tensions the past three years, ordering hundreds of bloody attacks against Iraqi Shiites and issuing vitriolic tirades seeking to deepen a religious schism that dates back 1,400 years.

On Sunday, his feared terror group, al-Qaida in Iraq, said there would be no let up in its combat operations. It vowed in an Internet statement "to prepare major attacks that will shake the enemy like an earthquake and rattle them out of sleep."

For the love of heaven, that analysis is worse than a blind man examining the shades of a Gaugain. (Yes, I was intentionally politically incorrect there. Sue me.) Do reporters not pay attention to what the White House and Pentagon were saying? From the moment Zarqawi's death was confirmed, President Bush said, "Zarqawi is dead, but the difficult and necessary mission in Iraq continues. We can expect the terrorists and insurgents to carry on without him. We can expect the sectarian violence to continue." He restated that in his radio address yesterday: "Zarqawi is dead, but the difficult and necessary mission in Iraq continues. In the weeks ahead, violence in Iraq may escalate. The terrorists and insurgents will seek to prove that they can carry on without Zarqawi." The Armed Forces Press Service story noted that "Although the terrorist's demise will negatively impact al Qaeda operations in Iraq, [Army Maj. Gen. William B.] Caldwell cautioned that this doesn't signal the end of the insurgency in Iraq."

However, let's be clear on what Zarqawi's mission was. He was far from a Sunni attacking Shiites because of some religious schism. Attacking Shiites and relying on his followers to spread propaganda quietly spread civil strife and hinder Iraq from achieving peaceful democratic rule. "Sunni-Shiite conflict," though, is a great excuse for big media, which doesn't want to acknowledge Zarqawi as a terrorist, a jihadist and an Islamofascist whose simple mission is to force everyone to "one world under Allah." Big media also likes to spread the myth that at least Saddam's rule was stable with regard to religious conflicts. But stability at what price?