Good riddance

The leader of the Chechen rebels, the terrorist responsible for the murder of hundreds of Beslan schoolchildren and still hundreds more, was blown to hell (and I hope literally) on Monday. Apparently a vehicle in his convoy was carrying a couple hundred pounds of dynamite...

Like with Khomeini, Arafat and Zarqawi before him, my only regret is that the scum didn't suffer like his victims did. Nonetheless, the world lost nothing to see that bastard go. Also like the deaths of his fellow terrorists, particularly Zarqawi, no one really believes that their respective terrorist movements will die with them. There's always another to take the place of the fallen.

That's why the United States, Russia and other nations fighting terrorists can never let up on the leaders. Make them prime targets, never passing up an opportunity to flush them out, lure them out or blow up a house where they're hiding. It's important not to focus on one man and incur the expense of ignoring the rest -- for example, neutralizing Osama is quite sufficient. Still, make it known that a leader will lose his head if he so much as sticks it out a window, and his followers will think twice about becoming his successor. Killing this Hydra doesn't require preventing it from growing new heads, only making its body afraid to grow new ones.

A few pictures of Zarqawi had been floating around, but none showed his most recent visage. Then he finally showed his face just this April 26th, in a braggadocio videotape, and knowing exactly who we wanted, we were able to kill him not even a month later. If I were his successor, who we identified on June 15th, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night, lest one of my lieutenants decide I'm worth a few dinars in the pocket.