Newest Terrorist Rankings Out

Zarqawi out and Masri on top in latest Terror Polls.

It seems the US military, following the termination of the beheading terrorist Abu al-Zarqawi, has identified the new number one terrorist in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri.

Kinda like the NCAA college polls, as soon as No.1 gets knocked off, somebody takes their place.

It's been less than a week since Zarqawi bit the bullet and his body is barely cold and the stories filed, but already we need somebody new. "Call Central Casting", say the Powerful People, "we're in need of a new villain!"

But why? Why tell us, the public? If Abu Ayyub al-Masri really is number one---- and I'm not disputing he may indeed be deserving of his ranking---- shouldn't we hide the fact he's been identified as such so he's not so paranoid and hence protecting himself quite so zealously? That way we can take him out and defeat the insurgency (like this million-headed hydra can ever trully be defeated by the simple method of killing).

Why do we do it, proclaim the new #1? Why does the public need to know? Simple: it gives the military-political complex something to talk about, something to feed the propaganda machine. Because it feeds fear and gives us a face to hang our hate upon, like the made-up revolutionary, Emmanuel Goldstein, in the novel 1984, the subject of the daily 'Two Minutes Hate'. And we are told of Abu Ayyub al-Masri because, when we kill him, we can say, See? See, we're killing their leaders and winning the global war on terror.

It all seems so pointlessly cynical, this propaganda.

Now the Story:

U.S. identifies al-Zarqawi's successor
Associated Press

The U.S. military said Thursday the man claiming to be the new al-Qaida in Iraq leader is Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an Egyptian with ties to Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri.
Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said al-Masri apparently is the same person that al-Qaida in Iraq identified in a Web posting last week as its new leader — Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, a nom de guerre. Al-Muhajer claimed to have succeeded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a June 7 U.S. airstrike, and vowed to avenge him in threatening Web statements in recent days.
The military showed a picture of al-Masri wearing a traditional white Arab headdress at a Baghdad news conference.
The Afghanistan-trained explosives expert is a key figure in the al-Qaida in Iraq network with responsibility for facilitating the movement of foreign fighters from Syria into Baghdad, Caldwell said.
He has been a terrorist since 1982, "beginning with his involvement in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which was led by al-Zawahri," Caldwell said.
The spokesman added that raids in April and May in southern Baghdad recovered material confirming his high-level involvement in the facilitation of foreign fighters.
"Al-Masri's intimate knowledge of al-Qaida in Iraq and his close relationship with (al-Zarqawi's) operations will undoubtedly help facilitate and enable them to regain some momentum if, in fact, he is the one that assumes the leadership role," Caldwell said.
He said, however, that al-Masri's ability to exert leadership over al-Qaida cells remained unclear and there were other "al-Qaida senior leadership members and Sunni terrorists" who might try to take over the operations.
Caldwell singled out Abu Abdul-Rahman al-Iraqi, who in the past had been identified as al-Qaida in Iraq's deputy leader in statements by the group, and Abdullah bin Rashid al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Mujahedeen Shura Council — five allied groups in the Sunni Arab-dominated insurgency