What it takes to be a really good Muslim: Al-Zarqawi

If you need more proof of what it takes to become a Muslim that the rest of the Islamic world admires and respect read this BBC article on the Arab world's premier Psychopath (and THAT is saying something!): Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi

When he was in his teens, it seemed that Zarqawi was destined for a life of petty crime. He was known as a bit of a thug, a lowlife.

Funny that, "a bit of a thug". Well, he's sure gone places in the world!
The whole article stinks of "Of course we don't support the kidnappings and sawings-off-headsm, BUT...".
The BBC refrains from drawing a moral equivalency, something they are very prone to do. They don't need to, this time, every Jordanian they interviewed did it for them.

"Why are the British worried about this one man, and not about the thousands of Iraqis who have been killed or injured?" asked Mr al-Hami.

Iraqis have been killed too, says Zarqawi's brother-in-law.
Most ordinary Jordanians I spoke to in Zarqa insisted they did not support the current wave of kidnappings.

But they did point to that same double standard.

"All the people here in Jordan and the Middle East are against kidnapping the foreigners," said one man I spoke to outside a newspaper shop in Zarqa.

"Our religion does not want these things to happen in Iraq."

"But all the people want to dismiss Americans and British from Iraq, because Iraq is an Arabic country.

"The foreigners, they killed more people than the kidnappers. The American jets killed 200 or 300 daily."

So that makes killing innocent people, with no relationship to this conflict fair and reasonable.

And I take back what I said about the BBC: They DO draw a moral equivalency. No scare quotes around "...that same double standard". They (like Al-Zarqawi's brother-in-law and the rest of Jordan) must feel that acts of war are morally indistinguishable from dressing a healthy, vibrant, innocent person in an orange overal, putting him on his knees and then saw his head off with a knife. A more deliberately brutal and tortuous death is hard to imagine.

But then, "He was known as a bit of a thug, a lowlife." That was all just preparation. He's found his calling in life. Give Zarqawi a living human being and a knife, and he's as happy as a pig in shit.

Zarqawi cannot claim many followers in Jordan, though government buildings here are heavily fortified against any possible attacks from him or other Muslim militants.

But people here do understand what drives him, and most ordinary people I spoke to shared his hatred for America's occupation of Iraq and support for Israel.

I am still too optimistic to believe that the average Jordanian does indeed understand what drives Zarqawi. This would mean they are as demented and depraved as he is. But for the BBC to again place the reason, if not the fault for Zarqawi's behaviour at the feet of the US and Israel is almost as despicable as showing any kind of understanding whatsoever.