Why Al-Zarqawi’s death mattered

If you want to buck the MSM trend and read an article detailing why Al-Zarqawi's death mattered, read this.

By the way, have you noticed how all the MSM reports (at least the ones I hear on NPR), make sure to add that, not only were Al-Zarqawi and his second in command taken out, but that a woman and child also died? Their deaths aren't newsworthy (if war news is understood to be something of tactical and strategic significance), but the MSM certainly finds them noteworthy. Hmmm. I wonder why?

As it is, I cannot mourn too greatly the woman's death. Unless she was kept shackled to Al-Zarqawi against her will (and we'll never know), one has to assume she was there voluntarily — and those who hang with targets of worldwide manhunts are likely to die with those targets. The child's death is a tragedy, since children cannot control their ill fortune in being controlled by adults who place them in danger. That individual tragedy, however, should not be allowed to offset the tremendous victory that was scored when our military killed a man responsible for the deaths, not just of one child, but of thousands of Iraqis, men, women and children alike.

UPDATE:  You read, you learn.  From Michael Ledeen:

One other very important factoid emerged from the accounts of the attack on Zarqawi: we killed two women in the same house. We did it deliberately, because they were his key intelligence officers. From which two lessons should be drawn. First, women get something approaching parity in the jihadist terror organizations, despite endless citations from the holy Koran demanding their subservience. These were not suicide bombers, of which we have seen several exemplars in the past; these were important components of the terror headquarters. And second, when our soldiers enter terrorists’ quarters and kill women in the ensuing firefight, remind yourself that it might have been entirely proper, since the women may have been terrorists themselves.