So the rat is finally out of his hole. And the idiot in the White House could not suppress a grin when he tried to make what he thought was a statesman-like address to his countrymen.
Before I go any further, let me reiterate what I think of Saddam Hussein. He is the scum of the earth; he plundered his great nation of most of its resources over the last three decades; he is (or at least was) a megalomaniac who let loose his perverted sons on an unsuspecting nation. For more, you may like to see
my post dated 1st April 2003 .
But the way these American clowns have handled this whole Iraq thing may backfire faster than they imagine.
They ride roughshod over the whole country, trample on the pride of the predominantly Arab populace of Iraq, dismantle all social and political infrastructure without any urgency to rebuild, focus on not having to share the immense bounty with any other country, provoke more hatred in nine months than they could possibly handle in nine decades, and now this.
I strongly believe that the Americans
did not capture Saddam. Most likely he was just tired of living in that hole, and staged his arrest. We will wait for more details from people in the know, but my suspicion is very strong.
A grim-faced L. Paul Bremer (officially designated US Occupation Chief) walks up to the podium, takes a pregnant pause, and says, "Ladies and Gentlemen, we got him!" and then waits for the cheers. What is it? An Oscar-acceptance speech? Announcement of Armstrong landing on the moon? I'm convinced that he would have spent the better part of Saturday and Sunday coming up with a corny line like that.
And then they show the footage of Saddam getting a medical check. Even strong Saddam-haters like me felt some sympathy for the dishevelled, disoriented and docile man whose head is being moved from left and right and whose jaws are forcefully parted by a businesslike doc. Could they not have got the guy a shave before they presented him to the world? At least he would have looked better.
Remember, EVERY human being in the world loves dignity, of his own and of others. And we have a natural sense of empathy with anyone whose dignity is seen as being encroached upon. In this case, the repeated footage of the coward who lived in a hole with two supporters and USD 7,50,000 only evoked sympathy. Can you imagine what an average Arab thinks of this? He thinks his respect has just been raped, and he vows revenge.
If you have followed the reactions in Baghdad, in rest of Iraq and in the Muslim world, you will get the drift. While most people are relieved that the tyrant has been put away, they still hate the Americans. All this while the Iraqis have waited to get their country back from the Hussein clan, but now they see that the reins have gone from a dictator to a fool. The longer the fool takes to get his army home, and the oftener he opens his mouth to emit those pearls of wisdom, the tougher its going to get for his folks on the ground.
But then in an administration where the Veep is an ex-Halliburton chap and the National Security Advisor is an ex-Chevron employee, who cares about the johnnies in those tanks?
The big question is: What will Saddam do now? My take is he will do well for himself. He will say things like "my people have not been paid salaries for the last so many months" and "our national treasures have been stolen from our museums" and he will cry "for his beloved country" and all this footage will be dutifully picked up by Al-Jazeera if not CNN and CBS and beamed to millions of Arab homes. There will be more and frequent attacks on the American forces who, when they react as they must, will be seen as tormentors of ordinary folks.
If I were Dubya (God forbid, I would have to go through a massive brain-removal surgery), I would filter access to Saddam for any TV channel, whisk him away to the Hague and put him on trial at the Internation Court for Justice. This would provide at least some legitimacy to the effort.
