Ian Boyne THE BIGGEST non-story of the year is the capture of former Iraqi dictator and butcher Saddam Hussein.
Saddam's capture, celebrated by the American media in tones which suggest an event of epic proportions, is the greatest blindsiding and the biggest illusionist's show on the world stage today. It would be comical if not taken so seriously by the big American media which dominate global news flows.
It took us only a relatively few hours after Saddam's capture to answer the question as to whether his humiliating capture would halt the resistance in Iraq. The six charred remains answered loudly and grotesquely. United States President Bush himself cautioned that the dictator's capture would not mean an end to the violence. The capture of Saddam means
little outside of the fact that the Bush Administration received a tremendous psychological boost, that American nationalists and WASPS got their adrenaline rush so soon after their Thanksgiving celebration (a double Thanksgiving this year), and that egg was splashed on leading Democratic contender Howard Dean's face.
ALIVE AND HUMILIATED
That Joseph Lieberman's catchy refrain, "if Howard Dean were President today Saddam would be in power rather than prison" was given substance was poignant in the euphoric aftermath of the Saddam capture and the Democrats have been robbed of their campaign taunt that "they can't even catch Saddam after nine months". They have caught him and brought him in alive and humiliated for all the world to see. A bearded, bedraggled homeless-looking man whose hair was being inspected for lice and who had to open his mouth on the instructions of his captors, saying "Ah", like a little boy in short pants who had to show obedience to his superiors.
That picture played repeatedly to the delight, no doubt, of millions of Americans and their supporters around the world would somebody should note play out quite differently in the Arab world. Disgracing Saddam Hussein is one thing. He irritated enough of his neigbours and fellow Arabs for him to win little personal sympathy, but every Arab knows that Saddam is a metaphor for Arab nationalism.
DISGRACING THE ARAB WORLD
The shaming and humiliation of Saddam for all the world to see was the disgracing of the Arab world and its civilisation, many nationalistic Arabs, no doubt, feel. It symbolised their impotence despite their oil wealth and great civilisation and heritage. What this image, replayed constantly in the mind of the fierce, intense and devoted Islamist or Arabist, must do in terms of strengthening his resolve to restore glory and dignity to his civilisation and to Allah's people is anybody's guess. The pictures of a decrepit, dejected and debased Saddam Hussein was a two-edged dagger: delightful to supporters of American Empire and to assorted conservatives, but gut-wrenchingly painful and bitter to Arab nationalists, Islamists and many progressives around the world.
The silly comment by President Bush that Saddam's capture will show to the Iraqi people that this man will never come to power again hardly bears commentary. Are the Iraqis so foolish to believe that a man who could put up no resistance to American military might when he had his palaces, weapons, army and his terror machine everywhere and was so easily vanquished could ever come back to retake power? Could Saddam who made so many enemies in his own borders and whose majority Shiite population he oppressed ever come back to take power? Do people believe these Urban Legends?
The Americans did not have to capture Saddam Hussein for sensible people to know that he would never again live to be a threat to the Iraqi nation. And any view that he was behind the insurgency is belied by the very graphic images which the Americans supplied of him in a rat hole, huddled like a frightened mouse scared to death. Saddam could not help himself, let alone mastermind any insurgency operation. Besides, if one understands insurgencies he would know that they are not led by any one individual, however brilliant or malevolent.
DOUBLE STANDARD
We must not allow ourselves to be blindsided by clever spin meisters and propaganda strategists the intellectual con artists and illusionists. Always keep in mind why America was in such indecent haste to invade Iraq and remove Saddam. It was not primarily because he was a brutal dictator and a threat to the human rights of his people. America is accustomed to supporting such leaders, and still does today. You don't have to go further than in our own Latin American region to add up the number of right-wing dictators which the U.S. Government has supported since the Cold War.
The U.S. still supports Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other Arab countries which are anything but models of Western democracy and which have engaged in repression of their peoples and the denial of the human rights of ethnic and religious groups as well as women and the poor. Indeed, American hypocrisy on the issue of democracy and human rights is one of the issues identified by political sociologist Dr. Abdel Mahdi Abdalla in his article, 'Causes of Anti-Americanism in the Arab World: A Socio-Political Perspective' in the December, 2003, issue of the scholarly journal Middle East Review of International Affairs.
Dr. Abdalla says while US officials frequently speak about defending democracy and human rights, their actions don't usually support the rhetoric. "Rather, democracy is undermined by American support for some repressive Arab regimes. Arabs say America never call for democratisation because those undemocratic regimes are the best agents of America's interests. This hypocritical behaviour is said to be reflected in a U.S. invasion of Iraq to 'liberate' those people while a regime in Kuwait was reinstalled without the U.S. Government demanding major democratic reforms or the U.S not objecting to a military coup in Algeria against the Islamist party after it won the elections", says the scholar known for his work in research centres across the Middle East.
Remember that the U.S. could not wait to go back to the UN Security Council; could not wait on the work of Hans Blix and his weapons inspectors because Iraq supposedly posed such an imminent and clear and present danger to world peace that it had to be invaded now or terror similar to September 11 could be unleashed any minute. U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney said in August, 2002, that, "Simply stated there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, our allies and against us."
When Bush was giving his 48-hour ultimatum to the leader of a sovereign nation to get out on March 17, he said: "Intelligence gathered in this country and other governments leaves no doubt that Iraq continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. The terrorists could fulfil their stated ambitions and kill themselves and thousands and hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country or in any other."
On March 30, a week and a half after the invasion of Iraq, the irrepressible Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld said of the weapons of mass destruction: "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad, east, west, south and north somewhat." To now talk about how great it is to free the Iraqi people from the torture chambers, the oppression, the corruption and the genocide of the Saddam regime is to engage in diversionary rhetoric. Unfortunately, too many intelligent people have been fooled by it, because we instinctively agree that it is a good thing for Saddam to be out of power. It is an unqualified good thing. But America as the Moral Policeman of the world is not squaring with actual consistent practice.
Besides, the experts in international law look askance at such a role for any one nation. Only a group of nations and an international body with broad global authority can make human rights intervention in sovereign states. (The UN Secretary-General clearly has rejected classic arguments for non-interventionism under all circumstances in the affairs of sovereign states, putting humanitarian concerns ahead of those arguments. But it clear that he is not advocating unilateralism).
HYPOCRISY
The United States cannot be allowed to behave like a rogue state while lecturing others about not playing that role. This ingrained hypocrisy in the U.S. foreign policy establishment is one of the things which have alienated progressive people over the years. We must not allow ourselves to be fooled by professional distractionists and illusionists like Senate Majority Leader Bill First who declared triumphantly and dishonestly after the capture of Saddam Hussein that "the reason we were in that country in the first place are being realised." No, that is not why the Americans went in. They went in to find and destroy the weapons of mass destruction and they have not done so. Finding Saddam is a pathetic substitute for finding the weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
As the US publication The Nation reminded its influential readers last week, "The apprehension of Hussein does not justify the war," though it said it was the least President Bush could have done for "invading Iraq under false pretences". "He told the American public that it was necessary to bomb, invade and occupy Iraq-rather than engage in aggressive weapons inspections to neutralise the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
He claimed the administration possessed incontrovertible proof that Hussein had such awful weapons and maintained operational links with Al Qaida." Remember that a few months ago Bush was forced to admit that no links had been established between Saddam Hussein and the September 11 bombings, and to date no links have been confirmed with Al Qaida. These are matters of facts. No weapons of mass destruction, no corroborated links with al Qaida, no connection with the September 11 terrorist attacks. Therefore no justification for the invasion of Iraq, irrespective of how brutal Hussein is.
The North Korean leader has weapons of mass destruction and poses a threat to American interests, so why not invade North Korea?
The December, 2003, issue of the Atlantic magazine has an article on Iran's WMD programme. "It has involved more than twenty years of concerted effort and organisation, and financial investment totaling tens of billions of dollars." Why not invade Iran now? After all, it is not a democracy and its people need liberation from the Islamic fundamentalists. One does not have to mention America's favourite son, Israel, on whom the U.S. has poured over US$80 billion in aid and grants to facilitate its oppression of the Palestinian people.
"Hussein was not found with weapons of mass destruction but with US$750,000. But what was good politically for Bush was also good for Iraq and the world," quips The Nation in its article last week. In a special issue of journal Current History: A Journal of Contemporary World Affairs (December 2003) dealing with terrorism, there is an article by Alan Sorensen on "The Reluctant Nation Builders", making the point that while Bush has called Iraq the "central front" in the war against terrorism there is "absent the discovery there of weapons of mass destruction or ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaida." Besides, the U.S., he points out, has been an absolute disaster at attempts at nation-building. Indeed there has been no serious attempt at this.
MASS MURDERER
"The largely unilateral, dubiously rationalised and defiantly prosecuted occupation of Iraq has distracted from the need to develop international consensus and capacity for nation-building and other benevolent interventions."
Is the capture of Saddam enough booty for the lives of 455 American and 80 European soldiers as well as an estimated 7,600 to 45,000 Iraqi soldiers, besides unnumbered civilians whom Fox News will not tell you about? That Saddam Hussein is a mass murderer does not have to await the verdict of any court in America, Iraq or in Europe. The sideshow of his trial, while entertaining and set to eclipse that of O.J. Simpson or the one to come with Michael Jackson, will still cloud the real issue of the alleged original reason for the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Nine months after the invasion America is looking as ragged and dishevelled as the despicable looking Saddam taken from a rat hole. The only difference is, the U.S. is still in its hole.
* Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist. You can send comments to ianboyne1@yahoo.com.
