Capture of Saddam

For three decades Saddam tyrannised Iraq. So shouldn’t his capture been ample cause for celebration in that region? If circumstances had improved, or even if there were a perception that things would improve, perhaps jubilations would be in order. However, occupation by the very people that once bombed your neighbourhoods and destroyed the whole infrastructure of the country has a very sobering effect. The sight of US solders on the streets does not instil celebratory sentiments. The main square in Baghdad, where Saddam's giant statue was pulled down, saw no more than 30 men celebrating his capture. The ubiquitous western media men and women in occupied Iraq struggled to find evidence of celebrating.

The stage-managed euphoria could not be choreographed in the same manner as the pulling down of Saddam’s statue last April. That was a mere propaganda stunt that benefited only the Anglo-American invaders. It was an attempt at disguising the colonialist rule that was to follow the capture of Baghdad. The arrest of this man is as relevant to the Iraqis, and the Muslims of the world, as was the toppling of Saddam’s statue. The slave replaces the master. For years Saddam served western interests in the region. The colonialists have looted Iraq,in the last six months, in a manner in which Saddam had not managed in 30 years. The Iraqis no longer own anything; to the victor the spoils. They have privatised the oil, the water, the health service, the schools and all public services, as Bush intoned “isn’t Liberty a wonderful thing”. Similar to Saddam they have eliminated any opposition to their rule. They carry out house raids in the dead of the night. They destroy property and lives at will. They chain up women and children whilst searching their houses. They torture just as Saddam tortured, only with more sophisticated techniques. They round up people only for them to disappear. They spy on people and encourage the people to spy on each other and have even rehired Saddam’s secret police, those that were schooled in Ba’athist brutality. So what’s there to celebrate? The replacement of Kufr by Kufr is merely business as usual in this sad part of the world. The Muslims of Iraq did not deserve British rule nor Ba’athist rule. Nor do they deserve the bubbling buffoonery of Bremer and Bush.

The timing of his capture is rather interesting, which came just as Iraq's Governing Council in Baghdad announced on Wednesday10 th December the establishment of a special tribunal to try war crimes perpetrated under Saddam Hussein. Why have they not tried Tariq Aziz and all the other senior figures they have captured? It would be nice for Bush to have high profile trials going on whilst in the thick of his re-election campaign. The capture of Saddam will present the colonialist with many benefits. To follow are just a few:

1) Moral boost for the US forces, which suffered devastating attacks during Ramadhan.

2) Attempt to change the domestic public opinion in the US and Britain where there has been a growing anti war movement.

3) Turn a negative to a positive by glossing over the failed quest for WMD with the sheen of success of the removal of a dictator.

4) By digging up accounts of Saddams’ atrocities and replaying them over and over they hope it will justify their occupation. Pity that Donald Rumsfield didn’t bring some of these atrocities to light at the time, considering that he was in Bagdad the week that Halabja was gassed.

5) Legitimise the puppet Iraqi council in the eyes of the Iraqi people by leaving the decision on Saddam’s fate in their hands.

6) Also by reminding the Iraqis of Saddam, they hope to change the emotions of the Iraqi people away from the hatred of the British and American forces.

7) On an ideological front they can resell the notion of democracy to them.

8) It disguises the nature of the resistance against the colonialist forces. By saying it is Saddam’s loyalists seeking revenge, when the nature of the resistance is Islamic.

Many Muslims hearing the news may have been disheartened by the capture of Saddam. This is not because they liked Saddam or that he offered a glimpse of hope. The thing that grates on us is that the whole affair is presented as victory for the colonialists. In turn they have the audacity to present it as a victory for the Muslims. Western spin doctory has always attempted to present Saddam as a symbol of hope for the Islamic world, as it was only Saddam who stood up against the American plan in the Middle East. Or as they would like us to believe. But no Muslim had hope in Saddam. We knew him as a Baathist, and we knew that their creed contradicts the Aqeeda of Islam. He was the one who daily killed those that called for a return to the true Islamic way of life.

So how can they expect the Muslims to accept these lies that he is the only symbol of resistance against western capitalism? They know that the real resistance to their ideology is Islam and it is this resistance they face daily in the Muslim world and they choose to hide it under the guise of “the war on terror”. This is the nature of Kufr that it even tries to conceal who its true enemy is. They know that the war they fight is a war against Islam, and they are too cowardly to admit it.

But Islam sure is turning out to be a plague.