Is the West Humiliating Saddam Hussein or the Entire Arab-Muslim Nation?

The capture and subsequent humiliation of a head of state by foreign forces constitutes disgrace for the entire nation. No sovereign nation with an ounce of dignity even facing a vicious dictatorship would concede for a foreign force, especially one with an alien culture and values, to enter its territory to capture and humiliate its leadership. Even if we imagine that there is a popular uprising against a brutal regime, the masses would at most consent to the foreign forces entering the country for: exclusively aiding the removal of the current regime. Subsequently, the foreign forces would be asked to leave the country immediately and the ousted leadership would be put on trial by the indigenous population.

In the case of Iraq there was no mass uprising against Saddam Hussein since 1991 and the masses clearly did not consent to the recent unilateral US aggression that began with the “shock and awe” campaign. Even the rebellion in 1991 was confined to certain sections of the Shia community only. If there were genuine grievances across Iraq there would have been a massive rebellion of the kind witnessed in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. For sure Saddam Hussein had many opponents but equally he had many supporters and even today he commands support from the Iraqis.

As for the foreign forces, the US invasion was not propelled by the altruistic reasons to end the tyranny of Saddam Hussein against his population. That cannot be the case because it defies logic and reality. The logic being that the US was complicit with the Baathist regime from its inception in 1967 until 1991 aiding it to commit the oppression in the first place. As for the reality, the US is a profit seeking capitalist nation not a charitable institution!

After the capture of Saddam Hussein and the rest of the Baathist leadership, their captivity remains in the hand of the Americans. This is strange given that the power was supposedly handed over to the Iraqi interim authority sometime ago, then the elections took place and now a new government has been formed. Hence, keeping the former Baathist leadership under US captivity is designed to prolong the humiliation. Further corroborative evidence of the US intention to disgrace the Arabs/Muslims is the events that have transpired since the invasion; Abu-Ghraib, indiscriminate killings at check points, forced entry into houses and Mosques without any regards for Islamic values, hurling abuse at the Prophet (SAW), to the desecration of the Quran.

The recent pictures of Saddam Hussein in his under garments published by one of the filthiest tabloid newspapers in the UK, the Sun, is designed to inflict further shame upon the Arab-Muslim population. Apart from the abovementioned reason, exposing someone in their under garments runs contrary to the Islamic values of modesty held by Muslims in general. If the Newspaper thought that publishing such pictures would be helpful, they could have easily have passed the picture to an Iraqi or another Arab newspaper. The Sun newspaper’s defence editor Tom Newton Dunn defended his case by stating that Saddam was "hardly entitled to a single human courtesy" as 300,000 people had disappeared under his regime.

Saddam Hussein has not even been charged and yet the guilty verdict has been pronounced by the newspaper as if they are the judge, jury and executioner. I suppose the world must now get used to the new legal ‘standards’ (or lack of) set out by the ‘free’ world waving the flag of democracy and the rule of law, as we have witnessed these standards being applied in Camp X-ray, Belmarsh and Bagram! Perhaps we can get a quick but a very brief verdict from Lord Goldsmith so that it can all be genuinely ‘legal’!

If Mr Tom Newton was so moved by the alleged deaths of 300,000 people a figure that seems to fluctuate in all directions depending on who cites it and for what purpose, can he provide the same level of enthusiasm in condemning the killing of 100,000 plus civilians to date in Iraq. What about the millions killed by the UN sanctions that was actually cited by the UN officials as a policy of genocide.

What is most laughable is that he is an editor of a Newspaper that is so xenophobic, racists and pornographic, yet it has the chutzpah to produce the moral card and astonishingly in the name of the Iraqis or should I say the sand-niggers! I never realised that there was so much love for the Iraqis from the xenophobic pro-War camps within the UK! Some of these people cannot even tolerate a foreign neighbour let alone fight and die for them.

Apart from humiliation, these pictures are released deliberately with at least tacit agreement of the US government, perhaps not a signed directive but certainly a significant corpus of the US executive and their enforcers in the US armed forces, for whom such humiliation of the Muslims is part of their prize. Remember what we have witnessed from Camp X-Ray and Abu-Ghraib, is designed to send a message, which is one of fear and humiliation. The government denies its involvement in these events to maintain the niceties and the so-called diplomatic protocol while its armies send out the real message by openly committing such acts.

Just a final point to those who will jump and conclude this is purely a defence of Saddam, ought to remember, that criticising the gratuitous murderous acts committed by the US and UK forces against the German civilian population, by firebombing cities like Dresden, Hamburg and Cologne does not constitute support for Adolf Hitler, but it does recognise the very real suffering of the people.