Arabs share little of world joy over Saddam's capture

((Just in case anyone was wondering... ))

Sun Dec 14, 3:18 PM ET Add Mideast - AFP to My Yahoo!

CAIRO (AFP) - Arabs shared little of the world's joy over Saddam Hussein's capture, with many bitter over another victory for an "arrogant" pro-Israeli United States.

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Many people in the streets of Cairo and Beirut openly cursed a victory for a United States they see as an arrogant and unjust power, while some even refused to believe their eyes and ears.

Eyes riveted to the television screen in a Cairo coffee shop, customers worried about this "American victory" and feared it would ensure the re-election of President George W. Bush next year.

"It's not Saddam that they should arrest," blurted Aziz al-Shaburi, a 34-year-old government employee, when he saw television images showing an American medic inspecting a bearded Saddam's mouth.

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"It's Bush, Blair, Berlusconi, Aznar and Sharon who should be put on trial," said Bakri, who organized several solidarity trips from Cairo to Baghdad before US troops invaded in March.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1514&e=1&u=/afp/20031214/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_saddam_capture_031214201834

that the Arabs are unhappy about Saddam's capture. The real issue here is, how do they feel about the United States? The message has been brought home many times. They despise us. Every night as they crawl into bed and go to sleep, they dream of getting revenge on us in one fashion or another.

Is that a way to behave in the world? To stomp on people as if they were meaningless.

Saddam is of little consequence. The Dow might spike tomorrow, or maybe for a few days. So what? It's not going to change the security situation in Iraq. It's obvious Saddam was not in control of any clandestine warfare. He was just hiding out.

After two wars against Iraq, 12 years of nearly daily bombings, an embargo lasting longer than a decade, after presumable more than two million dead Iraqis, mostly killed by northamericans and britons...

Now they bring a Saddam out of a hole, looking much more as if he would have been imprisoned before in that hole, not hiding, looking like Walter Matthau in "pirates". Maybe I'm completely wrong about this, but to me it looks as if they wanted Saddam to look like this, they know what effect it would have in the arab world, if he doesn't defend himself. There's something wrong about this whole story. If Saddam was in any control of the situation or the location, he has chosen to hide himself, it wouldn't be that hole in the ground.
And the beard doesn't look as if it was ment to make him unrecognizable. It's just the next turkey.
I hope, the Iraqis don't make that conclusions.
Hi from Germany,
Dirk