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CounterPunch
November
13, 2002
Saddam's Merry
Dance Can't Hide the Sad Inevitability of Events
by ROBERT FISK
How seriously they took the Baghdad theatricals.
"A resounding 'no' from the Iraqi parliament,'' was the
headline on NBC's local affiliate here in North Carolina. "Assembly
in Baghdad shows its outrage,'' was the headline in USA Today.
As if the Iraqi parliament was really a parliament, as if Saddam
Hussein's recent 100 per cent vote was not a fiction.
"US officials''--those all-purpose
sources for lazy journalists--were quickly on hand to suggest
that this was "posturing''. I really needed a "US
official" to tell me that. But I began to wonder, given
the po-faced reporting and the presentation of Iraqi news here,
if the naive world of Saddam and the naive world of America don't
sometimes connect. It's as if Saddam knows this nonsense is taken
seriously. Hitler was a tyrant and Saddam is a tyrant. But Hitler
wasn't a clown.
 Of course, the Iraqi parliament's vote doesn't
mean a thing. Two hundred and fifty senators rejecting UN arms
inspections and then allowing the "wise leadership'' of
Saddam to make the final decision is about as serious as an
Egyptian television serial (Egyptian
serials are all about families in crisis and Saddam is addicted
to them). Mr Salim al-Kubaisi's remark--he is the head of the
"Iraqi parliament's Arab and International Relations Committee"
took the biscuit. Parliament, he announced, had full confidence
in Saddam's "great ability to assess the situation'' and
commended the Leader's "deep vision''. This was the vision,
remember, that gave us the Iran-Iraq war (one million dead)
and the invasion of Kuwait.
Then we have the leader's beloved son
Uday--still bearing the scars of his assassination attempt--who
intervened on the side of inspections. He thought the UN inspectors
should be accepted into Iraq (which means Saddam agrees) but
there should be some Arabs among the inspectorate.
This is not the first time we have heard
that. Several Arab states have suggested the same thing though
I don't think Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector, is going
to be adding Saudi scientists to his team. The real Iraqi fear
is that the CIA will use the UN inspectors--just as they did
before--and that the inspectors, far from searching for weapons
of mass destruction, will be fingering sites for bombardment
if/when America decides to invade.
But it's back to the old story. Saddam
is going to run this one up to the wire on Friday at which point
his "wisdom" and "vision" will prevail and
the UN inspectors will be welcome and the American media will
say--just a guess--"Back from the brink''. Oh, yes Saddam
understands how to play the clown. And with each circus act,
he makes the Americans look just that little bit more silly.
A dangerous trick to play right now.
A US Marines officer came up to me after
I gave a lecture at the University of North Carolina last night
to tell me he was departing from his young wife and child in
three days' time to go to Central Command in Tampa for the start
of a longer journey. It's the same all over America. Just down
from here at Fort Bragg, elements of the 82nd Airborne are said
to be on the move.
A vast American armada is slowly taking
shape--huge quantities of armour and ordnance are being moved
around the world right now from the United States--and most
of America doesn't even know it. "See you there,'' I said
to the marine last night as we parted company. "Oh, are
you coming to Central Command?'' he asked innocently. "No,"
Itold him, "You're going to Iraq."
Yesterday's
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November 10,
2002
Ali Abunimah
Sharon's
Appendix
M. Shahid
Alam
Political Geography
Zionist Theses and Anti-Theses
Michael Neumann
Demonstrating a Genteel Reticence
Rosemary &
Walter Brasch
Personal Possession:
War and Iraq, a Recollection
Ralph Nader
The Mid-term Elections
Mark J. Palmer
Bring Back the Grizzly
Robert Fisk
Bush's "Clean Shot"
Dave Marsh
And the Beat(ing) Goes On
Adam Engel
No Blood for Marijuana in Iraq
Josh Frank
Sleater-Kinney
Rocks
Our Protest Songs Are Here
Clifford Lyle Marshall
Give the Trinity Back to the Salmon
Zeynep Toufe
Turn These Children into Stone
Philip Farruggio
In Name Only
Charles Sullivan
Mountain Party Rising!
Bernard, Krieger, Alam
Poets'Basement
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