The Hindu Business Line : US media falls into `patriotism' trap

THE former Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, is where his American counterpart, George W. Bush, wanted him... in American custody and literally dragged out of a hole in the ground. A section of the Arabic media confirm what the Iraqi dictator's daughters have claimed from Day 1, that he was in a drugged state when captured.

Jordanian Arabic daily Al Arab, al-Yawm, quoting sources close to the occupation forces said that one of Saddam's trusted bodyguards had betrayed him, and led the Americans to Saddam's hideout, after striking a deal with them through a trusted relative.

The newspaper reported that this deal involved the bodyguard "drugging the Iraqi President to guarantee that he was captured alive" and without any chance to put up a resistance.

On the very day of the capture, a section of the Arabic media had quoted people from the Arab world suspecting that "sleeping gas" had been used to first put Saddam to sleep, before his capture could be effected.

While the Arab world is still grappling with its dislike of Saddam, the dictator, and his admiration for being the rare Arab leader to defy the Americans, what is shocking is the kind of abusive language that the western media is using to describe the man; and not in opinion or editorial articles, but in news reports. Is there no dividing line between the `Bushies' and the US media? Take, for instance, the cover story of Time magazine titled "We got him." It begins thus: "Even before he is brought to trial, there was justice in the news that Saddam Hussein had survived by being buried alive. Like a pharaoh in his tomb, he had surrounded himself with symbols of his lost power — two AK-47s, a pistol, $750,000 in $100 bills."

Calling him the "Butcher of Baghdad," the article goes on to describe his hideout, adding, "The palace monster of monuments and torture chambers had been reduced to the life of a bug. His captors picked through his shaggy hair, the raccoon beard."

The line between the occupying forces and the "independent" American media blurs, when the journalist - and not an American politician or military man — says in jubilation, "It was a relief to see him made small enough to handcuff because the phantom had become too big, and you can't bring peace to a haunted house... With his capture, we exhale, after a long, deep breath we have held for a year. We can measure the meaning of his capture by the measures we have taken — old alliances and long traditions discarded to go to war to take him out and, in the name of democracy, a war that was opposed by vast majorities in most democracies on earth."

President Bush, with his limited articulation skills, couldn't have done better.

Browsing through American publications one hardly found much mention of how the Americans had helped him to come to power in the first place, and had befriended him in the 80s. It was left for the Iranian President, Mohammad Khatami, who has reason enough to hate Saddam, to say he doubts the Iraqi dictator will get a fair trial. The Tehran Times quoted him demanding that Saddam should "stand trial in an open and fair court."

But this was unlikely because Saddam will "say things which will not be liked by those who are against him. We hope the truth will come out and he says what he has done, what countries he had links to and what support he received."

Clarifying that Iran was "delighted" at his capture, he observed wryly that it was the "US and western European countries that had armed and supported Saddam in the 1980-1988 war against Iran."

But you can count on at least a couple of western journalists to call a spade a spade and Robert Fisk of The Independent is one of them. And he doesn't love Saddam. But having taken the time and the trouble to visit the "spider hole" from where the American soldiers had dug out Saddam, he reminisces on the days in the 1970s when he, along with other western journalists, used to meet the man.

"In those days, we called him an autocrat — The Associated Press used to call him `the Iraqi strongman' — because he was a friend of America. But we knew all about him... the raping rooms, the tooth extractors, the knives and the concrete hanging chambers with their clanging doors, and the execution pits. His suits were finer now, French-made, better-cut, gray rather than brown. He had even learned how to smoke a Havana — between two fingers rather than four fingers and thumb."

Adds Fisk, "It took just 600 American soldiers to capture the man who was for 12 years one of the West's best friends in the Middle East and for 12 more years the West's greatest enemy in the Middle East."

Thomas Friedman is one of the most respected voices in American journalism and his column in The New York Times is bible for many. So what did he have to say?

It was disappointing to note that he too fell into the "patriotism" trap that American leaders have sprung on its media in the aftermath of 9/11. Sample this bit: "Something tells me that the picture of Saddam looking like some crazed werewolf may have shocked even Mr Chirac and his foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin: yes, boys, this is the creep you were protecting. History will also record that while the US and Britain chose to be Saddam's prosecutors, France chose to be his defense lawyer."

The column ends with a lecture on how Bush and Blair are giving the Iraqis the "gift of freedom," which is not worth quoting.

Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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US media falls into `patriotism' trap