New Saddam Negligee Photos Prompt Humiliation Debate

CAIRO, Egypt - Is Saddam Hussein an Arab hero, or a man who simply likes to dress up in flirtatious peek-a-boo sleepware? The question is being hotly debated among Arab intellectuals, amid the release of new Iraqi Coalition Authority hidden camera photos showing the former Iraqi president provocatively dancing in a sheer babydoll nightie while in U.S. military custody.

Many are asking, too, if the images -- following earlier images of a bedraggled Saddam being pulled from a fetid spiderhole, receiving a dental exam and lice inspection, begging for mercy from captors, and appearing on the Jerry Springer Show -- were a deliberate US move to humiliate the entire Arab world, not just to the ousted Iraqi leader.

"A new and sexy humiliation to Arabs" was the headline on a column this week by Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based Arabic daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi.

"It was a shock for us, and a humiliation to millions of Arabs who saw the TV shots of the Iraqi president in that sheer, elegant, barely-there babydoll," Atwan wrote. "We hoped instead that he, like Hitler, would have chosen the slinky scoop-neck teddy with the lacey trim to naturally accentuate his hairy martyr bosom."

Apparently, many Arabs shared Atwan's view of Saddam's arrest on Saturday as a collective humiliation — and an intentional one.

In a telephone poll, the popular Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera asked viewers if showing Saddam writhing in lingeree in front of a full-length mirror was meant to humiliate Arabs. Al-Jazeera said that of the 1,500 people who called in, 97 percent said it was, and over 84 percent had ordered a DVD copy.

Coalition spokesman Army Lt. General Bill Peletier denied the charges, noting that "under the Geneva Convention prisoners of war cannot be denied reading material, and Saddam requested a copy of the Fredericks of Hollywood Plus Size Christmas Catalog."

Many Mideast experts fear that the latest see-through humiliation controversy may cause the Arab street to erupt in another round of seething rage, raging anger, or even violent angry seethingness.

Sayed Nassar, an Egyptian journalist who had close ties to Saddam, wrote in the British-based Asharq Al-Awsat that "the Arab man is a man of pride, a man of dignity, a man who will not stand for embarrassment or dishonor. He wishes his dictator and torturers to be dressed in a proud kaffiya or gleaming epaulets, not in the racy, lacey v-thongs of Jews and Crusaders."

In Iraq, however, Baghdad shopkeeper Ali Abdel-Mussa says he and other countrymen will get over the embarrassment.

"In a weird way, I'm sort of proud to be rid of him."

Comments

[mickthemick]

I just came from the Arab Street. It's about to blow! ;-)

[iowahawk]

The emperor has hardly any clothes.

[Solomon]

And what he does have is usually something...interesting...

[Macker]

And the last words of the Arab Man on the Street could very well be: "ABDUL WHAT'S THAT FLA -- ........."

[rumcrook]

here he is in all his runway model victoria secrets glory

http://members.aol.com:/rumcrook/saddamnighty.jpg