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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry
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To: Cogito who wrote (77721)6/28/2006 11:17:40 AM
From: Nadine CarrollRead Replies (3) of 81568
 
Yes, I understood that. Of course he wasn't actually becoming pious. But you seemed to imply that his shows of piety were actually improving his standing among devout muslims and/or radical islamists.

I'd say that his mosque building had as much success reaching the devout muslims as his elections did in convincing the world that 100% of Iraqis loved him.

Saddam was reviled by people like Osama bin Laden, who referred to him as an infidel.


Why badmouth the success of Saddam's elections? CNN went in and covered them almost as soberly as if they had been real (Eason Jordan later explained why). If they weren't totally convincing, they certainly weren't totally unconvincing. Same reason the Soviet Union used to hold elections.

Similarly, OBL and the other Islamists didn't have to become convinced that Saddam was now a pious Muslim. They didn't have to love him or think he wasn't an idolator anymore. They just had to be able to enter into covert alliance with him without a serious loss of face among their own followers. For this purpose, Saddam's new-found piety was good enough. Politics makes strange bedfellows all over the world, and the Mideast is not exempt.

As you may have figured out, I do not believe that Ba'athist cash met up with Al Qaeda organization by happenstance after the American invasion of Iraq. I think the contacts were developed well before; and for that, Saddam had to come up to an acceptable level of piety, however hypocritical.
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