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veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

Hi all,

There are plenty of consipiracy theories and strange versions already spinning about the web. Check out debka.com for one quite exotic one.

Truth Hurts, this is exactly what my mother said -- was he dying his hair but not his beard?? But, I have known men whose beard grayed long before their hair, but usually they much lighter haired to begin.

The dialogue reported was surely as accurate as the story about the British Airline plane conversation during the Thanksgiving set piece - ie - total bullcrapola. Seems a constant fixture of this administration. The lies keep piling higher and higher.

I think that it is Saddam. But as to whether the majority of the capture story is true - who knows. It is just bizarre enough to be real. Big S will get to talk up his version at the trial - which will be quite different I'm sure. Then we can add the two versions together and make our decisions what part of each we believe.

I quite look forward to the dirty laundry washing ---

VS

Cleopatra · Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2003 6:02 pm Post subject:

Dear All,

I'm not going that far in my conspiracy theory - I do belive without a doubt that this is Saddam.

However, the capture story is just a tad too Hollywood for me for all the reasons I've just mentioned. the idea has been bandied about (on the Internet, admittedly not the most reliabel source!) that Saddam was actually captured by a group of Kurds some weeks ago. However, it wouldn't have suited the US quite so well for it to have been known that he was captured by locals, not by them. Hence the Jessica Lynch style "Operation Red Dawn" - where Saddam was drugged and placed in the infamous hole, from which he crawled out to beg mercy from that witty Texan (can you credit it?) soldier.

What I, as a conscientious EFLer, would like to know, is how Saddam managed to learn English so well in that black hole. Maybe we could open the "Dictator Method School of English"!

As I said, nothing has been proved by a long way. But the people responsible for the Jessica Lynch charade are capable of anything!

veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

Hi Cleo,

Our current government is certainly capable of anything in the creative story department. They well know that people tend to remember the first version (which goes on page one of the newspaper in big letters) and not notice any corrections that show up later on page 19.

My problem with the Kurd story is that the person bandying it about is the Kurdish leader - Talebani? can't recall his exact name for sure. The thing that makes me not believe it is that any Kurd that got close to him would never have delivered him alive. Once they were through with him, they would have just delivered the newly detached head to the White House.

VS

ohman · Joined: 09 Sep 2003 Posts: 239 Location: B' Um Fouk, Egypt

The capture of Saddam is what all of humanity has been striving for since humankind first became bi-pedal and capable of improving on last year's garden implements. Finally, we will now have an end to disease, crime, poverty, famine and war.

Cleopatra · Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 1:19 pm Post subject:

I agree with John and VS that the fact that Saddam was caught alive does undermine the "conspiracy theory" stories - it would certainly have been far more convenient for the "coalition" to have killed him while "trying to escape" - no probs with trials and Saddam spilling the beans over who helped him with what (no names mentioned, but a certain Rumsfeld, Donald does come to mind...)

However, perhaps they were gambling on the hope that showing Saddam in disgrace - not even putting up a fight and looking like a sewer rat - would be better than making him into a martyr, esp. as the death of his sons sort of backfired on the "coalition".

At the same time, isn't it odd that a man living in a hole who hadn't shaved in weeks just happened to have with him a briefcase containing minutes of a meeting of "resistance leaders" I mean really! Saddam was certainly one to make the occasional catastrophic blunder but carrying around incriminating documents when you're on the run?

Still, it's the TV friendly quote from that Texan private that arouses my suspicions the most!

Cleopatra · Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2003 12:51 pm Post subject:

BTW, have you seen that the truth may be starting to emerge, like Saddam from that hole (?!?)

The Sunday Express (not the best paper, I agree) yesterday carried an article supporting the "Kurdish" angle: saying that local Kurds had captured Saddam some time previously and had obligingly placed him in said hole, drugged him and otherwise made him ready for his US "captors". Apparantly, the story of his capture was broken on Iranian radio9via a Kurdish source) long before Bremer got round to his sherriff style self-congratulation.

If I knew how to post links, I would do so. Maybe some kind soul will give me an online tutorial in link posting...

johnslat · Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2003 3:00 pm Post subject: The missing links

Dear Cleopatra,
Well, I'm not sure I understand your problem - if I do, the answer's simple:
Just highlight the link, copy it and then paste it on your posting.
Is that what you meant?
Regards,
John

Truth Hurts · Joined: 05 Jul 2003 Posts: 115 Location: Truthville

On a not so completely irrelevant note, I was chuckling to myself the other day when it transpired that they almost "GOT" Bremer earlier this month, which in retrospect explains the emotion on his face when he officially released the news about Saddam.
TH

Cleopatra · Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2003 4:05 pm Post subject:

Thanks John, that is what I meant.

Will give it a try some time soon.

AS for Bremer, he's bad but not the worst. I seem him as more a puppet than anything else.

Just don't get me started on that other near victim of an assasination attempt, Wolfowitz...

veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

Hi Cleo

John is right (as always!!) - all I do is go up to the address line that has all that http://blahblah - and copy / paste. I don't know if that makes it a 'clickable' link on this board or not since I never tried it. But I do see a little box up at the right of this message writting box that says URL underlined -- wonder what that means?

But back to the little story from the Kurds that is all over the place. It is also on the Al-Jezeera website. I was just thinking about it and the whole thing doesn't make sense. Why would they come out and say 'We've had him for weeks, drugged him and put him in a hole so that the Americans could take credit---' As if this makes sense, why not just trumpet it, hand him over, take credit, collect the $25M and pat yourself on the back. Why bother to set up this grand charade and then afterwards try to take credit. There is plenty in this story that doesn't make sense (particularly the silly dialogue that supposedly took place between Saddam and the Texas soldier--- ) but Talabani's version sounds even less plausible. Would even Saddam be dumb enough to hide out in Kurdish territory? Doubtful. He would hide with or near his strongest supporters - calling in his markers.

Politics and gesture - smoke and mirrors - more lies and the liars that tell them. The problem is identification here. Smile

VS

Stephen Jones · Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124

I see no reason to disbelieve this one.

As for the "Mr. Bush sends his regards" it seems like an appropriate reply to "I am the President of Iraq and I wish to negotiate". I doubt if it was originally meant sarcastically. It's the kind of thing you're supposed to say to a foreign head of state.

Cleopatra · Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2003 12:23 pm Post subject:

Dear VS,

I agree that the "Kurdish" story is not without its question marks.

However, i don't think anyone is saying that Saddam was hiding out in "Kurdistan", just that the people who found him near Tikrit were Kurds. As for why they didn't hand him over immediately, one theory is that if it were officially known that Saddam was captured by Kurds, this could lead to a civil war between Sunnis and Kurds (of course, that could yet happen anyway!). Another is that the Kurds were negotiating the reward money with the Americans, who desperately wanted to claim this scalp for themselves, and effectively bought Kurdish (near) silence. I don't think a few weeks would be an excessive amount of time for such negotiations.

The truth, I suppose, will out, though maybe not any time soon. There are good reasons not to take either story at face value.

I still don't believe that snappy little dialogue story for one milisecond. As I've said before, Saddam, to the best of my knowledge, does not speak English. As for that cute little Texan soldier observing state protocol, I don't buy that either. As far as I know, it is not terribly diplomatic to display a head of state on TV getting checked for lice!

veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

Stephen,

Gee, whyever should we suspect that this ridiculous sounding B movie 'script' would be untrue (she said sarcastically). After all, it is not as though my government makes up stories and lies and scenarios to make their actions seem more interesting and exciting or justified. Oh, except for the weapons of MD, and Saddam's ties to Al-Qaeda, and the discussion with the British Airways flight on Thanksgiving, and here is our beloved prez serving the boys turkey, and the tax cuts were for the Middle Class, and I never knew Kenneth Lay, and of course W was the one that landed that fighter on the deck on May 1 when he told the one of his biggest lies -- that the war was over.

VS
(Cleo -- how would the Kurds have found him if he wasn't hiding in their territory -- there is no way that they could have been digging around in the Sunni triangle in order to find him. Nothing about this story washes.)

johnslat · Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2003 3:09 pm Post subject: Damage control?

Hmm, would this be an example of "damage control" - letting some of the bad stuff leak out before Saddam has the chance to unbury the bodies?

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/23/international/middleeast/23RUMS.html?th

Regards,
John

Cleopatra · Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2003 4:03 pm Post subject:

Dear VS,

I agree that just because this US administration has a great fondness for lies, it doesn't automatically make the Saddam story into a lie - just makes the chances for that pretty high!

As for the Kurdish story, well, you may be right. But I don't think the Kurds are banned from the "Sunni triangle" (so called by the US Army to pretend they're only hated in a small area!): it doesn' t disqualify the story in itself. However, as I've said, a whole lot of things need to be cleared up before we can start talking about the "truth" in this issue. That may take years, and it may never really happen.

We shall see...