A defiant Saddam / She’s Maria, but wow!

There he was, still large as life, jowly, partly bearded, the top of his shock of hair tinted black, earlier squinting at the TV camera, now coming alive, soon growly and even defiant. I would have thought that by this time, the US authorities would have rendered Saddam Hussein pliant as a pancake. If not dead as a dodo. But I suppose this was part of the US agenda, render unto the devil what was due the devil. Show the world, impress the world American justice was at work. Saddam was captured last December, almost a physical wreck, sprung from a deep hole in the ground, shaken like a fugitive rodent.

A flashlight insolently prowled his teeth and gums with not a peep from – at the time – the most dreaded man in the world. They wouldn’t have done that to a captured Hitler.

Saddam had been transferred to the custody of Iraqi justice.And now, suddenly, he was there, looking physically decent, in black coat and white shirt, often silent and somnolent. Only his darting eyes betrayed him. He was allowed to speak before a "prosecutor", then arraigned. Saddam refused to sign a list of charges against him, questioned the court’s jurisdiction, saying haughtily, "I am Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq."

In a sense,he reminded me of our own Joseph Estrada. On the dock for plunder charges, he insists he remains president of the Philippines.He is just on leave, and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is an impostor. What a curious similarity!

Saddam’s trial will be bled for all it is worth. America’s off-chance is that a magnanimous posture, allowing Saddam to be tried by the Iraqis, would greatly redound to the good of President George W. Bush. He is running for re-election in November’s presidential elections. A strident focus on what is being called the "Trial of the Century" would blunt a lot of the criticism against him for waging a "wrong war", an "illegitimte war" against Iraq.

Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9-ll, which won the Palme d’Or in Cannes recently, has savaged President Bush as he has never been savaged before by an American media mogul. The forthcoming trial of Saddam Hussein could lighten the accusing hand on Bush’s shoulder. There is besides the added argument an open trial, covered wall to wall by TV, could fling open all the doors and windows and expose Saddm’s extraordinary tyranny and ruthlessness, much of which had been concealed.

But the other side of the coin can be alarming.

TV cuts both ways. It is ruthless. It strips the accused of many of his or her defenses, like it stripped Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi executioner of millions of Jews, when he was tried in Israel. His snarl showed. His cruelty showed. He couldn’t hide his meanness, the demons in him, the crawly hands that smelled and still dripped with blood, that did their grisly job in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Berchtesgaden.

In the case of Saddam Hussein, it could cut the other way. Brutal and bloodthirsty as he may be, he could scramble the script. He could ignite or reignite the emotions of Islam, turn them against America, tell the Iraqis as he has already said, this is all theatre, he is not the real criminal, the real criminal is US President George W. Bush. Isn’t the country continuing to bleed because of the American military occupation? Isn’t this court a puppet of America, its judges, its prosecutors?

Iraqi military veterans still hail Saddam Hussein as a hero, though they don’t have much clout anymore. But Saddam, with the rapier skills of a master demagogue, could turn the Sunnis against the Shiites, the Kurds against both, the three against each other.

Americans figure that with Saddam’s trial, the Iraqi opprobium for America’s occupation will sharply diminish, as they unleash him not only in Iraq but also on the world during the trial. . Adolph Hitler could only mesmerize Germany which took up the swastika as a revenge symbol against the insults and indignities inflicted on the nation by the Treaty of Versailles. Outside Germany, Hitler’s sibilant voice, his silly strut had no audience.

Still and all, it was a smart move. America trundling Saddam Hussein over to the jurisdiction of Iraq.

Already, American troops have suffered 636 deaths in Iraq since last year’s US invasion. The insurgency or guerrilla war goes on and on. Not a day passes that American combat soldiers are not killed, or coalition troops, or hostages seized. And beheaded for all the world to see. Terror remains the monster the US has failed to conquer or destroy. And terror grows by the day. Osama bin Laden remains the long-bearded Islamic messiah, eluding the long hand of America, scoffing at Wshington,warning al-Qaida could again fall on America with nameless terror.

Now we have a temporary distraction – the coming trial of Saddam Hussein.

* * *

Ah, Wimbledon has finally gotten to me anew. It was the Wimbledon of Pete Sampras and André Agassi, the Wimbledon of Martina Hingis, the Williams sisters Serena and Venus that I had to set aside. Politics had seized control of my pen to the exclusion of almost everything else. I loved sports, I still love sports. When just so many days ago, while lingering on TV, I saw a tall, shapely, gorgeously attractive Russian girl hitting that ball on center court in Wimbledon, I got hooked again.

I didn’t know who she was. It turned out she was Russia’s latest tennis sensation, Maria Sharapova. Just 17, she was beating many of the best, and was due to tangle with Americas Lindsay Davenport, a former Wimbledon champion, in the semi-finals. No, she couldn’t possibly win against Davenport, the dour American with the long legs, the long hands, the long cross-court delivery, with not so much speed, but with terrific power coming off her delivery.

Well, she won over Davenport, 2-6, 7-6(7-5), 6-1, slowly cruising first, then beating the American in her own game, high velocity tennis that singed the chalk at the far ends. Nobody beats Lindsay in this kind of a game. She makes you run, she makes you guess, she drives you back, farther back, until you lose half of your return wallop. The thing is Maria’s confidence in herself never waned. It was just another game. And she gave it all she had.

But Serena Williams in the finals was completely another matter.

Here was the world’s most powerful, most prodigious woman tennis player. She could play tennis as easy as she could hopscotch, loping at the ends like a panther after its first meal, volleying or half-volleying like a streaking commando, and when she smashed, you were a goner. No, at this stage, Maria Sharapova would be putty at Serena’s hands.

Was she?

At the end, when she beat Serena 6-1,6-4, Maria had to repeat what she said after beating Lindsay Davenport: "It’s amazing. I don’t have any words. All the hard work in my life, all the sacrifices.First of all, I never expected it to happen so early.I knew that I could achieve many things if I worked hard and if I believed in myself. But I never expected to do so well at such an early age."

I still haven’t been able to see the full game as I write these lines. But I saw brief footages. And what I saw was what I expected Maria to perform next year, or the year after. Her game had matured. She had speed, she had power. And what was more, she had the aces and the Big Bertha delivery booming from London to Berlin with unerring accuracy.

(When she won, Maria slumped to the ground, where she stayed for quite some time. She rose only when her giddy head cleared, and her body had cast off the intoxicating delirium of unexpected triumph. No, she did not cry. But the face was exultant, a 17-year-old colleen exceedingly proud of what she did, flag down the Wimbledon championship trophy), a litle Russian girl who migrated to America at the age of 8 to perfect her tennis. Her father drove her relentlessly, and now she’s near perfect in a game that numerically begins with love. Love-fifteen, yes?

Ana Kournikova was another Russian girl I looked at. But she was more glamour and sex than anything else. And so she didn’t last. She doesn’t cross the court any more as often as she crosses the street where the boys and the menfolk gather and whistle wildly whenever she does.

Let’s give some more information about Sharapova. She is the second-youngest finalist and champion in Wimbledon history. Martina Hingis was youngest in 1997 when she won the trophhy at 16. . Martina Navatilova, perhaps the greatest, watched Maria play in Moscow when she was just six years old, and singled her out for greatness out of a group of young kids.