Will Saddam Hussein be able to arouse popular Moslem sentiments against the allies? Can he convince Middle Easterners that the Kuwaitis deserve what they got, that the Saudis have betrayed the holy city of Islam? And that American troops came to control all resources and humiliate the Arabs? If he can, the allies have much to fear. So far, however, Baghdad's propaganda campaign has had surprisingly little impact
It's not for lack of trying. The conquest of Kuwait, Saddam often explains, was partially intended to stop Kuwaitis from spending billions "on their lust and on gambling in the West." In a September 26 Iraqi news Agency dispatch, he accuses Emir Jaber, the ruler of Kuwait, of keeping 70 wives and repeats a bizarre story about Kuwaiti leaders acquiring so many women that " some of them were unable to recognize their own children. The situation was so bad, a sheikh once expressed his desire to marry a young girl whom he had by chance encountered, only to discover that the girl in question was his own daughter."
As for the Saudis, the Iraqi regime particularly savages king Fahd. When the king called for Saudi women to join the armed forces (something women have done for years in Iraq), Saddam's media accused him of instituting a terrible innovation. Does Fahd believe, asked Holy Mecca Radio (a clandestine Iraqi station beamed to Saudi Arabia), "that our honor is so trivial to us that we will allow our daughters to stand next to Zionist and U.S. soldiers – pork eaters, sinners, and AIDS victims?" The radio went on to accuse Fahd of "turning our women into instruments of pleasure for Bush's pigs and Shamir's tigers."
Sexual issues are also raised to taunt Fahd and denigrate him. A newspaper in Iraqi-controlled Kuwait claimed that he lacks the power to ask a single "American coquette who came to entertain the Yankee soldiers to return to her country."
But Americans are Saddam's main target. Holy Mecca Radio tells good Moslems about such "customs and traditions" of American soldiers as boozing, drug-taking, gambling, and prostitution, and warns them against American efforts to bring these vices to the Middle East. Iraqi television reports that 40 percent of American troops are infected with AIDS, a disease they plan to pass on to unsuspecting Moslem women.
Egyptian soldiers in Saudi Arabia are a special target of Iraqi rumormongering. They hear from Baghdad that the Pentagon or King Fahd (accounts differ) purchase the services of 5,000 or 10,000 Egyptian women to entertain American troops. And while not a single American soldier has gone to Egypt for R&R, Iraqi radio broadcasts reports on a hypothetical soldier's behavior there:
"Instead of visiting and Egyptian museum to see the marvels there, his steps will lead him to the nearest night club," reported Baghdad's Voice of Arab Awakening on December 18. "Instead of visiting the pyramids he will spend his night at Pyramid Street [where many nightclubs are located]. But is that all? This soldier who brags about his American nationality and plenty of dollars will turn all Cairo and Alexandria – in fact all Egypt – into a Pyramid Street."
The indictment against Americans goes on and on. Female American soldiers in Saudi Arabia are depicted as playthings for their male counterparts. Shameless Americans couple right on the streets of Saudi Arabia, so outraging good Saudi soldiers that the Saudis pull out their guns and shoot their allies on the spot. American indecencies have transformed the city of Dhahran into "a brothel of atheism immorality, and debauchery." Worst of all, Americans in Mecca and Medina "drink and party with semi-nude dancers," thereby desecrating the Islamic holy cities.
These accusations have not been very effective. To be sure, the usual anti-American types have picked them up. A top Iranian leader charges that American soldiers gulp down alcohol near the holy cities and cavort with "half naked dancers imported into Saudia for them." A radical Teheran paper accuses the Saudis of footing the bill for American debauchery. A pro-Iraqi daily in Jordan details the heroic amounts of alcohol guzzled by American soldiers – two billion cans of beer in their first few weeks. Assuming 200,000 soldiers, that makes about 10,000 cans per soldier each month, or 330 cans a day!
But these isolated echoes actually point to the failure of Holy Mecca Radio. Popular anger, at least within the Gulf host countries, at the U.S.-Arab alliance is very limited.
