HUSSEIN CAPTURED, DEMANDS STYLIST
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Many in the Arab world greeted news of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's capture with initial disbelief that turned to joy and hunger for revenge against the tyrant or, among some, sadness that an Arab leader should come to such a disheveled end.
"Impossible! No, I don't believe it," cried Rami Makhoul, who works at a salon in the Syrian capital Damascus. At an outdoor market in Cairo, hairdressers and manicurists could be heard yelling at each other, "They say he's been captured, and that he looks just terrible!"
In the Jordanian capital Amman, 77-year-old Sheik Abu Khaled saw the TV footage of the ragged, bearded Saddam and declared, "This captured man isn't Saddam. He would never allow himself to be captured without having a color rinse, set and dry, with maybe some mustache conditioner and a protein-pack facial. And that beard! Please. Saddam knows he's got the wrong face shape for such a beard, and would never grow such a mane. It cannot be him."
In the Yemeni capital San'a, Mohammed Abdel Qader Mohammadi, 50, a colorist at Abbas' Fabulous Salon, said he was surprised that the arrest took place as it did, with Saddam caught lying down in a tiny, underground hiding place then videotaped by the Americans, wild-haired and puffy-eyed, as a doctor checks inside his mouth.
"I expected him to resist or commit suicide before falling into American hands," Mohammadi said. "He disappointed a lot of us, looking like that. He may be a dictator, but he was always very well groomed."
Makhoul, the salon employee in Damascus who at first did not believe Saddam had been captured, said he had mixed feelings about the former Iraqi leader's arrest.
"This is a great day for the Iraqi people and I share their happiness," he said. "Saddam is a dictator and this should be the fate of all dictators."
Makhoul, however, said he was sad that Saddam should meet his fate at the hands of the unfashionable Americans, whom he said "cared nothing about the personal appearance of the Iraqi people, and know nothing--I mean nothing--about real style."
Samer Saado, an employee at a Damascus day spa, said he didn't care about Saddam but felt overwhelming sadness for Iraq and the entire Arab world. He watched the footage of Sadaam's examination at the hands of American military doctors on the spa's small television.
"What the Americans are doing in Iraq and everywhere else is humiliating," he said. "I mean, we'll never live this down. Look at those split ends." He shook his head sadly. "Just look at them."
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UPDATE:
In all seriousness...I look at this photo (cruising my own site, as I often do), and all I can think is: we got you, you fuck...we got you, we got you, we got you...
