From Kevin Coogan's article in Hit List, a magazine out of Berkeley published by anarchist punks. Current issue. >..."Ironically enough, a few years before the Gulf War broke out the Workers World Party had no qualms about labeling Saddaam Hussein as a genocidal war criminal. In a September 22nd 1988 WW article entitled 'Iraq launches genocidal attack on the Kurdish people' WWP cadre and current IAC honcho Brian Becker denounced Iraq's 'horrific chemical weapons attacks on Kurdish villages' " citing 'ample evidence from Kurdish sources' and 'independent observers' that 'mustard gas, cyanide and other outlawed chemical weapons had been used in a massive fashion' not just against Kurds but, also against 'thousands of rebelling Iraqi forces who deserted the Army in 1984 during the Iran-Iraq war and took refuge in marshland areas in southern Iraq' Becker then noted that that the Iraqi attempt to crush the Kurds, 'by a combination of terror and systematic depopulation, ' has been the, 'hallmark of the governments policy for the last several years.' "
And, yup, NATO ally Turkey has destroyed thousands of Kurdish villages too. See G. Chaliand book from U.C. Press or Zed Press on the Kurds. A previous book of his, " Revolution in the Third World, " from the late 70's has a preface from Wallerstein and a blurb from Chomsky. His first in the late 60's was a Penguin pb. "The Peasants of North Vietnam."
More on Iraq from ex-Trot, Iraqi exile, Samir al-Khali aka Kanan Makiya in his two books on Iraq, the latter on the Arab intelligentsia and the blinders of nationalist discourse. Extensive documentation on his website out of Harvard. Also new Dilip Hiro book on the Iran-Iraq war. Hiro writes for the New Statesman and The Nation.
Martin Shaw ... John Pilger tries to minimise Serbian slaughter: 'Random brutality' and the denial of genocide Martin Shaw's letter, from New Statesman 22 November 1999. ... www.theglobalsite.ac.uk/martinshaw.htm Martin Shaw, Pilger on Iraq: a reply to Eric Herring Martin Shaw. Fallout from an earlier war. A belated reply to Eric Herring's defence of John Pilger on Iraq. ... www.theglobalsite.ac.uk/times/110shaw.htm
Martin Shaw, btw, former member of the Cliffite Socialist Workers Party in the UK.
Final point. Sanctions on Iraq are a massive crime against innocents. However, the stats being bandied about which yeaterday I saw on the net being a total of 1.5 million dead are a gross exaggeration. Serves them and us no good to exaggerate. David Courtright from SANE/Freeze, who had a few articles in Monthly Review in the 70's, in a recent article in The Nation estimates 227,000 premature deaths. Michael Pugliese