I agree with you -- US leftists didn't help Americans in this respect, though, as much of (broadly) leftist remarks about Iraq never went beyond what Americans already felt that they knew about Iraq: Saddam is bad, he gassed his own people, he represses the Kurds, he rules by fear, he lives in palaces while people suffer from economic sanctions, etc. US leftists _never_ managed to intimate that there is even _one achievement_ of the Iraqi people and the Iraqi state before or after the rise of the Ba'ath Party and Saddam Hussein, _not_ even at ANSWER rallies and pamphlets. In fact, it was only the liberal Nicholas D. Kristof who bothered to write up something positive about Iraq that might make Americans think that Iraq has something worth defending: rights, benefits, and opportunities enjoyed by ordinary Iraqi women -- see "Iraq's Little Secret," _New York Times_, October 1, 2002, <http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/currentEvents/iraq/IraqsLittleSecret.pdf>. Why did this fact remain "secret," though? Why few Americans know about it even now? Obviously, we have made a grave error by failing to make systematic efforts to write up concrete accomplishments that Iraqi society has made since it became independent of the British Empire. -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://solidarity.igc.org/>