> LouPaulsen quoted Workers World:
>
> >But revolutionary Iraq didn't have a moment's peace. The country went
> >through years of upheaval and several coups as U.S. and British covert
> >operations, sabotage, intrigue and constant military efforts attempted to
> >restore the status quo ante. By 1972, however, the oil had been
nationalized
> >and the biggest landowners expropriated. With Iraq's vast oil resources
in
> >the hands of the state, a spectacular social transformation happened
within
> >two decades. Many problems rooted in age-old bias and backwardness were
> >resolved. Iraqi women made the greatest social gains of women anywhere in
> >the Arab world.
>
> Lou, doesn't this rather overlook SH's long partnership with the CIA,
> and the fact that his regime liquidated thousands of Iraqi communists?
>
> Doug
Well, (a) the article in question was not 'everything of importance about Iraq', it was about the effect of the US war on Iraq on the women of Iraq.
(b) On the CIA thing: how much of what you are referring to is based on that one long article from UPI about SH being involved in all these assassination plots? I have my doubts about how far you can take that as gospel. Not that this makes a lot of difference, really. I mean, there was clearly a lot of cooperation between the government of Iraq and the US before 1991, so whether it was the CIA or some other agency doesn't matter a lot...
(c) Speaking as a communist of couse it matters to me that he liquidated communists, and for that matter that he suppressed the Kurds and fought a miserable bourgeois war with Iraq.
(d) But the point of my post was to take gentle issue with Yoshie's declaration that nobody on the left had mentioned the positive aspects of the Ba'ath system. (The policy implication is that she should get a subscription to WW if she doesn't have one already :-) ) Not to say that there were no negative aspects. (The term 'negative aspects' is not intended as dismissive. It includes a lot of awful stuff.)
LP