Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Dennis Perrin wrote:
>
> >Saddam is not the Sandinistas, nor Salvadoran trade unionists. He is Noriega
> >times ten.
>
> No, not at all. There's no good guys in this fight.
As a point of departure, yes. His regime has probably tortured to death any Iraqi with politics even vaguely like mine. He is an utterly ruthless dictator. And he launched an incredibly bloody and utterly inexcusable war on Iran (with, of course, u.s. encouragement and aid).
But nations come as wholes, not as assemblages of parts. And there is a lot of evidence that the bulk of the population of Iraq have lived under far better day to day conditions (before the bombing and the sanctions, that is) than the bulk of the population of any other mideast state. If the present regime is destroyed _from outside_, it will be replaced by a regime with all the vices and none of the virtues of the present regime.
I can't think of a single case in which a regime destroyed by the u.s. (no matter how vile that regime might have been) in which the new regime was any better, and almost always worse. Such it will be in Iraq if we don't stop this war.
> But there's no
> question that no significant progress can be made in the world unless
> U.S. imperial power is reduced. The Bush admin wants to increase it.
> I can't think of anything more important than frustrating their
> attempt.
Yes.
Carrol
>
> Doug