Re: Jose Perez & Iraq Part 2

["Pieinsky" <pieinsky@xxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gould's Book Arcade" <ggouldsb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 11:55 PM
Subject: Jose Perez & Iraq Part 2


> I am not aware of any secular socialist groups in Islamic countries,
> particularly in Iraq, who share the romanticised view held by some western
> leftists of either the Baathist regime in Iraq or of Islamic
fundamentalist
> political parties and forces. All the socialist groups I know of, in Iraq,
> Turkey, Kurdistan, Iran, Pakistan, etc. etc., share the deepest animosity
to
> Islamic fundamentalist groups, both for the medieval backwardness, and
> because of the very simple fact that such groups attempt to physically
> exterminate secular leftists in those countries, which is a sound reason
for
> hostility to Islamic fundamentalist organisations. Surely western
socialists
> have a certain obligation of solidarity to their political comrades in
> Islamic countries in such matters.
>
> In Iraq secular socialist forces are divided between three or four
factions
> that come from the old Iraqi Communist Party. The most conservative
> Stalinist faction have joined the Bremer quisling authority. This is a
major
> betrayal. The most active of the other groups is the Worker Communist
Party.
> It appears to have illusions in the United Nations, which in my view is
> mistaken. Nevertheless, it is engaging currently in very vigorous
agitation
> to re-establish trade unions in Iraq, and have for the last three or four
> weeks been taking a leading role in organising the disbanded, largely
> conscript soldiers from the Iraqi Army, in their agitation to be properly
> paid. In the last few days, several of them have been arrested by Bremer's
> quisling authority for this agitation, and an international campaign is
now
> proceeding for their release.
>
> There are no communist or socialist groups in Iraq who share Jose Perez's
> characterisation of the Baathist remnants as a national resistance.
>

Au contraire: http://www.neravt.com/left/war/cadre1.html;
http://www.neravt.com/left/war/cadre2.html