[Marxism] down the New Yorker memory hole

[andrew pollack <acpollack2@xxxxxxxx>]

In Jon Lee Anderson's critique of Washington's "deBaathification" program
in the current New Yorker, he summarizes modern Iraqi history thus:

"The Baath Party?baath means ?renaissance? in Arabic?was founded in
Syria, in 1947, as a political vehicle to promote Pan-Arabism. In the
fifties, Syrian exiles and Iraqi students brought Baathism to Iraq, which
was then ruled by a military government. The Baathists came to power in
1963, in a coup that was followed by a bloodbath during which Baathists
arrested, tortured, and killed their rivals. In 1968, in another coup,
Saddam Hussein?s wing of the Baath Party took control of the country, and
in 1979 Saddam declared himself President."
(http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?041115fa_fact)

Didn't your fact checkers notice something missing here? How about a
revolution? In his telling Iraq went straight from a military government
to a Baathist coup in 1963 -- and the 1958 revolution never happened!
Perhaps Mr. Anderson will say that's because the paragraph is a history
of the party, not of the government. More likely he didn't think the
event important enough for his story, which is a shame because it's a
sensitive, thoughtful portrayal of one aspect of the country's problems.

But it ignores the main source of those problems: the crushing, in 1963,
of that revolution. The 1958 revolution drew on the energies and ideas of
all that was best in Iraq -- including a Communist Party that, unlike
today, still retained some sense of what it meant to be a communist. All
the economic, technological and secular cultural advances of the
post-1958 period are due to that revolution.  And retrogression from
those advances and the ideals behind them were the product of the
successive coups which he does mention -- and in which Washington either
actively connived or at best passively abided.

It's possible Mr. Anderson has heard nothing more than the phrase "the
1958 Revolution." If that's so, I suggest he read Tariq Ali's "Bush in
Babylon." (Or if he's picky about his sources he could read the Wall
Street Journal's profile of the leader of the Revolution, Abdul-Karim
Qasim; I believe it was published on 7/29/04).

Andrew Pollack
Brooklyn, NY
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