Crap. Same thing happened after we liberated France. Look at them now.

You know, the reason why the US supported the Ba'ath party in the first place was kill off communists in Iraq. When they took power, I believe there were initially 800-900 executions of communists and socialists in Iraq. In fact, when Saddam showed off his library of Stalinist literature to visitors in the 1970s, it surprised a lot of people because he had been involved in anti-communist purges throughout the 1960s. I guess they will get their revenge in a way now, outlasting their bitter enemy Saddam.

phred,

Yeah, one of the most prosperous countries on the planet, world's fifth or sixth largest economy, etc.

The Ba'ath party was itself a national-socialist movement strongly supported by the USSR.

Let's hope someone accidently drops a whole load of bombs on those communists. Communists have done more damage in history than any other idiology.

Gary - yeah, crimes against Jews, people protesting in front of French landmarks wearing bin Laden t-shirts, 35 hour work weeks, one brand of toilet paper, yeah.

There are plenty of jobs waiting for these guys at BBC or in any number of American universities . . .

who was it that said something along of communists being people who were reading Marx and anti-communists were people who had already read Marx?

U. S. Invasion Makes Iraq Safe For Communism...

If Iraq ends up with a true multi-party democracy, I won't mind seeing the Communists and the Islamicists and the Arab Nationalists with seats at the table. There are lots of ideologies that are abhorent in a dictatorship but tolerable as part of an ongoing democratic tussle.

My co worker was visiting her uncle in Arizona a few weeks ago. He was in France in WWII. He remembers the communists throwing rocks at GIs. He still hates the French.

All the French or just the French communists?

The test will be in how well the new government preforms. If it seems to be working for them the Iraqi's wouldn't concern themselves with the communists. Communists only come to power from chaos, they'd be to weak to do it now, and if we do this right they'll never get a second chance.

The communists did much damage to France during the post war years, and the effects definitely linger. The 1940-44 occupation was utterly traumatic. In some ways, France still hasn't gotten over it.

harhar:

Here's the quote:

"How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin."
-- Ronald Wilson Reagan (b. 1911), 40th US President

Ronnie understood.

I am having a hard time remembering why I hated Reagan as a punk kid in the eighties.

Because you did not understand. It is easy to hate or fear something you do not understand.

Amen, Teej.

phred,

Yeah, this coming from the America that refused to accept Jews into the US before WWII, even though they were begging to enter. Your government turned away ships packed with Jews hoping to enter the US. You act like there has never been an anti-semite in American history. Need I remind you that anti-semitism was rampant in the US in the immediate years after WWI, and during the Great Depression?

Thousands of Frenchmen risked their lives to save Jews in France. That others worked with the Nazis does not invalidate their efforts. Your basic problem is that you can't be remotely serious or objective.

General Patton,

A communist party never controlled the government of France, in fact they've never even held a majority in the National Assembly as I recall, even at the height of their electoral power (in the late 1940s and early 1950s).

John Moore,

I'd say persecuting communists is the best way for them to keep them around. I mean, after forty years of suffering under the Ba'ath party, what makes you think that more persecution is going to convince them to become capitalists? Of course there is also the question of human decency, human rights, and all those moral issues that folks seem to want to throw out the window at the first oppurtunity.

Gary, maybe you misread my post (pas grave)... who said the communists ever had majority control of the French government? I mentioned that they did a lot of damage in France. They were prominent in the underground during the war, were difficult to disarm, had much to do with the building of the disastrous French welfare state, almost brought down the government in 1968 (which was ready to march the army into Paris) and still lurk, beady eyed and angry.

You act like there has never been an anti-semite in American history. Need I remind you that anti-semitism was rampant in the US in the immediate years after WWI, and during the Great Depression?

I'm sorry, but I must have missed the history lesson where the US put the Jews in ovens or turned them in to Nazis.

And France seems to still have a "Jewish" problem today, I tought only the US was the one supposed to have all the racism.

Kill the communists... I swear... More worthless pieces of shit than Bin Laden...

General Patton,

As opposed to the American welfare state? Communists don't explain welfare statism in France anymore than they explain it in Germany, the UK or the US for that matter. And it hasn't been any more or less disasterous than the US welfare state. And the 1968 student movement was not prompted by exclusively or even predominantly by communists for that matter, that is no more than student radicals in the US were. If you look at the student demands you'll largely find that they were pissed about the inadequate amount of state funding of public universities. Furthermore, their cause was not a popular one beyond the ranks of the students and some of the working class (though not remotely all) - which is of course why there was no revolution.

ElCapitan America,

Hmm, the point is that America has committed its wrongs against Jews just like many other countries.

France has committed thousands of police and soldiers to protecting Jewish places of worhips, graveyards, etc. to protect against acts of vandalism and the like. I'd say that the commitment of such manpower is an indication that anti-semitism is not welcome in France. And I don't recall anyone here every remotely claiming that the US is the only nation in the world which has racists.

Hmm, the point is that America has committed its wrongs against Jews just like many other countries.

Doesn't compare at all to what was done to them in Europe, please. Now if you talk about blacks ...

France has committed thousands of police and soldiers to protecting Jewish places of worhips, graveyards, etc. to protect against acts of vandalism and the like. I'd say that the commitment of such manpower is an indication that anti-semitism is not welcome in France.

I didn't say it was welcomed by France or officially by the French government, but it does seem to be a problem.

On the other hand, maybe they need to up the "manpower" or the authorities are just incompetent. You'd think with all the anti-semiticism and anti-Americanism the French authorities would have had enough sense to protect a site like the Etaples.

And let's not forget the French anti-war protests with images of Bin Laden http://fr.news.yahoo.com/030325/85/344w0.html , I can feel the love.

Gary, with all respect, you're mistaken when you discount the influence of communist thought and political activity in France since World War 2. Until recently, several French towns had full blown communist governments, whose confiscatory ambitions were kept in check only by Paris. As for the student uprisings in 1968, the communists were intimately involved. Nationalisation of several major French corporations followed, Mitterand, a former Vichy civil servant turned leftist, further destroyed the economy (socialist corruption, wealth transfer etc), and only since the last national election has Chirac's conservative government been able to even start trying to clean up the economic mess that remains.

Not to mention the deliberate sabotage of French military aviation production in the mid-1930's by the Stalinists, which led to the nationalization of those industries. It was a big factor in the success of the 1940 blitzkrieg.

The French Communists also undermined France BEFORE and DURING WWII. They sabotaged tanks being produced in factories, and made all sorts of mischief. At the time, Stalin was allied with Hitler.