Word: baath
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...loyalties, to family, tribe and religion. In the fresh air of change, these mixed explosively, perhaps nowhere more so than in Iraq, which after independence in 1932, for three decades * experienced bloody and repeated coups and countercoups. The upheavals ceased in 1968, when the Baath Party won power and installed a regime so ruthless that effective opposition was simply crushed...
...reported, credibly, that in the evening, before bed, he has been in the habit of watching a video of an execution that he ordered, preferably one carried out that day. He is apparently conscienceless, a murderer of Caligulan whimsy. In August 1979, during a purge of his Baath Party, Saddam arranged this scene, reported by a former Iraqi Cabinet member: "The party officials were handed machine guns. One by one the guards brought in the accused, their mouths taped shut, and their hands bound. Saddam asked everyone to start shooting. At least 21 were killed, and every victim received...
...fierce expression to the emotions of many Arabs on matters that mean the most to them: opposition to foreign domination, the achievement of a kind of moral parity with the West, just distribution of Arab oil wealth, settlement of the Palestinian problem, the purity of Islam. He leads the Baath Party, whose name means renaissance. So powerful are these emotions that millions of ordinary Arabs, from factory workers to university professors, are willing to tolerate Saddam's otherwise evil performance -- his despotism that permits no freedom, his sacrifice of thousands of young lives to advance his ambitions, even...
...support of Israel. In addition, Damascus officials have asserted that the 3,000 Syrian troops in Saudi Arabia will defend the desert kingdom but will not participate in an attack against the army of another Arab nation, even though Saddam and Assad, who head rival wings of the socialist Baath party, bitterly resent each other...
Aside from Saddam's principal aides and Baath Party regulars, the only Iraqis who publicly pretend enthusiasm for the coming struggle are schoolchildren. Several thousand parade past the U.S. embassy, shouting, "Down, down Bush!" Each day in their classrooms they salute their leader, are taught the lessons of the reunification of Kuwait and are drilled in the ugly designs of the Americans and Zionists...