Revelation. Do You Even Remember the Gulf War ?

[Seeker]

I remember it well, some of our teachers stopped lessons to watch CNN.

I remember thinking that Saddam looked like a clown. WTF was he thinking? The US would just let him grab Kuwait with no consequences?

Learned a lot about different political perspectives, example rightist teachers were going on about military teachnological issues, like the apache raid on Iraqs radar cooardinating computers before Desert Shield, and Swarzkopfs 'second cannae' maneauver.

Of course lefties had other concerns about humanitarian issues, the death of Persian Gulf coral, and the construction of public opinion via media manipulation.

Also, I remember before Iraq that magazines and newspapers would use a sort of ratio to estimate NATO vs Warsaw Pact countries conflicts (there were a lot of doom and gloom stories like this), to downplay the technological inferiority of the Warsaw Pact countries.

Ratios were like this: Yes, they may lose 15-20 tanks for every one of 'ours' but they have more and cheaper, so big casualties. The Gulf War showed that it is possible to leverage technology in war a lot more, even if in perfect set-piece situations 20 T-72s could take out an M1A2, those situations were never allowed to arise.

[Thud]

The war was all about American Imperialism (as well as oil).

Not many things change as time goes by.

True.

And lo! Iraq was made an American colony after our victory, and our corporations control the government!

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Thud


True.

And lo! Iraq was made an American colony after our victory, and our corporations control the government!

Thud, I was showing a parody of opinion at the time of GW1. Curiously, it seems to be the same as the peanut gallery for GW2.

[germanos]

Yes I remember vividly.

I also remember the war started in august 1990, but apparently to the US posters here, a war only starts when the US participates. Take off those eye-caps brothers!

I was in Jordan when Saddam invaded Quwait (and YES, it was a war over oil!), and I spend quite some tense days in my brother's apartment listening to the BBC, as in the early days of the war it was completely unclear what was about to happen.
We both feared Iraq and Israel might clash, as there was especially from Saddam a lot of rethoric.
Obviously, in that case Jordan would be the battlefield...

I was so releived to move to Syria the week after, to visit a friend. Before my trip I had thought Syria would be the most scary country to visit in the region, but suddenly it had become the safest

Being in Syria, things practically got hilarious. While I was there, it became clear Syria was going to join the US led coalition against Saddam . Boy, did that turn everybodies worldview upside down Most of us expected that Assad would send his Navy Brassband-corps or something

Those were the days

I also remember the first strikes on Baghdad. Hearing it on the news, and emediately going to watch CNN.

The whole athmosfear in the months, then weeks and days leeding up to it. Surreal... The wait for the ground-assault...

Thinking back on it now, it was back then very much like it is today. The main difference being that nowadays the coalition has not been formed, and that there is hardly any legal justification for it.

[Az]

traitor! burn him, burn him!

[chairmanmeow]

I was four at the time. I remember my dad constantly watching it on TV, and then my kindergarden teacher called my mom in when I told her that my dad was "sitting there waiting for the world to blow up."

[Pekka]

I do remember it. Well.. I was 11 so.. .
It was my first touch with war that is happening in my time. I remember watching the sky at night and seeing all that AA fire.. I thought it was rather beautiful than war. I still remember the images, I was so amazed by its beauty, pure art. Then I hoped that I'd some day see real AA fire myself.. and that one I have accomplished .

I remember the summer being warm, and my mother was stressed because she was sure the war is going to spread and that we're going in it too after that. I just thought it's so many miles away that it just can't happen, and that we will survive anyway, because the good guys don't die or something.
She was actually little angry with me because I thought it was beautiful, I remember hearing it all over again 'they're all someones daddys and sons, like the rest of us'.. didn't stop me .

I don't remember Israels position in it, but that might be because of my european anti-semitic selective memory
I do remember all the talk about Scuds though, but not that they were shot to Israel. I mean I know it now, and have known it, but then I didn't really pay too much attention to it.
I didn't know what the war was about at all, but it didn't matter anyway, it was war and it was the coalition against the bad guys.

I still remember huge boats with fighters on the deck, I thought they were just too awesome, and angry because my father told me 'no, we don't have those, they are very expensive'. I'm not that angry anymore, since we couldn't use them anyway, lack of sea .
I remember wondering how those fighters got of the deck so fast, and just how beautiful they were.. from those days, I really wanted to become fighter pilot. I didn't, so I just thought the next best thing, dropping them. Well it wasn't the next best thing, kind of boring actually.

I remember that no one answered my questions about the war.. I felt frustrated because of it.

Kind of funny, since we visited Israel, Tel Aviv in 91 or 92. So it was right after war I guess.. I didn't even think that the country was in conflict just few moments ago..
funny story came in my mind, when we left Israel, I knew some english already so I thought it would be funny to yell 'we have a bomb!' in airport. Now, I didn't think that we're in Israel, I didn't even knwo about Israels problems. It was just a warm country to me with fun to have, and I saw soldiers in airport, so I really thought it would be funny joke. My parents didn't think that way, so luckily they stopped me because I told them the joke first and then started moving around like I'm going to do it for real .. They almost pissed their pants and told me 'we're going to get shot if you do it!'.. I didn't believe it, but I stopped for some reason.. I'm glad I did

[Alinestra Covelia]

I think Cavebear makes a strong argument, but included in his argument are also a few ambiguities that illustrate the difficulty of this decision.

He mentions (just to use an example) China as an example of a "totalitarian state" (which I would agree with in terms of fact). He then mentions that it is America's duty to topple these regimes, peacefully if possible, militarily if not.

My question is "In whose name do you do this?"

Cavebear (and many others too) maintain that this would be in the name of the people who live in these oppressive regimes.

But what if the people who live there don't really care? What if, as in the case of China, the vast majority are too preoccupied with economic concerns to pay much attention to political concerns?

I'd say that the political dissidents whom China expels to America make up a minuscule segment of society. The economic unrest in northwestern China is a far greater social problem, and one that directly accompanied the country's change to a capitalistic model, but one you don't hear about in the news. Likewise, many people in the cities are enjoying economic profits higher than any in the past two or three generations. They would suffer if the current economic development were to halt, and regime change would pretty much ensure a disruption.

So would you topple the government because it is politically restrictive? (This would win you little support amongst the largely disinterested Chinese in whose name you are ostensibly acting.) Or would you topple the government because it is economically objectionable? (This would reflect poorly on America because China is currently trying to imitate Western capitalism.)

I agree that action sometimes needs to be taken. But as always ground rules are very difficult to hammer out in a justifiable manner and I believe we need to be certain of the correctness of what we do before we act.

I do not believe that Bush has presented a sufficiently compelling case for his current action against Iraq. This has been interpreted as imperialism, colonialism, militarism, etc by other nations, and although these reactions are (I believe) more extreme than necessary, they are natural and to be expected.

And with something as serious as war, I would prefer the maxim of "when in doubt, do nothing". If America is going to commit to removing Saddam, then America must also commit to genuinely and visibly improving the life for the average Iraqi citizen afterwards. The worst possible thing that could happen would be for US forces to go in, break things up, and depart without helping.

Afghanistan has so far proven cautious promise for America's peacetime commitments. If Saddam is to be removed, then something similar must happen in Iraq too.

[Pekka]

I still think one of the most beautiful things in world is AA fire in night.. It just makes me shut my mouth and stare it.

[Imran Siddiqui]

What I do hope for is that the UN, with some industrially advanced nations to back it up, will go on a general world-wide campaign of removing local tyrants to encourage freedom whereever possible.

It's nice to see you agreed with Ronald Reagan's last speech . He actually said that he wished the UN to have a standing army to go after tyrants. You damned Reaganite .

[Az]

we will put up a fight, mind you.

[GePap]

I remmember the war, (I was 11, like many other here).

I don't really remember the 8/2/90 invasion. I do remmeber Sat. Night Live skits leading up to the war, the Jan bombing campaign, then the 100 hours in March, and then it was all over, ticker tape parade, done with.

I don't for a second buy the HUmanitarian argument for this war: arguiments based on principle are those most vulnerable to the corrosiveness of hypocrasy. All of a sudden the war over Iraq is to save the Iraq people?: well, Rummy has stated that the US can fight two war at once: maybe not, but we can do it a few months apart, so here goes the question to all those out to "save" Iraqis: Come decemeber, will you support a war on North Korea? The people of North korea suffer more then those of Iraq: since all of you are so dedicated to the lives of the innocernt, it seems given, isn't it, that you will back 100%, a war against the evil Kim Il Yong regime? No? Then, we invade Iran...and then Syria, then Usbekistan, Kazakhstan, then Zimbabwe, then Cuba, then Cambodia, then Lybia, then Saudi Arabia, then Egypt, then we send troops into the occupied Territories, then we invade any other states that is not a a democracy, not matter where in the world they are. I will assume, since so many of you have all of a sudden become champions of world democracy and using the US to enforce good that all of you would back each and every one of these wars, plus the required aftermath. I also assume you back increases in taxes, or cutting internal programs to pay for these campaigns.

I am from a country the US invaded to "restore democracy". I left a few weeks before, but most of my family did live through it. I knew people on both sides in the Panamanian political debate. There are many Panamanians who think the invasion was a good thing, there are a smaller number that think it was a bad thing. Most still think the death toll on the Panamanian side was too high. But what most Panamanians do agree is that the US did not invade Panama simply for "our benefit": it did it to further another nebulous 'war' on something that can be streched in all sorts of ways , the 'war on drugs', and most Panamanians were happy or content to see the US leave. And of course, putting Noriega away didn't really do squat for the 'war on drugs'.

After Saddam is gone, most Iraqis will probably thank the US: many will not. But don't expect them to think the US did it for them. They know better than that. Now, if thinking you are doing it for them makes you feel better about yourself, go ahead, think it: but it does not make it true, not for one minute of the day.

[Ramo]

Afghanistan has so far proven cautious promise for America's peacetime commitments.

How so? Warlords are rampant in Afghanistan, just as they were before the Taleban came to power. They are raping and pillaging villagers with impunity and are enforcing Islamist laws. We aren't doing anywhere close to enough in Afghanistan.

[chequita guevara]

I remember it well. What do you want to know?

[Pekka]

Does anyone know if there's any programs, good documents, anything from that war? I'd have use for it, so if anyone knows anything, let me know. I'm not interested in movies, but real documents or programs, I prefer some action, not only politicians speeches.