Agustus, I bet if you looked back on some history pages you'll find Bush's speeches are more in parallel to what Hitler spoke about before he moved forward with European invasion plans.
Saddam, pretty much like all Arab leaders, has been severely bent on Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. Beyond that, there's little evidence he's shown aggressive tendencies anywhere.
His invasion of Kuwait was not without issue. I mean it wasn't a blind invasion. There were issues concerning Kuwait's using new slant drilling techniques to steal oil from under Iraq's surface. How would the US feel if Canada behaved similarly? There was also the issue of the British having determined the land boundaries, with Kuwait having once been a province of greater Iraq. There was also the issue of wider Gulf access and there was also the issue of war debts Kuwait wouldn't renegotiate relative to the Iraq v. Iran War.
The failure to bring agreements to those issues prompted a conversation with the US ambassador who replied, once these issues were addressed, that America has no interest in Arab vs. Arab disputes. Thinking the US an ally, as it was during the Iraq v. Iran War, Saddam moved into Kuwait.
Big mistake!
What Saddam failed to factor is how the wider world would respond to such a move. No on one anywhere supported his invasion and the UN called for his immediate withdrawal. Stubbornly, still trying to cling to getting his issues addressed, he refused to leave.
In the days prior to the strong coalition invasion Saddam had agreed to a Russian plan for solving the dispute. But Bush the elder, by this time, with his military already in place, would have nothing of it and the war began. Kuwait picked up the tab.
Bush couldn't advance into Baghdad because that was not what the UN Resolution stipulated. The move was to get Saddam out of Kuwait, and that's what happened. Afterwards, the US unilaterally imposed the No-Fly Zones and encouraged a policy of trying to get a civil war started. Had Bush won a second term, there's no doubt in my mind he would have found a provocation of some kind to do what his son is now attempting today.
I don't believe this war is an aftermath effect of 9/11, rather it was pre-designed by GOPwinger hawks, former Reagan-Bush advisors, long ago. I further believe that if the US economy were in great shape today we would not be on the verge of war war, that the war on Iraq serves several purposes a primary of which is to cover for Bush's poor helmsmanship over the US economy.
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Also, in a state of war, genuinely concerned citizens will support a president from either political party. |
