>>>Your idea of "objective reasoning" seems to be merely bending over backwards to make excuses for Saddam's crimes, employing historical sources biased by a left-wing and anti-American political idealogy.<<<
Brumar, I like Saddam Hussein about as much as I liked Chile's General Augusto Pinochet--not at all! By the way, since when does opinion contrary to yours constitute "anti-American political idealogy?"
>>>April Glaspie's talk with Saddam included the message that "disputes should be settled by peaceful means, not through intimidation", words that left-wing sources seem to leave out. Saddam, in turn, told Glaspie that Iraq would not use force against Iraq.<<<
Well, here's a definite "left-wing source coming from where all those very radical elderly folk live:
psych.upenn.edu
chss.montclair.edu
Brumar, you decide for yourself here.
>>>Between Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on August 2 1990 and the UN deadline for Iraqi withdrawal of January 15, Saddam was given many chances to negotiate a peaceful retreat. For example: 13-15 January * Hussein regime rebuffs last-minute negotiations by the French government and UN Secretary-General de Cuellar.
He didn't want to negotiate - he wanted to keep Kuwait. The 32 country coalition commenced military actions on January 17. Note: Immediately after his invasion, BTW Saddam even promised to withdraw by August 5 1990, a promise he didn't keep.<<<
Regarding Saddam telling the truth? I don't expect him to tell the truth any more than I believe everything I hear from the American side. For example, the American side claimed the Patriot Missile System had astonishing accuracy, causing Raytheon's stock to rise.
Regarding the French negotiating? Hey, the French could have negotiated until they were all blue in the face, and Arab nations gave it a bid as well; perhaps even others. However, no entity can effectively negotiate when the party holding all of the cards, pulling all of the strings and the ones with the most money (the US) refuses to negotiate?
>>>BTW during the war, Iraq did in fact invade Saudi Arabia (on January 29) but was beaten back. This, the battle of Khafji, Saudi Arabia, was the first ground battle of the war. The coalition didn't initiate ground operations against Iraqi forces until February 24.<<<
Invasion, huh! I'd barely call 400-600 Iraqi troops and 40-45 Iraqi tanks an invasion force. At most, there were two Iraqi divisions most of whom never got close to Khafji. Now, Brumar, aren't you now acting a bit like fearmongers Armitrage and Wolfowitz?
>>>At the time it was fought, the Battle of Khafji was viewed as a small and relatively inconsequential attack on an abandoned Saudi border town.<<<
>>>The 12 Marines had been trapped in Khafji since Tuesday night when the town was overrun by about 400 to 600 Iraqi troops and 40 to 45 tanks in the first major ground action of the Persian Gulf War.<<<
washingtonpost.com
>>>"The first real good information we had came from two different sources, one was a Marine unmanned drone aircraft that went up and took pictures at night and we saw all these APCs, these armoured personnel carriers, that were parked on the burn between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, that's the closest they'd ever gotten.
"Most of the battle of Khafji occurred in Kuwait, on the road from Kuwait City to the town of Khafji in Saudi Arabia, that's where we got most of the Iraqi armor, the Iraqi soldiers that were going to the battle - a few did get into Khafji and several tanks got in there, the Saudi Arabian army and the peninsula shield force, the Arab guys who were serving with the Saudis did a marvellous job and defeated that attack and freed the town."<<<
pbs.org
>>>The military coalition consisted of Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Honduras, Italy, Kuwait, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Niger, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Korea, Spain, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
firethistime.org;
That coalition existed because one nation invaded another nation and those countries came to the defense of the invaded nation. A princple of just cause for war. However, I continue to submit the starting of that war was premature and US-led, because the conditions of exhausing all remidies by negotiation and the condition of competing harms had not been given just due, hence my opposition to the first Gulf War. |
