Why did th Americans leave things I finished in Desert Storm?

Why did th Americans leave things I finished in Desert Storm?

Many of the problems plaguing the area today could have been avoided if they had just finished the job in '91

Other urls found in this thread:

exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-vs-neocon-knucklehead-victor-davis-hanson-a-war-nerd-classic/
youtube.com/watch?v=wHmhf_wrcrM
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

Because that wouldn't be prudent

Besides, Saddam was just a cartoon villain, just like Gaddafi.

The Gulf war was less about getting rid of Saddam and more about making sure Saddam didn't control the oil in Kuwait.

And what better way to secure that than ensuring that saddam never has the chance to invade again by ousting him from power?

What would "finishing the job" look like? Seems to me the problems are actually from doing exactly that, in 2003.

By stationing troops in Saudi Arabia and telling him to not try any shit instead of wasting money and human resources steamrolling into Baghdad.

a decades long deployment is not cheaper nor more certain than a decisive military operation.

It's a bluff, a very favorable bluff for the US since they weren't likely to lose if it was called, but a bluff none the less

That was the goal. Drive Iraq out of Kuwait, re-establish Kuwait, leave. They were following UN resolutions. A lot of them.

The problem, and the fatal error, was in not demanding that Saddam surrender live on television.

Saddam told his country that they won the war, kicked out the crusaders, and were now more rich and powerful than ever. And they believed him. And the world believed the shell game he played to hide the fact that his country was utterly and completely defenseless.

I was there. I saw the firefights at night after the war was over where Saddam's troops were killing kurds, etc. It went on for weeks. Nobody cared.

Osama bin Laden cited stationing troops in Saudi as the basis for his jihad.

They refused to let us fly our flags on our tanks defending their borders. We obviously did anyways.

The Saudis are nothing if not evil.

He would not have stopped with Kuwait. He would not have stopped until Russia.

>Saddam told his country that they won the war, kicked out the crusaders, and were now more rich and powerful than ever. And they believed him. And the world believed the shell game he played to hide the fact that his country was utterly and completely defenseless.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-vs-neocon-knucklehead-victor-davis-hanson-a-war-nerd-classic/

>I was there. I saw the firefights at night after the war was over where Saddam's troops were killing kurds, etc. It went on for weeks. Nobody cared.

Bush Sr. told the Kurds to rise up but didn't give them any support.

The things you finished?
Excuse me?

Hanson was right.

Was that your point?

Basically, because it was the result of a major misunderstanding resulting from combination of miscommunication and the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing.

We put Saddam in charge of Iraq to keep an increasingly Russian influenced Iran in check. We gave him nerve gas to deal with them and the kurdish revolutionaries they were funding.

Meanwhile, through a combination of port control and drink-your-milkshake effects, Kuwait is pretty much raping the Iraqi economy. It gets to the point where the richer folks in Iraq are threatening to hire mercenary militias and invade them, with or without government support. So, naturally, our guy Saddam explains to the American ambassadors that his position of power is in serious jeopardy if he lets this situation continue, and kindly asks if he can put his foot down on this problem, once and for all, by annexing Kuwait.

...and, this is the part no one remembers: we said yes.

So... Imagine how much better it'd be if we hadn't *started* the job in '91?

Keeping in mind that Iraq was a #3 ally in the Middle East, and all throughout the 80's, all the military scenarios we worked up for a heating of the cold war in the Middle East, as well as all the popular combat flight sims based on those scenario, had us launching planes from air bases in a friendly Iraq, to attack Iran.

>we

One psychotic out of place female disaster of an ambassador is not "we".

>One psychotic out of place female disaster of an ambassador is not "we".

Name?

>Hanson was right.

Brilliant argument.

youtube.com/watch?v=wHmhf_wrcrM

>April Glaspie
>Over two decades of experience in the middle east, posted in Kuwait, Syria, and Egypt, and ambassador to Iraq for for over a year at the time.
>Under explicit instructions to strengthen ties with Iraq.
>Repeating exactly what the State Department had told Saddam six months before, ie. "We have no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait."
>"Psychotic and out of place."
But she's a woman, so clearly...

>the war nerd

LMAOing @ ur lyfe

>...and, this is the part no one remembers: we said yes.

Any source on this? I can only find

>The American ambassador declared to her Iraqi interlocutor that Washington, “inspired by the friendship and not by confrontation, does not have an opinion” on the disagreement between Kuwait and Iraq, stating "we have no opinion on the Arab–Arab conflicts".

>She also let Saddam Hussein know that the United States did not intend "to start an economic war against Iraq". These statements may have caused Saddam to believe he had received a diplomatic green light from the United States to invade Kuwait.[28][29]

>Saddam: Imma goin' to invade Kuwait! Kay?

>April "We have no opinion on the Arab–Arab conflicts".
>State Department: "We have no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait."

...That would be a yes. (And judging by the citation tags, probably available from that same source.)

>Why did th Americans leave things I finished in Desert Storm?

A fucking war happened because a women couldn't clearly convey federal policy

and what exactly does "finishing the job" mean to you, all regime change in Iraq did was create worse problems by unleashing all the sectarian violence and extremism Saddam was keeping a lid on.

Yes, because the State Department is staffed entirely by women.

...A war happened because a woman was simply restating federal policy, and certain special interest groups did projections as to the economic complications, after the fact.

Colon Powell is the answer.

And he's also the problem

I dun think Powell evah dinuddin mastah dind tell him to do.

Better to have happened before 9/11 and the explosion in radical groups.