06-29-2017, 01:36 PM
(06-29-2017, 12:56 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > The really stupid war was the Gulf War; at the time Iraq was
> aligned with us and Kuwait mostly against us, so coming in on the
> side of Kuwait made no sense. In addition, our intervention was
> bad, not good, from the standpoint of oil production. I attribute
> that to GHWBush having fantasies of refighting WWII against
> dictators with moustaches.
If memory serves, Bush didn't want to do the Gulf War at all, but
Margaret Thatcher flew in from London and talked him into it.
Also, don't forget to take into account that remarkable ultimatum
telling Saddam to pull his troops out of Kuwait by January 15 (as I
recall), or else.
In 1991, there were still a lot of people around (whole generations of
people) who believed (in fantasy) that if Hitler had been prevented
from annexing Czechoslovakia and Poland, then WW II could have been
avoided. That's the reason that the Gulf War had to happen. These
decisions to go to war are made for emotional reasons, not rational
reasons, and permitting Saddam to get away with annexing Kuwait was
abhorrent to Thatcher and the Brits, and so Bush was convinced. No
other outcome was possible.
Today, 25 years later, few people care that Russia annexed
Crimea and China annexed the South China Sea.