Posted on 08/02/2011 2:33:59 PM PDT by TonyInOhio
More than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers backed up by 700 tanks invaded the Gulf state of Kuwait in the early hours of this morning.
Iraqi forces have established a provisional government and their leader Saddam Hussein has threatened to turn Kuwait city into a "graveyard" if any other country dares to challenge the "take-over by force".
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
I was listening to the 8/1/11 evening broadcast from the BBC when the news broke, a most thrilling shortwave radio adventure.
Video at link for the multimedia-inclined.
I remember him riding a huge wave of popularity after Desert Storm, with approval ratings over 90%.
Then the 1990 backstabbing budget deal (with the large tax increase) came hack to haunt him in the 1992 elections.
My grandfather's brother died the day after President Harding--his widow died 67 years later, in 1990, at the age of 101.
I developed a minor crush on Arthur "Scud Stud" Kent.
I was so young and innocent then...Iraq and Kuwait were just two places on the other side of the world.
Now, well...
*nostalgic sigh*
One good result of Bush’s high popularity after Desert Storm was that Thurgood Marshall decided to retire from the Supreme Court and Bush chose Clarence Thomas as his replacement. If Marshall had remained on the court until his death, Clinton would have replaced him with an ultra-liberal. Probably Marshall assumed that Bush was going to be re-elected in 1992.
...I had just registered for my fall semester classes, just after coming off active duty...
My heart both fell and soared at the same time...
...can't believe it's been that long!
I well remember how many liberal Democrats were fiercely opposed to doing anything about it, John Kerry and club.
If they’d had their way Saddam would have ended up controlling all the oil resources of the Persian Gulf area and within a decade would have been the Arab superpower with nukes etc. He would not have been able to rival the USA directly but would have had a couple of hundred ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads before now.
Who knows what terrorism he’d have been supporting with his pal Abu Nidal and anyone else willing to join the new Nasser in a quest for fiery glory?
Yes, it is hard to believe. On August 1st 21 years ago I took what I thought was my last call from my son from Haifa, Israel. They were headed out past the Rock of Gibralter the next day on the USS Eisenhower to return to the US after a six-month deployment in the Med. He said, Mom we’ll be headed out at a daybreak tomorrow, I’ll call you when we hit Norfolk and catch the first hop to home. He said it’s really weird here tonight. They confined us to a 1/2 mile area around the ship, so I had to stand in line for the phone is why I’m so late. We’ve got 6,000 guys here, so every eating place, bar, and pay phone is occupied.
The next afternoon his wife who had already flown down from Virginia Beach and I and his sister watched on CNN, as the USS Eisenhower headed up the Suez Canal for the Red Sea.
They sat there from August until January in Operation Desert Shield. They were relieved by the USS America at the Rock of Gibralter on their way out. They returned home right before the first airstrikes in mid-January. The next time I saw my son was in a CNN interview of the top gun Jolly Rogers and Pukin Dog pilots when they hit Norfolk shortly thereafter. CNN was interviewing the pilots about their disappointment at not getting to join the fracas. He wasn’t a pilot, he just happened to walk off the ship with one of his pilot friends when they hit the cameras. And there he was striding along beside them in his flight suit grinning like a big monkey. lol
Who'da thunk?
I was in Germany when Iraq invaded.
Didn’t think I would be in Saudi Arabia by December then.
Remember those who died in Operation Desert Storm.
It’s Big Lie Theory of propaganda.
The bigger the lie - the more id10ts believe it.
The Iran-Iraq war was red-on-red to those of us that were there.
Both Iran and Iraq wanted to be regional super-powers.
The only real difference between them was that Iraq was a Soviet client state. Their only US equipment was what they captured from Iran and Kuwait. Propagandists do not care about minor details like reality.
I spent way too much time in the ME in the 80s and 90s to believe in the big lie...
Saddam Hussein has threatened to turn Kuwait city into a "graveyard" if any other country dares to challenge the "take-over by force".I understand the fragility of the coalition, and the limits of the UN mandate, but GHWB should have gone ahead and removed Saddam, extracted war reparations (and our POWs), and left the joint to its own devices -- no no-fly zones etc. Saddam would have been turned over to some Middle Eastern Muzzie headsman, and we'd have been done with it.
I was a student at Michigan State during the Gulf War, and was absolutely appalled at how many protested 'no blood for oil'. Nearly got into a few fights. My roommate's boyfriend, an Air Force ROTC member, was attacked and beaten by a bunch of students.
Little did I know it was a sign of things to come...
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