[Finalapproach29er]

"The mother of all battles has begun" -Saddam, Jan.16,1991

[bwteim]

" If War IV is now the costliest for the U.S. and the most controversial of the series, it is because it is for all the marbles and offers a lasting and humane solution -- and every enemy of the United States in the Middle East seems to grasp that far better than we do."

Bump

[aculeus]

BTTT

[Tolik]

    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

       Let me know if you want in or out

[NutCrackerBoy]

bump

[bitt]

a "we should all read" ping

[Billthedrill]

War I was a response to years of appeasement of Iraq, American mixed signals during the Iran-Iraq War, and clumsy diplomacy. All may have given Saddam the message that his invasion of Kuwait was outside the realm of American interest.

I can speak to the "clumsy diplomacy" accusation since I was near that theater at the time. It isn't quite true.

Saddam had accused the Kuwaitis of drilling on an angle such that they were actually pumping oil from his side of the border. April Glaspie, our ambassador at the time, told Saddam that it was an Arab matter and that the United States really had no interest. That has been misrepresented since as "giving Saddam the green light to invade" but in fact it was nothing of the sort. It should have been an Arab matter, subject to negotiations or a lawsuit as other such matters always had been. There is not a shred of evidence indicating that she "knew" Saddam was going to invade Kuwait. But she has been tarred with that accusation by anti-American media eager to blame the war on the United States.