The U.S., Destroys Cities to Save Them.
I will take the case of the Gulf War, though it is in the past now, but still, the U.S. is still using the same way it did more than 20 years ago, to interfere in other countries’ business. I wonder, is it really to help the countries? is it really to protect sovereignty in the country? Yesterday i watched Gernomino, a movie about how the U.S. managed to kill Usama Bin Laden, and i got really angry on how the mainstream media wants us to think about it, that today i decided to put together a post about it, and i chose the case of the Gulf War. couldn’t be more explicit. I did the research for you, and put the facts, evidence and analysis in this text to save you the trouble. Thanks to the Great Noam Chosmky, once can get a better understanding of the truth. of what really happened.
The Gulf War (2 August 1990 – 28 February 1991), code named Operation Desert Storm (17 January 1991 – 28 February 1991) as explained by the mainstream media and the U.S. media and foreign policy explained, was a war conducted by a Coalition force from 34 nations headed by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq’s attack on and occupation of Kuwait.
The Wikipedia page (a free Encyclopedia i.e.: anyone can create an article to explain about a certain event/someone/etc.): “Kuwait’s invasion by Iraqi troops that began 2 August 1990 was met with international condemnation, and brought immediate economic sanctions against Iraq by members of the U.N. Security Council. U.S. President George H. W. Bush deployed U.S. forces into Saudi Arabia, and urged other countries to send their own forces to the scene. An array of nations joined the Coalition. The great majority of the Coalition’s military forces were from the U.S., with Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and Egypt – though Egypt wasn’t aware of the U.S.’s actual intentions, which was to engage in a war against the Iraq – as leading contributors, in that order. Saudi Arabia paid around US$36 billion of the US$60 billion cost. The initial conflict to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait began with an aerial bombardment on 17 January 1991. This was followed by a ground assault on 24 February. This was a decisive victory for the Coalition forces, which liberated Kuwait and advanced into Iraqi territory. The Coalition ceased their advance, and declared a cease-fire 100 hours after the ground campaign started. Aerial and ground combat was confined to Iraq, Kuwait, and areas on Saudi Arabia’s border. Iraq launched Scud missiles against Coalition military targets in Saudi Arabia and against Israel.”
Note to the Reader: In April 1990, Saddam Hussein, then still George Bush’s friend and ally, offered to destroy his chemical and biological weapons if Israel agreed to destroy its non-conventional weapons — including its nuclear weapons. The State Department welcomed Hussein’s offer to destroy his own arsenal, but rejected the link “to other issues or weapons systems.” It is essential to mention that Saddam Hussein was an ally to the U.S. and was highly supported by the Great World Powers. The U.S. supported Saddam’s war on Iran (Though it failed). It is the U.S.’s policy, to create a monster, and then use it as an excuse to “enter” a country and conquer its resources. (can we forget that it is the “Urge to gain more resources” that kicked off WWI?) Though Saddam was always defending regional resources, he was looking to protect the region and help it become self-sufficient. Of course, that would not be good news to the U.S. – Saddam was always connecting all issues in the Middle East to that of Palestine. He wanted Israel out, he wanted Israel to destroy its arms and nuclear weapon. The U.S. could not see the link between the two – Obviously.
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199102–.htm
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199102–02.htm
* Why the motives behind the war were/are not consistent:
a- Iraq accused Kuwait of exceeding its OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) quotas for oil production. Discipline was essential to maintain the cartel at its desired price of $18 a barrel. The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait were consistently overproducing; the latter at least in part to repair losses caused by Iranian attacks in the Iran–Iraq War and to pay for the losses of an economic scandal. The result was a decrease in the oil price with a subsequent loss of $7 billion a year to Iraq.
Answer: Divide to conquer
(1) The cost of more expensive oil would be much less than the cost of the military operation.
(2) Oil prices have a market-regulated cap, consumer/production/producer/cost relationship. If oil producers raise prices too high for too long, users decrease the purchase which is self-defeating for oil rich countries.
(3) In May of 1990 at an Arab League meeting, Saddam Hussein bitterly complained about Kuwait’s policy of “economic warfare” against Iraq and hinted that if Kuwait’s over-production didn’t change Iraq would take military action. Yet the Emir of Kuwait refused to budge. Why would an OPEC country want to drive down the price of oil? In retrospect, it is inconceivable that this tiny, undemocratic little sheikdom, who’s ruling family is subject to so much hostility from the Arab masses, would have dared to remain so defiant against Iraq unless Kuwait was assured in advance of protection from an even greater power – that is the United States. Kuwait was traditionally part of Iraq’s Basra Province until 1899 when Britain divided it from Iraq and declared Kuwait its colony. (Divide to conquer?)
A war to destroy Iraq as a regional power
That the Bush administration wanted the war is obvious by its steadfast refusal to enter into any genuine negotiations with Iraq that could have achieved a diplomatic solution. Iraq’s negotiation proposal on August 12, 1990 indicated that Iraq was willing to make significant concessions in return for a comprehensive discussion of other unresolved Middle East conflicts, was rejected by the Bush administration.
President Bush avoided diplomacy and negotiations, even refusing to send Secretary of State Baker to meet Saddam Hussein before the January 15, 1991 deadline as he had promised on November 30, 1990. Bush also rejected Iraq’s withdrawal offer of February 15, 1991, two days aver U.S. planes incinerated hundreds of women and children sleeping in the al-Arneriyah bomb shelter. The Iraqis immediately agreed to the Soviet proposal of February 18, 1991 – that is four days before the so-called ground war was launched – which required Iraq to abide by all UN resolutions.
** Analysis:
Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990 induced a resilient response from the world powers; in fact, two not very similar responses. The first was an array of economic sanctions of exceptional severity. The second was the threat of war and both responses were initiated at once, even before Iraq’s capture of Kuwait. The U.S. moved quickly to ensure that sanctions could not be effective and to bar any diplomatic initiative.
– “Perhaps most troublesome for Bush in his effort to create a `new world order’,” one reporter observed plaintively, is the fact that “a surprising number of Europeans believe that the United States is in the gulf not to free Kuwait or punish Saddam Hussein but to bolster its own influence and power.” (Boston Globe, Jan. 13) A poll reported in the same paper the same day revealed that a surprising number of Americans share these delusions, believing that control over oil is the “key reason” for the U.S. troop presence (50%), not “liberation of Kuwait from Iraqi occupation” (28%) or “neutralization of Iraq’s weapons capabilities (14%).
– Another of the President’s favorite slogans is that “it is the world against Saddam Hussein. The U.S. has consistently opposed an international conference on the Middle East. The excuse offered now is that we must not reward aggression. The U.S. is commonly quite happy to reward aggression, and it opposed an international conference long before Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, and continued to oppose a call for such a conference even when it was not “linked” to Iraq, as noted above. The real reason is that at an international conference, the U.S. would be isolated. Such a conference could only lead to pressures for a political settlement that the U.S. rejects. So, Washington opposes an international conference. For the same reasons the U.S. has vetoed Security Council resolutions calling for a political settlement and blocked other diplomatic initiatives for the past 20 years.
– Why do we find two major First World military forces in the Gulf, the U.S. and Britain, while other powers declined to give more than token support — even financial? Furthermore, even after extensive U.S. pressures, the Security Council could not be moved beyond an ambiguous resolution authorizing “all necessary means” to secure Iraqi withdrawal: diplomacy, sanctions, or military action by that intent on undertaking it. As noted by David Scheffer, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the resolution “neither requests nor commands the use of military force” and “avoids the terminology of war and such explicit terms as `armed force’ or `military measures’.” When the history of this period emerges, if it ever does, it may well turn out that, in reality, the U.N. record did not deviate much from the standard pattern of attempts at peacekeeping frustrated by U.S. veto; in this case, attempts to pursue the course of sanctions and diplomacy, blocked by U.S. threats and pressures, leading the U.N. in effect to wash its hands of the matter, never pursuing the procedures by which the Security Council may make “plans for the application of armed force,” according to the Charter.
– Declassified U.S. documents outline British goals in similar terms: “the U.K. asserts that its financial stability would be seriously threatened if the petroleum from Kuwait and the Persian Gulf area were not available to the U.K. on reasonable terms, if the U.K. were deprived of the large investments made by that area in the U.K. and if sterling were deprived of the support provided by Persian Gulf oil.” These British needs, and the fact that “An assured source of oil is essential to the continued economic viability of Western Europe,” provide some reason for the U.S. “to support, or if necessary assist, the British in using force to retain control of Kuwait and the Persian Gulf.” In November 1958, the National Security Council recommended that the U.S. “Be prepared to use force, but only as a last resort, either alone or in support of the United Kingdom,” if these interests are threatened. In January, the National Security Council had advised that Israel might provide a barrier to Arab nationalism, articulating the basis for one element of the system of control over the Middle East developed in the years that followed.
So what was Bush concerned about? I would say “Domination”
- Iraq violated a fundamental principle of world affairs — that the energy reserves of the Middle East have to be firmly in the hands of U.S. energy corporations and trusted U.S. clients like Saudi Arabia’s elites.
- This means Mideast populations do not really benefit from their own resource, but “so what,” says Bush. The West benefits because Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and Qatar are basically sectors of London and New York. The U.S. government doesn’t care if the Saudi elite administer oil prices because that’s like having it done on Wall Street.
- The U.S. (Bush Administration in specific) destroys cities to save them; it is not of the U.S.’s interest to have an independent Arab National threaten to use the resources of the Middle East for domestic purposes.
- The State Department says Mideast oil is a “stupendous source of strategic power” and “one of the greatest prizes in world history.” And it is in the Middle East, now what?
- In Iran in 1953 the U.S. overthrew a nationalist parliamentary regime. Now the U.S. threatens a murderous tyrant’s regime, although Hussein was just as much a murderous tyrant before August 2, when we supported him because doing so furthered U.S. interests
My opinion
The U.S. destroys cities, to save them.
At this point, I wonder why did the U.S. and Britain, insist on using force in Iraq? Why did the U.S. betray Saddam Hussein? Although Saddam was an ally to the U.S. – and like many other countries, one of which being Kuwait, were doing horrific acts and were criminals. Why did
Bush lie? And why did he create a certain awareness to get international support to engage war with Iraq? Most importantly, why did Bush refuse any negotiations or talks for settlements?
Though highly related but never acknowledged, Iraq and Palestine issues are very much links. Bush wouldn’t accept that. Saddam agreed to destroy all weapons and surrender if Israel does so to. Why were those talks turned down? Why did Bush offer sanctions, but engaged war instead? What was the character of this war?
I can only speculate the reasons.
Iraq didn’t attack or threaten the United States; in fact it was an ally. I believe that this war was to re-divide and redistribute the markets and resources of the Middle East.
It was an Imperialist war.
Bush, wanted to strengthen its domination of this strategic region. It did this in league with the former colonial powers of the region, namely Britain and France, and in opposition to the Iraqi people’s claim on their own land and especially their natural resources.
The United States interfered in and aggravated the Iraq-Kuwait clash. It knew that an Iraqi tendency to engage in a war against Kuwait was likely, and then took advantage of the Iraqi move to carry out a long-planned U.S. military intervention in the Middle East. Respect for national sovereignty is an after-the-fact rationalization of Desert Storm, not a motive.
Why did Bush refuse negotiations? Because they might actually work
The U.S. is usually against diplomacy. If the U.S. can establish force as the way to rule the world, the U.S. wins because it’s way ahead in force, technology, arms, etc. If diplomacy succeeds, it de-legitimizes militarism, reduces the relevance of military strength and increases the significance of diplomacy.
The U.S. supports linkage when it benefits it. But in this case the U.S. is against linkage, and the reason is not just because Israel is its ally, but because linkage is a step toward diplomatically resolving the Gulf and Arab-Israeli crises. The U.S. opposes a diplomatic settlement of either crisis and therefore certainly opposes a joint diplomatic settlement of both of them.
Needless to add, Kuwait was protected by the U.S., which is why, it refused negotiations or settlements. Instead, it fought Saddam; knowing that it didn’t have enough military artillery or armory, or even troops.
When Bush sent 400,000 troops instead of 15,000, which could have been just as effective, he did it so to destroy negotiations and leave only military power as the solution. His plans to conquer the Middle East would be destroyed if the solution is a negotiation, – that would legitimate the rule of international law rather than U.S. power.
All in all, I believe that if it weren’t for the U.S.’s policies and interventions, the Arabs would be just fine. We wouldn’t have wars. We would be self-efficient, and independent from those powers. We might as well be a power itself.
Credits go to
Wikipedia,
Krystel 