Gulf War 2

the_syco

Decided to start a new thread, than derail the other one...

pablomakaveli wrote: »

It always seemed to me that Bush was more interested in finishing his fathers business in iraq rather than actually wanting to help the Iraqis.

Actually, his daddy and Dick, and Brent pulled out, as they knew they'd be there for the long haul otherwise. In 1998 Brent Scowcroft said

Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.

In 1992 Dick Cheney had said the same thing

I would guess if we had gone in there, we would still have forces in Baghdad today. We'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home.

The interesting thing is what he followed that with

And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don't think you could have done all of that without significant additional U.S. casualties, and while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the (1991) conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war. And the question in my mind is, how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is, not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the President made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.

Always disliked the US for pulling out when they did, and not gong tghe whole way, but the above does make sense. It also brings in the question of why try it again, if the first time failed?

Highly Salami

the_syco wrote: »

It also brings in the question of why try it again, if the first time failed?

Oil, specifically the currency it was being sold in.

Angry Troll

the current gulf war actually the 3rd one…the 1st was the one between iraq and iran in the 80s and was back then known as “the gulf war”…among other things saddam used poison gas (wmd) against iran in that war…scenes like the western front in ww1…then the 2nd gulf war was desert shield/storm and the 3rd is the current one…the fact that many people speak of the current one as the 2nd is just a sad example of people’s pathetic memory span and the mind-controlling power of anti-american media…

booom

....the mind controlling power of anti-american media....!!????????? i've been trying to make sense of that one for a bit now, cant get it.

Manic Moran

It also brings in the question of why try it again, if the first time failed?

The first time didn't fail, they achieved their objectives. The second time around, they had different objectives.

NTM

BlaasForRafa

Angry Troll wrote: »

the current gulf war actually the 3rd one…the 1st was the one between iraq and iran in the 80s and was back then known as “the gulf war”…among other things saddam used poison gas (wmd) against iran in that war…scenes like the western front in ww1…then the 2nd gulf war was desert shield/storm and the 3rd is the current one…the fact that many people speak of the current one as the 2nd is just a sad example of people’s pathetic memory span and the mind-controlling power of anti-american media…

The war between Iran and Iraq is known as.....well the Iran-Iraq War. It was pretty well covered on the news in the 80's, it was never known as a "Gulf War" Your rant about mind-controlling power is a bit misplaced seeing as how your wrong an all that.

Manic Moran

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

it was never known as a "Gulf War" Your rant about mind-controlling power is a bit misplaced seeing as how your wrong an all that.

I always knew it as the Gulf War until Desert Storm/Granby overshadowed it and stole the name.

Indeed, for what Wiki's worth:

The war was commonly referred to as the Gulf War or Persian Gulf War until the Iraq-Kuwait conflict (Operation Desert Storm Jan-Feb 1991), and for a while thereafter as the First Persian Gulf War. The Iraq-Kuwait conflict, while originally known as the Second Persian Gulf War, later became known simply as "The Gulf War." The United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the following occupation of the country from 2003-2010 has since been called the Second Persian Gulf War.

NTM