1. I am a U.S. citizen, and I was living in the States during the Persian Gulf War, so my views have not been colored by "Canadian history books."
2. There is a larger oil presence in Alberta than anywhere else in the world except Texas, and when you speak to people in the industry you get a very different picture of how things work in international politics.
3. People of even moderate intelligence must ask themselves what exactly motivated the U.S. government when they pursued their course of action in the Middle East back in 1991. The United States was selling military hardware to Iraq up until the day of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, and the research I did at the time on those last-minute meetings between the Iraqi government and U.S. ambassador April Glaspie indicated that the United States had given Hussein veiled approval to invade Kuwait. When you consider that Hussein has been permitted to remain in power long enough to outlast George Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton (and will be in power long after George W. Bush leaves office unless he dies a natural death -- mark my words on this one), something doesn't seem quite right.
In one respect, Osama bin Laden was justified in his outrage at the Saudi government in response to their dealings with the United States in 1991. I have always believed that the real motive for the U.S. involvement in the Gulf War had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein and was nothing more than a back-door strategy to establish a permanent military presence in an oil-rich part of the world. Every day that passes lends more credence to this theory, and this is something that people should think about as events unfold in Afghanistan over the coming months.
If this sounds like a bizarre conspiracy theory to you, consider that the U.S. military campaign in the Middle East has now lasted longer than the Civil War and both World Wars -- combined.
I don't pretend to have any idea what was the deal with April Glaspie. It didn't then and doesn't now make sense that she would give some form of official word that it didn't make no nevermind if Iraq wanted to annex Kuwait, only for her superiors to contradict her. If this was some kind of brilliant master plan, the GHW Bush admin was really clever in making it look like Keystone Global Kops.
Regarding your charge that Saddam Hussein has been "permitted" to remain in power (as if the West has some use for him rather than being fearful of the bloody quagmire extracting him would cause), that suggests that world affairs are so well in hand that something like the Glaspie situation wouldn't have even happened.
Besides, the point of my last post wasn't to argue what was in the mind of the US and its UN allies as much as I was showing that the idea that Saddam was a threat to the Saudis wasn't a fantasy spun as cover for restoring Kuwait to it's ruling family.
It's a fact, Jack (or Jackie): Saddam Hussein DID have eyes on Saudi Arabia, and Desert Shield thwarted him. No less an authority than his military intelligence chief backs that charge up.