Cheers!
If the terrorists hate us for our freedoms….
The simple solution is to take our freedoms away
Posted on 08/21/2002 4:16:24 PM PDT by ml/nj
Let me state up front: I wasn't in favor of the "Gulf War" then, and while many are talking about invading Iraq now I'm not in favor of that either. I could discuss that if anyone wants to.
But my question tonight is: What if we never went to war with Iraq? What if we just let Hussein take over Kuwait, and maybe move on to Saudi Arabia?
Would 9/11 have happened? If it would have happened anyway, would our position be stronger than it is now?
My guesses are No and Yes.
I guess No, there wouldn't have been a 9/11 attack upon the United States by Islamic Fundamentalists. Hussein strikes me as many things, but he doesn't strike me as more than conveniently Muslim. He was at war with Fundamentalist Iran, and if he moved on the Saudis, he would have been at war with Fundamentalist Saudi Arabia. Would these guys have had the luxury of turning their ire toward us? I doubt it.
But if they did, I think we would have been in a much stronger position. Either Hussein would be on our side helping to root these people out or he wouldn't. (I think he would have been.) If he would have been on our side, his people would have provided beaucoup informers and maybe even military support, but if not it would have been much easier politically to move against him now. And he would have largely been in control of Persian Gulf oil. We could have taken those oil fields from him alone with fewer naysayers in the Muslim world than we have now.
I haven't heard anyone else ask my what if question. I'd be interested to hear the opinions of others.
ML/NJ
Cheers!
That is a really interesting question, and we ought to be thinking about it. I say no, 9/11 would PROBABLY not have happened - and much else besides, including, POSSIBLY, the Oklahoma bombing and several spectaclar "accidents" of airplanes. You see, I think that the Gulf War never really ended, and I consider it quite possible that the Iraqis (teamed up with other interests in the Middle East) have been in a covert war with the US ever since.
I cite this as a possibility, only, but one ought to think about it. Yeah - I know, its a bit of a conspiracy theory. But there is nothing unlikely about it. In fact, it makes sense in the ordinary and well established rules of war and history. In fact, it makes a lot more sense to think of the Iraqi regime making terrorist hits against the US, than to swallow the vague and implausible stories about Al-Quaida.
I am one of these people (am I about to get banned?) who never did get fully convinced that 9/11 was planned and executed by some man on a mountain in Afghanistan.
But back to your notion about Iraq being allowed to take Kuwait. This would have led to serious and on-going divisions in the Arab world, between the secular and the Islamic fundamentalists. This would not really have hurt the US - quite the opposite. Also, the Kuwaiti ruling class would have got the boot, and a large number of Palestinians would have been moved in by the Iraqis to take their place. Not such a shocking thing - and anyway, if it is a problem, it is a problem for the Arabs themselves. Instead, the US has united the Arab and Islamic worlds against them.
One final point, if anyone wants to discuss it. Isn't it eerie how everything that has happened since 9/11 has benefited IRAN? They wanted the Taliban gone (were on the verge of war with them, but couldn't do it) and we have done it for them. They want Sadaam Hussein gone, and we will be obliged to do that as well. It is enough to start one wondering on a different conspiracy theory ...
No there, there, Monsieur
I'd rather just go ahead and colonize Europe.
I watched that interview with April Glaspie, and I never came away with that idea at all. If anything, she was not forceful enough, but in no way did I ever think she said yes to Saddam.
I love it when the bait gets bitten.
And so when will Iraq become the 51st state?
Your are essentially correct. I was a young punk still in high school at the time and remember what happened. The kuwaitis were drilling sideways for oil from their side of the border but was in reality under iraqi soil. They asked the UN to get invovled and only asked that they be compensated for the oil they took. The UN didn't really do anything about it and the Iraqis warned the UN they would invade. They ended up doing it and everyone was surprised, but they were forwarned.
I do look back and wonder about what you said. The iraqis were our friends when they were fighting Iran. The only thing that didn't make sense to me was why in the h*ll did Iraq fire missiles into Israel when they should have been firing them at US bases in saudi? I mean you getting your butt kicked by the americans and instead of fighting back you fight the guy behind him? If saddam is such a great war general why did he do that. That is what I really want to know.
Despite the realpolitik behind the oil factor in the liberation of Kuwait there was another issue derided as idealistic but quite as much realpolitik as the oil factor, and that is that it is extremely bad policy to allow an armed aggressor to take whatever he likes when he is also actively pursuing weapons of mass destruction. It isn't good policy at any time but it is particularly bad policy in regard to the likes of Saddam.
As to the question of whether 9/11 would happen anyway, it is impossible to say. The chain of causality in any single such event might be broken at any point and we don't have much of an idea what many of the links are even now. But if the question is whether the U.S. would be better off not having liberated Kuwait, let me just put it this way: I can imagine a number of different outcomes, but very few of them are better for the U.S. overall, and most of them are much, much worse.
They did fire them at Saudi as well. I think there were about 28 killed in Saudi, when parts of a scud hit a barracks. As to why Saddam fired missiles at Israel? That is very simple. He was trying to fracture the coalition.
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