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Even though I understood that the government formulated foreign policy in a large part to benefit certain large businesses I overlooked much of the cronyism, skullduggery and questionable judgment because of the cold war. Being born when the cold war was a daily fact of life plus being an anti communist by natural instinct I did not question the cold war or judge our international meddling harshly because I deemed it all for the greater good. It is only after the cold war that I discovered the conservative and libertarian warnings against the cold war from the 1940s-50s. Over time I came to view things quite differently than I had originally. All that seemed noble was a facade.

At the time of Gulf War One I was ambivalent at first. The reports of the Glasby remarks to Saddam bothered me and the "restore democracy to Kuwait" line really P'ed me off because it was obviously such a cheap, dishonest propaganda ploy. However I was still thinking along the cold war geopolitical strategy mode and thought we should secure the oil. Then Buchanan asked what would Saddam do with all that oil, drink it? No he had to sell it to us to run his economy. In other words our supply was not in danger. That one line caused me to start rethinking our actions. When we encouraged the Kurds and Shiites to rise in rebellion and then left them high and dry I thought it an outrage and a sin to call for such a thing and then sit back. Now I see it as an excuse to set up the no fly zones which is the justification for our permanent presence which seemed to be the real plan all along. (one more side to a multifaceted issue was the business concerns in Kuwait of the who's who in the GOP, which were disrupted by Saddam) No need to analyze Phase 2 - the current situation here and now but I think you and I might see this one with the same clarity.