What happened in Kuwait

[Broletariat]

My dad always uses Kuwait as a talking point for saying we should invade countries and crap. His recounting of the "liberation" of Kuwait goes something like this. America with basically the support of the whole world went in to Kuwait to drive out Saddam. The mission was a massive success and they chased him out to Baghdad. At Baghdad the local populace was rallying in the streets for change and getting rid of Saddam. The USA, since it was only commissioned to drive out Saddam, turned around and left Saddam alone at which point he slaughtered those who rallied against him, this is why the local populace currently opposes the USA occupation because those pro-USA people got slaughtered. He also uses this as evidence to the fact that it would have been better for the USA to go in and kick out Saddam completely and stuff.

Can anyone give me a real recount of what happened in Kuwait, I get the feeling what I'm being told is loads of crap.

[Tommy4ever]

My dad always uses Kuwait as a talking point for saying we should invade countries and crap. His recounting of the "liberation" of Kuwait goes something like this. America with basically the support of the whole world went in to Kuwait to drive out Saddam. The mission was a massive success and they chased him out to Baghdad. At Baghdad the local populace was rallying in the streets for change and getting rid of Saddam. The USA, since it was only commissioned to drive out Saddam, turned around and left Saddam alone at which point he slaughtered those who rallied against him, this is why the local populace currently opposes the USA occupation because those pro-USA people got slaughtered. He also uses this as evidence to the fact that it would have been better for the USA to go in and kick out Saddam completely and stuff.

Can anyone give me a real recount of what happened in Kuwait, I get the feeling what I'm being told is loads of crap.


I'll try to give you a rough outline.

Basically Iraq was in real financial difficulties after the bloody Iran-Iraq War (something like 2 million died) and there was a dispute with Kuwait as the Kuwaitis were using sort of angled oil drilling techniques. Kuwaiti pumps were therefore angled in such a way that the oil they were drilling was actually oil under Iraq rather than under Kuwait. This pissed off Saddam.

Faced with economic failures at home, rising unrest and a bit of provocation Saddam made the classic move of the tyrant and invaded Kuwait. Kuwait was swiftly conquered and a shit storm emerged.

An American led coalition with a truly enormous army then amassed in Saudi Arabia for an invasion with most Arab states on side. At the same time Saddam tried and failed to bring Israel into the war to rise the old Arab hatred by firing missiles at Israel - this failed. The Iraqi army was also very larged and quite feared at this time so no one knew how things were going to turn out.

The coalition utterly crushed the Iraqi army in Kuwait and a broken force began to withdraw. The people of Iraq were told to rise up and many did. At the same time American air power bombarded the Iraq army on its retreat and this slaughter was broadcast worldwide. The immense size of the coalition army started to caused logistical issues making it very difficult to strike North towards Baghdad without some time to pause whilst public opinion in America turned wholly against the war.

So the war ended with Saddam surviving and Kuwait freed. After this Saddam did indeed slaughter those who rose up - largely minority groups like Kurds.

So the story of the Gulf War is actually rather accurate. However the story of why the Iraqi people rose against coalition occupation is batshit insane.

Essentially Saddan ran a stable and safe if horribly oppressive regime. The coalition destroyed Iraq's infrastructure and created chaos - standing by while long lasting religious and ethnic tensions exploded. At the same time the coalition occupation was extremely brutal which only turned the clear and immensely strong tensions within the country against the foriegn occupiers.

Countries have to learn that no matter how could your intentions are. If you invade a country and tyranise its population you are probably not going to be well liked by that people.