I opposed the Persian Gulf War, as did most of the Democrats in the Senate. Notably, among the few Democrats that supported the war, we had one Vice-President and Presidential nominee (Gore), one Vice-Presidential nominee (Lieberman), and our current Senate Majority Leader (Reid). Reid and Lieberman were two of only three non-southern Democrats to support the war.
Party
Northern Democrat- No: 37 Yes: 3
Southern Democrat- No: 8 Yes: 7
Republican- No: 2 Yes: 42
Total- No: 47 Yes: 52
Breaux (D-LA)
Bryan (D-NV)
Gore (D-TN)
Graham (D-FL)
Heflin (D-AL)
Johnston (D-LA)
Lieberman (D-CT)
Pressler (R-SD)
Reid (D-NV)
Robb (D-VA)
Misc. (have since changed party identification).
Jeffords (R-VT)
Shelby (D-AL)
Republicans that voted no:
Grassley (R-IA)
Hatfield (R-OR)
Not Voting
Cranston (D-CA)
If we had discouraged Saddam from attacking Kuwait we would never have had seen the rise of groups like al-Qaeda. On the other hand, Saddam would probably be safely in power today and armed with a nuclear bomb. You tell me which is worse.
I was against the Persian Gulf War at the time – I wanted to allow more time for diplomacy to work. But in retrospect, I think that Al Gore’s argument, especially as he contrasted Gulf War I to Gulf War II, was a solid one. You can justify a war when one sovereign country attacks another sovereign country and invades its territory. Which of course, makes Gulf War II completely unsupportable.
I think Augustine said; “War is love’s response to a neighbor threatened by force”. In that sense, going into Kuwait to expell Saddam and his troopers could be seen as justified.
In Gulf War II, we in the US are the invader, totally in the wrong from the getgo. And we will pay dearly for the crimes of the Bush regime.
I think if the US govt. had not provided Saddam with 10’s of millions of dollars and material to use to wage his war against Iran, it would have been much much harder for him to indulge his WMD and Nuke desires.
Similarly, had we not given the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 10’s of millions of dollars and weapons to use against first the Russians and then against each other, bin Laden might never have been elevated to the heroic status that allowed Al Qaeda to attract serious and dedicated recruits.
And certainly if we were not supporting the dictator Musharraf and his pro Taliban sympathizers, and if we instead demanded he turn over the WMD proliferator A.Q.Khan, we’d actually know a lot more about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and be better able to deal with it effectively.
Certainly it’s a meaningful point you raise that had the US not increased it’s military presence in Saudi Arabia because of Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, bin Laden might have had a slower rise to power and influence as a major criminal. But, I think it’s a fair assessment to say that his ideological mentor, (his controller, so to speak), Zawahiri would have made sure to use bin Laden against the West anyway , regardless of whether new American boots were intruding on MidEast soil or not.
As for evaluating what is worse in this whole mess, I think it’s clear that our invasion of Iraq has enabled bin Laden and his band of murderers to be transformed from a gang of criminal thugs into a philosophy and a global movement which guarantees a long and bloody conflict for generations to come. This tragedy, this absolute insane act by the Bush regime is worse than all these other blunders combined. IMHO
“If we had discouraged Saddam from attacking Kuwait we would never have had seen the rise of groups like al-Qaeda.”
al-Queda came about because of the US support for the resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afhganistan.
What does Saddam invading Kuwait have to do with it?
is concerned the Persian Gulf War was his motivation for becoming an anti-American and anti-Saud terrorist.
Yeah… I don’t think that is anything more then rhetoric though. I mean, according to the bushie boys the reason we went to Iraq was… no, I mean it was… that is to say it was… what I really meant to say is that it was….
People like bin Laden and bush do this stuff because they love the power. The rest are excuses.
And if it hadn’t been that it would have been something else. It started with a taste for power gained in Afghanistan and it needed an outlet somewhere. He’d have been blowing shit up someplace regardless of the first gulf war.
maybe not. I don’t see where you get your confidence in stating that. Look at your own life. Small events had a huge influnce on how you turned out, I’m sure. If UBL hadn’t been banished from his homeland, he may have never become a full-time jihadist.
Why did he get banished from his homeland? What was he doing between Afghanistan and that? What sort of attitude did he come out of Afghanistan with?
Are you serious or are you attempting to stir up a active conversation by playing the devil? If by some possible quirk, you really do mean that in all seriousness you believe that last graf then all I have to say is that I pity you! I really do. Get your head out of your you know what.
I won’t even waste my breath proving to you that the Sadham man was probably the least of our worries!
Do you think for one second that the Iraqis thought that they could win a regular war against the US? we came and they dissapeared! That is the dirty little secret that NOBODY wants to talk about. WE have been in a gurella war from day one. Day One! And- if we chose to stay there, we will be in a Gurella War FOREVER!
Now- quickly- Kuwait and al-qaeda. We created al-qaeda by first of all propping up all the non- publically supported leaders in the middle east! Then, we compounded that support by spending over 20 years arming anybody interested in fighting the USSR! Sadham was armed by Us! Sadham was used by US! Sadham was encouraged by Us. Then, along came george.
So, if you really are serious, then, as I said at the beginning, I pity you.
I have left out a ton but screw it. I am still steaming over that last graf!
billjpa@aol.com
Facts:
So, my last graf stands.
Several of your points are true too. We did support Saddam during his war with Iran. So did Russia, England, France, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.
We also supported Iran during that war, as did Russia. Our support of tyrants in Cairo and Riyadh had a lot to do with the rise of al-Qaeda too, as did our general containment policy of the USSR. But the immediate cause of UBL’s turning against us was the Persian Gulf War. Prior to that he was essentially an ally.
I knew I had this article on my computer somewhere and I finally found it. And, the link even still works.
By way of supporting my contention above that bin Laden would almost inevitably turned against the West regardless of whether US forces were in SA or not, this article clearly details much of Zawahiri’s personal history and how he came to be so influential over bin Laden.
Basically, Zawahiri had established quite a strong and pervasive influence over bin Laden in the mid 1980’s in Afghanistan, and it’s pretty clear that virtually all of the attacks on the West subsequent to the first Iraq war followed both the strategic course and the tactical course of Zawahiri’s ideology for jihad against the US specifically and the west in general.
Anyway, it’s a pretty long article, but even if you may doubt it’s accuracy, it’s a terrific read nonetheless. Here’s the link.
are focusing on Zawahiri. Do you believe the Russians never figured out who he was when they had him in custody?
All the various accounts I’ve read of Zawahiri’s arrest and detention by the Russians seem somehow incomplete, as though there’s a deliberate effort in place to conceal significant aspects of those events. And of course this makes me naturally suspicious.
War was raging in Chechnya very heavily at the time and I imagine there was lots and lots of illegal traffic in and out through Daghestan. Normally I’d think it likely the Russians might just have been overloaded with work and could have taken Zawahiri and believed he was whoever was named in his papers. But, because of the fuzziness of the reporting I’ve seen on the incident, I suspect the Russians did learn who he was, but for whatever reason weren’t able to capitalize on that knowledge to alter the course of events in Chechnya.
As to Zawahiri himself, I see his role in relation to bin Laden the same way I see Cheney in relation to Bush. Zawahiri/Cheney are the zealots with the ideology and the militaristic startegies. They are the architects of the violent agenda. Bush/bin Laden are the front men, the guys who have the big names and can attract the recruits/votes. And of course bin Laden was Zawahiri’s financial salvation.
I hope you read, or have already read the article I linked to above. It really tells a compelling story that is quite comprehensively supported by verifiable fact.
and it’s a good article.
As for Zawahiri, I simply don’t believe for a second that the Russians were unaware of his identity. And I have only one explanation for his release. He was flipped. Of course, his capture could easily have been a cover all along.
I can’t really say what the implications of that are, because it is impossible to know these things.
I’ve speculated that he might have been flipped too. Now however, I tend to doubt that, if only for the reason that his zealotry and ruthlessness seem to me to be of a magnitude that would preclude him from “working for the other side” so to speak. He certainly could have ratted out some people, perhaps even given away some low level plots in order to insure early release from detention, but actually working pro-actively on the Russian’s behalf, I just don’t see it.
And as you say, the implications of his having been turned or not remain unknowable to those of us not in on the action.
Well, since you picked the exact time of this exercise, I’ll take Gulf 1, with the caveat that the Republican Guard would not have made it home. Chaos would have erupted in some form, but no worse than now, and in some ways better. Al-Qaeda wasn’t living there at the time.
Don’t forget the fact in this argument that our Ambassador to Iraq at the time, a women whose name I canot recall, gave tacit approval to Sadaam to invade Kuwait(as instructed), and then was abrupty withdrawn and then disappeared from public view right before we began the assult. This came up in way back diaries and someone else remember her name and the story, which I recall quite well from the time.
Her name was April Glaspie. Here’s a link to a transcript of her official conversation with Saddam Hussein just 8-9 days before he invaded Kuwait.
is why I phrased my sentence that way about not discouraging Saddam.
I think he could have been dissuaded. Yet, I think Glaspie’s role may have been overblown. I don’t think we really suckered Saddam, although I have never been able to fully make up my mind.
I lean toward the view that we thought he was going to limit himself to seizing the border oil fields and were caught by suprise when he annexed the whole country.
But, as I said, I’m not really sure about that.
Either way, we should have let him have Kuwait and we could have offered to protect Saudi Arabia’s sovereignty. It would have been a bad precedent for the UN to let a member state get liquidated, but the blowback has been intolerable, as I predicted at the time.