[Bastian]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

that is "objectively" true, and i agree every time tanks are involved it's a bad scene. i was not justifying saddam's action, i simply pointed out how they were misunderstood. understanding doesn't mean compliance. the american media often promotes ignorance and historical near-sightedness, which is one of the reasons why americans are so ignorant of the world around them. along those lines, i would be very much opposed by a chinese invasion of taiwan, but i would be able to understand why china would want to do that.

Well, there can some sort of historian's understanding of Iraq's urge for annexation of Kuwait, but I don't think that this would have any impact on the moral judgement of any one-sided action taken by Iraq to unify or re-unify with Kuwait. I believe that Saddam's actions were understood, even by the media, as what they were: expansion of the national borders of his state at costs of a neighbouring state, highly motivated by the desire for the natural resources of that state (spell: Oil) which Saddam tried to justified by pre-Iraqi history, i.e. Kuwait being a part of what later formed Iraq.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

excellent point. however in 1991 there was an ongoin problem in east timor & nothing was being done about it because there was no oil. the liberation of kuwait didnt happen because people were nice, it happened because of oil-- part of the carter doctrine.

I believe it is problematic to reduce the reasons why the USA (or any other country) does not intervene in a conflict to the lack of oil. Fights over resources (or access to resources. always keep in mind that the US is not stealing the oil of regions it invades, but merely secures world market access of that oil, at world market prices) surely play a role, but it's more complicated than that.

I don't know enough about East Timor to comment on that conflict, but I'd like to point out that a few years after the '91 Gulf War, the US was involved, among other conflicts, in the Yugoslav Civil War, and later in the Kosovo War, both wars that had absolutely nothing to do with oil. (Well, before Nato/US got involved, a lot of people said the US won't intervene because there's no oil there, still they did eventually)

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

which was undoubtedly a good thing for kuwaitis. i don't think the majority of the world had a problem with kuwait's liberation however-- american troops acted in accordance to u.n. resolutions and in compliance with international law.

Yes, and people tend to forget that the '91 war was also fought not only by the USA or a coalition of the willing but by a large international force including many european and arab nations.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

the real fuckup i suppose was to encourage minorities to rebel agains saddam without backing them up.

That was indeed a major fuck-up and unforgivable. And I'm afraid that the US might do that mistake again by an early pullout. I'd be pretty pissed to see the Kurds being betrayed again by their american allies. There's a saying: It's harmless to have the US as an enemy, but dangerous to have it as a friend. I believe that saying originates in the 1991 betrayel of the rebellion against Saddam.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

but backing them up would have resulted in the mess we have today. they should not have been encouraged to rebel if there were no plans for an invasion.

Hmm, I think that an early 1991 regime change would have had a rather positive effect. It would have saved the Iraqis from 12 more years of Saddam's systematic destruction of Iraqi society and of sanctions that would starve the population while Saddam used his oil-for-food money to build more palaces, therefore increasing chances of a faster reconstruction of the country and it's new government system.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

interesting about the azerbaijanians. and yes, iran or syria are not always very smart, countries ruled by ayatollahs and inherited dictators aren't models of anything good in my mind.

Well, I actually only described one aspect of their policies towards Iraq and left out another, contradicting one: They do hurt their own interests by destablizing Iraq because of the dangers of parcellation, but there's one aspect to destablizing that is not to be overseen.. In this regard, the governments of Iran and Syria are actually smart: They do know that they cannot allow a stable, democratic Iraq to succeed, because such an Iraq would serve as a role model towards their own population and would directly endanger their power over them.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

i agree, and that is a reason for the troops to stay. but for how long? on the subject of preventing carnage, sudan presented more immediate reasons to send troops in. but i agree... problem is that historically the "neutral" force has been the baathists!! and can u.s. troops stay indefinitely? should irq be "pacified" and ruled as a colony?

I believe that the troops should stay as long as they are needed and will be helpful. That might take some more years, nobody knows. And the Iraq war is not only about Iraq but part of a larger struggle, so that has to be kept in mind. A premature pullout would not only affect Iraq and leave it to civil war but would also revitalize jihadists in their fight against the West, Israel, islamic reformers and everybody else they consider to be worth slaughtering. An american defeat in Iraq would raise hopes that the same will happen to the USA what happened when another super power was defeated by islamist warriors and shortly afterwards disintegrated. I'm talking about the soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s and the collaps of the USSR in the same decade. The jihadists believe THEY defeated and destroyed the USSR.. if they can defeat the USA in Iraq, they will be highly motivated to continue their jihad against America and the west until the great satan and his allies are finally defeated and destroyed like the formerly invincible USSR.

Hmm, I wouldn't call the Baathists "neutral", not even in quotation marks. Saddam's regime was the regime of Sunnis over Shias and Kurds.

Sudan really needs an international troop presence to prevent further genocide and ethnic cleansing, but that's going off-topic here.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

thanks again for your excellent post & i look forward to continuing this conversation.

You are welcome.. luckily, I had some spare time today to post on a message board.
I'm not half as good informed as I'd like to be but it helps to spend a lot of time online, reading news and political blogs..