AlterNet: Why the Dark Secrets of the First Gulf War Are Still Haunting Us

[marmar]

Why the Dark Secrets of the First Gulf War Are Still Haunting Us

By Nora Eisenberg, AlterNet. Posted February 27, 2009.

Americans, and our leaders, would do well to take a hard look at the war that we continue to love only because we never got to see it.



With rare exceptions, American politicians seem incapable of opposing an American war without befriending another in a different place or time.

Barack Obama, an early and ardent enemy of the Iraq War, quickly declared his affinity for a war in Afghanistan and/or Pakistan. And like so many Democratic leaders, he has commended Bush 41's Gulf War over Bush 43's, for its justifiable cause, clear goals, quick execution and admirable leadership.

It's difficult to determine the proportion of expedience to ignorance that allows politicians and pundits to advance the theory of the good and trouble-free Gulf War. What's clear, though, is that for close to 20 years, the five-week war, in which we dropped more bombs than were dropped in all wars combined in the history of the world, maintains a special place in American hearts.

But as John R. MacArthur amply demonstrates in The Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War, the real 1991 war was kept from the American public. This week, as we commemorate the 18th anniversary of the Gulf War's end, and opportunities for new hostilities beckon, Americans, and our leaders, would do well to take a hard look at the war that we continue to love only because we never got to see it.

Despite our inability to detect it at the time, U.S. prosecution of the 1991 war with Iraq relied on all the now-familiar and discredited strategies used to promote the present war -- with equally disastrous and far-reaching results. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/128916/why_the_dark_secrets_of_the_first_gulf_war_are_still_haunting_us/

[ixion]

1. The first gulf 'war' wasn't a war at all... it was a turkey shoot

just like the second gulf 'war', and just as equally bogus, and both were fought for oil, nothing more.

[dipsydoodle]

3. and the second one

was also about establishing a permanent base in the area an issue which Obama would seem to be intent on pursuing.

[dipsydoodle]

2. I believe that what swung Congress

on the subject of the first war was the complete pack of lies they were told by an alleged Kuwaiti nurse regarding Iraqi soldiers turfing babies out of incubators. She was infact the Kuwaiti ambassador's daughter and when subsequently questioned on the subject I understand him to have said "well the lie served its purpose"

Mugs.

[patrice]

4. I'm trying to remember how, during that time, I came to have questions about Glaspie.

I think I was just beginning to discover the internet in 1991, so I don't think I found information about Glaspie on the internet. Perhaps I got that info and other stuff about the Highway of Death and the Kurds from NPR? I do remember seeing pictures of Kurds who had died because of poison gas, so that MUST have been from the internet, right?

I guess my basic question here is: some of us knew about this stuff as it was going down, but I can't remember how we got the information. Maybe I read it in the newspaper?

[LynnTheDem]

7. Americans living outside the USA knew most the horrendous facts.

This was all pretty well known outside America; it's the biggest reason why the world said hell no to George W. bUsh's war on the people of Iraq.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3135341

[dipsydoodle]

8. Hmmm

Thank you so much for that link to the past. I was aware of some of it , as you said "being outside the USA , but had never seen it compiled in such an excellent fashion.

[acmavm]

5. Hussein was set up the first time. Anyone else remember the

April Glaspie incident?

This time we just decided to take the oil fields for ourself and cut out the middle man.

[LynnTheDem]

6. Gulf war was so full of war crimes committed by the US & UK, but

most Americans don't know shit about any of it.

Most don't care, either.