-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Was the first Iraq War justified? If not, how do you deal with the invasion of Kuwait?
- Thread starter entremet
- Start date
Yeah and according to a number of reports, bin Laden offered to participate in orchestrating a defense for Saudi that would draw on the international network of fighters forged during the struggle in Afghanistan if Saddam tried to invade.
"If Kuwait grew carrots, we wouldn't give a damn,"
said Lawrence Korb, Assistant Defence Secretary under Reagan
Hard to dispute that quote.
I don't say this much, but I agree with the government of Saudi Arabia on this one. Telling bin Laden to kick rocks is probably smart.
Kuwaiti nationality law - Wikipedia
They only Naturalise people that are from groups that are sympathetic to the current regime.
No, it wasn't.
The big "international coalition" was almost entirely US allies and countries that took US bribes. China declined to veto the resolution entirely because the US offered the easing of sanctions against China in order to get them to abstain. Russia voted yes but only because the US had arranged the Saudis to give the Russians a billion dollars in aid. Yemen was part of the security council at the time and was being constantly badgered to vote for the resolution, and when they voted against a US diplomat told the Yemeni representative "that was the most expensive vote you ever cast" and shortly after the US pulled a bunch of aid from Yemen in retaliation for that vote.
Meanwhile, Iraq was vaguely a US ally before the invasion of Kuwait, and infamously there was a meeting with a state department official who pointedly asked about the military buildup along the Kuwaiti border but then talked about how the US had no interest in that conflict and had no opinion, and a later communication stated the US had no obligation to defend Kuwait militarily. Effectively, those statements encouraged the invasion of Kuwait.
So, they were our ally, we more or less said go ahead, and then when they did, the US basically bribed their way into UN cover for an invasion.
That's maybe the most galling thing about this thread to me. If people want to try to justify the invasion on basic principles that's one thing, but most of the posts are like "everyone agreed!" No, the US had a lot of influence and used that influence to create agreement, which is decidedly different than this idea that the whole world looked at this and went "well, time to invade".
The big "international coalition" was almost entirely US allies and countries that took US bribes. China declined to veto the resolution entirely because the US offered the easing of sanctions against China in order to get them to abstain. Russia voted yes but only because the US had arranged the Saudis to give the Russians a billion dollars in aid. Yemen was part of the security council at the time and was being constantly badgered to vote for the resolution, and when they voted against a US diplomat told the Yemeni representative "that was the most expensive vote you ever cast" and shortly after the US pulled a bunch of aid from Yemen in retaliation for that vote.
Meanwhile, Iraq was vaguely a US ally before the invasion of Kuwait, and infamously there was a meeting with a state department official who pointedly asked about the military buildup along the Kuwaiti border but then talked about how the US had no interest in that conflict and had no opinion, and a later communication stated the US had no obligation to defend Kuwait militarily. Effectively, those statements encouraged the invasion of Kuwait.
So, they were our ally, we more or less said go ahead, and then when they did, the US basically bribed their way into UN cover for an invasion.
That's maybe the most galling thing about this thread to me. If people want to try to justify the invasion on basic principles that's one thing, but most of the posts are like "everyone agreed!" No, the US had a lot of influence and used that influence to create agreement, which is decidedly different than this idea that the whole world looked at this and went "well, time to invade".
I don't understand the point you're trying to make. Because America didn't defend Crimea in 2014, that makes the Gulf War in 1990 unjustifiable? Does it not make sense that since different countries were involved and different people that the responses would also be completely different?
Neither would Iraq or anyone else in the region to be fair. Iraq wouldn't have invaded Kuwait if it wasn't a rich oil nation.
If I was Bush and I didn't tell Iraq I didn't care if they invaded, I probably would still tell the Kuwaiti royals to fuck off
OP
OP
At the same time, wouldn't Iraq not give a damn about Kuwait either?
So your counter to that is that it was okay for Iraq to take Kuwait because the US said so?
Actually, the specific wording is "No opinion." Not a yes or no, but "No opinion."
Granted, April Glaspie was probably talking about a settlement over oil drilling rights, not outright annexation, but whatever.
Something that also gets lost in this debate is that not everything that is justified is necessary. I think the UN security council resolution was justified. Not everything being justifiable is necessary. For the UN, I think it was the right thing to do, too, and I thought the response was measured enough.
That's also one reason why these, "Well X didn't invade Y in 1939, so why did X invade Z in 1991" are stupid thought exercises. I think the defense of Crimea would have been justified in 2014 when Russia annexed it. But justified doesn't mean necessary; what's justified also might not be what's prudent. In 50 years I think we'll look at the genocide of Muslim minority in China and say "wow, the UN/Europe/US/etc did basically nothing to prevent that genocide, and they would have been justified in trying to stop it," but what what's necessary is different than what's justified. Is it prudent to go to war with China? No, it'd be horrific disaster for all parties involved and untold more uninvolved. And so, the UN writes some stern letters to China, China votes that their genocide is always justified because Muslims are sub-human, the US and some European countries try to put some economic pressure on China...... the genocide continues, and then later something might happen somewhere and someone will raise the objection, "well, you didn't invade China in 2021, so why should the New European Coalition invade the District of Trump [formerly Washington DC] for the genocide in 2032?"
Adding to this debate is the cost of two unjustified wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 21st century. What's different between those actions in 2001/2003 and 1991, is that the US was operating with the international community in 1991, and largely operating independent of it in 2003. But the legacy of those failed, devastating, pointless wars is to also recast doubt on any military action, even military action that would seem to be justifiable. That legacy drives a fatalism about any sort of international influence anywhere. What's the point in advocating or even discussing Muslim genocide in China, genocide in former Yugoslavia, in Cambodia, Turkey, Syria, etc., if nothing is justifiable? Economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, sure, and that's it. It's akin to "I found this story about systemic genocide interesting [link]." A cost of these stupid wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 21st century is that there is no justified, prudent, or necessary action that the US can take anywhere, because you're always fixated on the last war. If nothing is justifiable, who cares that Biden recognizes the Armenian Genocide if Biden wouldn't be justified in acting to prevent the next Armenian Genocide?
For sure, if Kuwait grew carrots, Iraq wouldn't have invaded Kuwait. The entire pretense for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was oil, explicitly. not some "said by assistant secretary of the under general of the previous president" or anything, the Iraqi invasion was explicitly over the price of oil going from $15/barrel to $10/barrel, which Iraq blamed on Kuwait and the UAE.
Kuwait had been selling oil above their quotas which they justified because of the destruction of the country during the Iran-Iraq War. While Kuwait was initially neutral in the Iran-Iraq war, over the 1980s they favored Iraq because they considered Iran a more hostile neighbor and it was financially beneficial for them to let Iraq use Kuwaiti ports to receive military aid from the USSR, especially while Iran targeted Basrah, the only port city in Iraq. Kuwait was targeted by Iran throughout the war, and Kuwait used this as a justification to sell oil above their quota to rebuild the country, which brought down the price of oil which hurt Iraq as a petroeconomy. Iraq, likewise, was rebuilding from ~10 years of war and also financially devastated because their primary military financier, the USSR, was collapsing. Kuwait offered to pay Iraq offsetting financial losses from the price of oil to avoid an invasion, Iraq rejected the offer from Kuwait, then -- wrongly -- claimed Kuwait as part of Iraq, and then Iraq invaded Kuwait, plundered Kuwaiti financial reserves, destroyed the Kuwaiti currency, and conquered the country in like ~12 hours. If Kuwait sold carrots, then absolutely, Iraq would have never invaded Kuwait, they invaded explicitly to take over Kuwaiti oil fields.
I think the take that "The UN/US/etc wouldn't have been involved if Kuwait didn't have oil," like aside from the fact that Iraq wouldn't have invaded Kuwait because both Iraq and Kuwait are petroeconomies, is simplistic to a fault ... other oil rich countries also condemned the invasion, 20 of 22 Arab League members condemned it, and 14-0 UN security council members condemned the invasion in 1990. 12-2-1 giving Iraq 5 months to withdraw, etc.
That's also one reason why these, "Well X didn't invade Y in 1939, so why did X invade Z in 1991" are stupid thought exercises. I think the defense of Crimea would have been justified in 2014 when Russia annexed it. But justified doesn't mean necessary; what's justified also might not be what's prudent. In 50 years I think we'll look at the genocide of Muslim minority in China and say "wow, the UN/Europe/US/etc did basically nothing to prevent that genocide, and they would have been justified in trying to stop it," but what what's necessary is different than what's justified. Is it prudent to go to war with China? No, it'd be horrific disaster for all parties involved and untold more uninvolved. And so, the UN writes some stern letters to China, China votes that their genocide is always justified because Muslims are sub-human, the US and some European countries try to put some economic pressure on China...... the genocide continues, and then later something might happen somewhere and someone will raise the objection, "well, you didn't invade China in 2021, so why should the New European Coalition invade the District of Trump [formerly Washington DC] for the genocide in 2032?"
Adding to this debate is the cost of two unjustified wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 21st century. What's different between those actions in 2001/2003 and 1991, is that the US was operating with the international community in 1991, and largely operating independent of it in 2003. But the legacy of those failed, devastating, pointless wars is to also recast doubt on any military action, even military action that would seem to be justifiable. That legacy drives a fatalism about any sort of international influence anywhere. What's the point in advocating or even discussing Muslim genocide in China, genocide in former Yugoslavia, in Cambodia, Turkey, Syria, etc., if nothing is justifiable? Economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, sure, and that's it. It's akin to "I found this story about systemic genocide interesting [link]." A cost of these stupid wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 21st century is that there is no justified, prudent, or necessary action that the US can take anywhere, because you're always fixated on the last war. If nothing is justifiable, who cares that Biden recognizes the Armenian Genocide if Biden wouldn't be justified in acting to prevent the next Armenian Genocide?
For sure, if Kuwait grew carrots, Iraq wouldn't have invaded Kuwait. The entire pretense for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was oil, explicitly. not some "said by assistant secretary of the under general of the previous president" or anything, the Iraqi invasion was explicitly over the price of oil going from $15/barrel to $10/barrel, which Iraq blamed on Kuwait and the UAE.
Kuwait had been selling oil above their quotas which they justified because of the destruction of the country during the Iran-Iraq War. While Kuwait was initially neutral in the Iran-Iraq war, over the 1980s they favored Iraq because they considered Iran a more hostile neighbor and it was financially beneficial for them to let Iraq use Kuwaiti ports to receive military aid from the USSR, especially while Iran targeted Basrah, the only port city in Iraq. Kuwait was targeted by Iran throughout the war, and Kuwait used this as a justification to sell oil above their quota to rebuild the country, which brought down the price of oil which hurt Iraq as a petroeconomy. Iraq, likewise, was rebuilding from ~10 years of war and also financially devastated because their primary military financier, the USSR, was collapsing. Kuwait offered to pay Iraq offsetting financial losses from the price of oil to avoid an invasion, Iraq rejected the offer from Kuwait, then -- wrongly -- claimed Kuwait as part of Iraq, and then Iraq invaded Kuwait, plundered Kuwaiti financial reserves, destroyed the Kuwaiti currency, and conquered the country in like ~12 hours. If Kuwait sold carrots, then absolutely, Iraq would have never invaded Kuwait, they invaded explicitly to take over Kuwaiti oil fields.
I think the take that "The UN/US/etc wouldn't have been involved if Kuwait didn't have oil," like aside from the fact that Iraq wouldn't have invaded Kuwait because both Iraq and Kuwait are petroeconomies, is simplistic to a fault ... other oil rich countries also condemned the invasion, 20 of 22 Arab League members condemned it, and 14-0 UN security council members condemned the invasion in 1990. 12-2-1 giving Iraq 5 months to withdraw, etc.
Last edited:
I think if the US wanted to lead a forceful initiative against Iraq to prevent the invasion of Kuwait that should actually start with saying "we're going to have a problem if you invade Kuwait" and not "we don't care". And that once you've fucked up the diplomacy that bad, the answer was not to posture like the US did, where the US preconditioned any discussion of the issues that had led to the invasion in the first place on a complete unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait.
Basically from the moment Iraq invaded Kuwait US and British policy was pretty much dead set on an invasion, and all of the diplomacy that followed was mostly to ensure that the invasion occurred. You don't get to encourage the conditions for an invasion, actively fight against any and all non-military means of resolution, and then say "yep, invasion totally justified".
Any time you invade another country the repercussions are on you. You can debate the reasons why the West cared so much but thats something else.
Really? Killing is never justifiable? So if someone breaks into your home and is a threat against your family and it's either you kill that person or your family is killed, not justified to kill the invader?
A war where a tyrant is invading nation after nation and leading millions into camps isn't justified for war?
yeesh.
What about wars of independence from colonial oppressors?
Killing in defense of your family as a last resort?
The world is too complicated to be making absolute statements like that.
This.
It was also a time of (brief) global unity in the issue. Russia was supporting America on this.
As a massive nuclear power, there is literally nothing that can be done beyond sanctions. Unfortunately because countries like Germany are wholly reliant on Russian gas, the sanctions are not very severe.
Are people really asking 'Is Kuwait even a real country?' That's a backflip and a half right there. Kuwait's been a distinct country since the end of WW1 at the absolute latest
People arguing about Kuwait being a 500-year-old country are, uh, looking at some sort of next-level revisionism to validate the existence of the country. Even as recently as 1914, Kuwait was recognized as an autonomous part of the Ottoman Empire that was in Britain's pocket, and had sworn fealty to the Ottoman Empire for centuries the same as any other emirate in the Middle East that eventually dissolved into the states we see today. The difference between the Kuwaitis and other past sub-national entities that were part of the OE is that the British got involved to ensure their independence. Not the only Gulf state this applies to either. But that's beside the point; you don't see people arguing if Slovakia is a legitimate country even if it's less than 100 years old as an independent state.
People arguing about Kuwait being a 500-year-old country are, uh, looking at some sort of next-level revisionism to validate the existence of the country. Even as recently as 1914, Kuwait was recognized as an autonomous part of the Ottoman Empire that was in Britain's pocket, and had sworn fealty to the Ottoman Empire for centuries the same as any other emirate in the Middle East that eventually dissolved into the states we see today. The difference between the Kuwaitis and other past sub-national entities that were part of the OE is that the British got involved to ensure their independence. Not the only Gulf state this applies to either. But that's beside the point; you don't see people arguing if Slovakia is a legitimate country even if it's less than 100 years old as an independent state.
I have read that Iraq was willing to negotiate and abandon Kuwait prior to invasion, but these pleas were ignored by the United States. The opportunity for testing military equipment and making a show of strength outweighed avoiding violence.
That we didn't oust Hussein at the time was very much a "devil you know" situation.
That we didn't oust Hussein at the time was very much a "devil you know" situation.
In traditional International Relations terms, it was completely justified in the most clear-cut way possible. A universally recognised sovereign state got invaded by another, and government of said state asked for help to expel the invaders.
Now what the motivations of the parties involved were, that's another matter. But much blame must be put on the Iraqi government of the time for deciding (after a long, brutal war with another neighbour) that outright annexing another neighbour would somehow be consequence-free affair.
Now what the motivations of the parties involved were, that's another matter. But much blame must be put on the Iraqi government of the time for deciding (after a long, brutal war with another neighbour) that outright annexing another neighbour would somehow be consequence-free affair.
Russia was an ally of Iraq and worked hard to (unsuccessfully) try to defuse the situation from turning into an invasion.
They ultimately voted yes on the UN resolution authorizing the invasion after the US got Saudi Arabia to send $1bn to Russia in exchange for the vote.
Kuwait tried to negotiate with Iraq, offering to straight up pay Iraq $500m for lost oil revenue as a result of Kuwait over-selling their quotas. Iraq rejected that, asked for $10b (which Kuwait claimed to not have, and... is probably right, when Iraq liquidated the national monetary reserves of Kuwait, they plundered about $1b).
Also "pleading" is not really the right word. Saddam Hussein and his Administration was not "pleading to negotiate with the United States," prior to invasion. Iraq had the 4th largest army in the world in 1989, they weren't pleading with anybody... And the results why were clear, they conquered Kuwait in less than day, it was as clear of a dominant military victory as the world had seen in like 50+ years.
This is quite honestly one of the worst hot takes I've ever read.
It's frustrating to see how much history blurs perception; the number of people too young to remember or born after the war who assume it was a quick "surgical" military action with minimal collateral damage and unanimous global support and is therefore justified is rather frightening, and it's all over this thread. The reason the populace keeps allowing political leaders to do awful things is because they choose to ignore what happened even in the recent past.
It's equally frustrating to see posters who act as though war is never justified, that one nation should never step up and defend another regardless of what the motives of the individuals in govt are, that killing is never justified.
I need to find it, but there's a fascinating interview with Dick Cheney after the Gulf War ended, where he explains why the US and allies didn't topple the Hussain government (and pretty much left the Shias in southern Iraq to their fate) - it's remarkably clear sighted about what actually happened years later in 2003 (ie. shit he caused). He essentially argues that their remit was to push the Iraqis out of Kuwait and degrade their ability to threaten neighbours, and they had to keep to that - and additionally, that toppling the government would create a dangerous power vacuum that would cause more chaos.
Fake Edit: Found it:
Fake Edit: Found it:
I remember, we had relatives in both Kuwait and Saudi, we were glued to the TV back then, we got cable so we could get better news coverage. It might not've been as clean cut as people are assuming but I'll take it over the alternative 10 times out of 10.
And then bounce out of the thread when they can't respond.
Do you have a scholarly link detailing this bribe between Saudi Arabia/US and Moscow? It's the first I've ever heard of it, and in all of the historical analysis of the waning years of the Soviet Union and their role in shaping the modern Middle East, I'd imagine that this bribe would have been mentioned in top scholarly articles. For instance, in Alvin Rubinstein's "Moscow and the Gulf War" it's not mentioned at all, and it's a pretty well detailed account of Gorbachev's positions on Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, and the US/UN.
Russia was the key ally to Iraq, of course, all of the weapons, training, and financing of the invasion of Kuwait came from the USSR, and there were some ~5000 Soviet troops still in Iraq embedded with the Iraqi army as of 1990. The USSR sold Iraq about $23b worth of arms between '82 and '88, Iraq still owed about $6b in debt to the USSR by the end of the war, and the USSR had also been arming Kuwait in the 1980s as well, building Kuwait's missile defense system and protecting Kuwaiti ports & ships (largely not protecting Kuwait from Iraq, but from Iran; Kuwait and Iraq were allies until 1988) even allowing Kuwaiti ships to sail under the Soviet flag to avoid being attacked by Iran.
Still, while the USSR was the primary financier of war-making ability for Iraq, Gorbachev had already pivoted to American positions within the middle east by the late 1980s, and he did so because he thought that was best to preserve Moscow's role internationally and because of domestic internal pressure. Of course, at the same time as all of this the USSR had started to let member nations leave, the Soviet Union was collapsing, and Gorbachev was losing his own power domestically. Gorbachev wasn't an idiot, and while the USSR had had a defensive relationship with the UN and the security council for decades, by shifting to a supportive relationship of the UN, it would be an effective way to maintain influence and to cull American superiority. Gorbachev had shifted to these pro-UN positions back in 1987 and 1988 in public speeches and articles, well before Iraq's military build up on the border with Iraq or a purported Saudi Arabian bribe.
On August 2nd, the day that Iraq invaded and conquered Kuwait, the Soviet government issued a statement "calling for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwaiti territory. The sovereignty, national independence, and territorial integrity of Kuwait must by fully restored and defended." This was the same day as the invasion of Kuwait. Did Russia get this bribe from Saudi Arabia ahead of time? Eduard Shevardnadze, Russia's minister of Foreign Affairs, was "stunned" by the invasion and claimed, credibly, for decades later that the USSR had no advanced knowledge of invasion (Shrvardnadze would go onto become President of Georgia, and still maintained this position long after Gorbachev and the USSR was dead).
Despite supporting all UN resolutions around Iraq-Kuwait, Soviet Union/Russia/Moscow (I'm going with "Moscow" in my post because it's just easier than USSR or Russia) never took part in the military coalition against Iraq. Shevardnadze claimed at different times that the USSR might be sending troops or ships to the gulf, but they never did, and I don't think that's because of some ... effort at peace making, but that the USSR was in a tight spot... Thousands of Soviet soldiers were embedded in the Iraqi military, thousands of Soviet citizens were living in Iraq, and Gorbachev was concerned about domestic issues related to Soviet forces being on both sides of a war, where Soviet citizens working with the Iraqi military could become targets. Moscow would end up supporting the UN coalition in the months that followed, as part of larger cooperation between Moscow and the US, both financial aid (GWB agreed to provide financial aid to the USSR at the Helsinki conference in Sept 1990, but this was after Gorbachev had denounced Iraqi invasion).
Also confounding this is the internal conflict within domestic Soviet policies. Liberals in government were pushing for stronger relationship between the US and the USSR, conservatives were pushing for hardline antagonism, and conservatives were perceived to be losing this argument: Soviet military training and hardware (long a strategy promoted by Soviet conservatives and hawks) was being demolished on the battlefield, this just a couple years after an embarrassing withdrawal in Afghanistan. In a quixotic disruption to our perception of conservative vs. liberal, and east vs. west, capitalist vs. communist, it was domestic liberals within the USSR that supported military cooperation with the US & UN against Saddam Hussein:
(From "Moscow and the Gulf War," written by Graham Fuller, Foreign Affairs, 1991, available for free on jstor)
I'm not saying that the position of Fyodor Burlatski is the right one, but that it was the liberal one within late stage Soviet politics, that ideological conservatives in the Soviet wanted to maintain a traditional relationship with Hussein and Iraq (as well as conservative positions domestically), while liberals were more interested in European and American engagement even on foreign policy. Gorbachev, trying to hold onto power while also trying to prevent the USSR from collapsing in on itself, tries to navigate the middle ground.
Russia would build a relationship with Saudi Arabia in the years after the war (as they would almost all financiers in the Middle East, post-Soviet Russia was in desperate need of foreign investment and took money from anyone offering it), but I can't find any evidence that Saudi Arabia bribed Gorbachev with $1b for him to condemn the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and join the UN Security council vote, at least, no evidence from Russian or Cold War historians. The historical record, on the other hand, details the conflict within Soviet politics at the time where the old conservative guard -- that which supported Hussein from the 1970s and would come to be the primary benefactor for Iraq throughout the 1980s -- was being replaced by a progressive willingness to work with international organizations. I don't think it was always ideological, either, there was a practical benefit for Gorbachev to support American positions and support international institutions because it would strengthen Moscow's influence going forward. Russia would preserve the Soviet Union's permanent seat on the UN Security Council after all.
Last edited:
Yes, it was handled reasonably. There was large international support and Iraq were the aggressors. We did not pursue them into Iraq and ensured the war did not evolve into an even larger one at the time. Obviously oil was a large motivator, but this seems like an ideal response to this sort of situation. It was an incredibly different situation compared to the invasion of Iraq. The Highway of Death, however, was not justifiable nor a necessary response and a war crime.
The alternative was letting Kuwait fall to the rule of Saddam, not sure why more people here aren't comfortable with an international effort to restore their sovereignty. I'm not sure if any war is "justifiable," but it was necessitated in this situation if you actually care about Kuwait.
The alternative was letting Kuwait fall to the rule of Saddam, not sure why more people here aren't comfortable with an international effort to restore their sovereignty. I'm not sure if any war is "justifiable," but it was necessitated in this situation if you actually care about Kuwait.
Speaking for myself, the end result of whether Kuwait's oil is dominated by a royal family or a dictator isn't worth a drop of blood or a single US dollar.
I'm sorry, but you aren't arguing in good faith here.
You made an absolute statement and were fairly challenged on it. Why not respond to the questions directly?
Because I believe strongly in that absolute statement on ethical and moral grounds, and a lot of the posts quoting me are spouting 'invasion' rhetoric grounded in nationalism and xenophobia.
I think the problem with trying to put things in either "justified" or "unjustified" columns is that it simplifies the conflict to black and white, ignoring many factors, least of which are the actual outcomes.
The sanctions imposed by the international community were absolutely devastating to Iraq. Given how important the sovereignty of a nation has been in this thread, I think it's impossible to deny that Iraq, in the 90s and then into the second war, had it's sovereignty stripped from it. Not through war but through sanctions and the neoliberal chipping away of its nationalized, public resource.
The UN literally had to let Iraq sell oil for food in the mid 90s because a humanitarian crisis developed in Iraq due to sanctions.
Y'all are jumping on purseowner perhaps because saying that war/killing is never justified is too "simple" a worldview, but claiming this conflict is justified because Iraq was the bad guy aggressor isn't really any more nuanced.
The sanctions imposed by the international community were absolutely devastating to Iraq. Given how important the sovereignty of a nation has been in this thread, I think it's impossible to deny that Iraq, in the 90s and then into the second war, had it's sovereignty stripped from it. Not through war but through sanctions and the neoliberal chipping away of its nationalized, public resource.
The UN literally had to let Iraq sell oil for food in the mid 90s because a humanitarian crisis developed in Iraq due to sanctions.
Y'all are jumping on purseowner perhaps because saying that war/killing is never justified is too "simple" a worldview, but claiming this conflict is justified because Iraq was the bad guy aggressor isn't really any more nuanced.
Fucking Christ.
I really hope you're joking, because that's one fucked up opinion.
So you would not use deadly force in self defense if your kids' life were in danger?
If the UN forms a coalition to intervene militarily to stop a genocide, you would not support that?
Would I in the heat of the moment if threatened in the immediate end up killing in self-defence? Maybe.
But there is nothing that justifies that action.
Anyway, my absolutist position was relevant to the thread, but I'm not gonna respond to your next quote if you make one, because that would begin to derail.
Guess the world should have just let Hitler roll over all of Europe then.
Don't respond if you don't want to. But if your life or life of a loved one was in legit danger and you ended up killing in self defense, then by definition it was entirely justified. Both things can't be true. It can't be ruled to be actual self defense but also deemed unjustified.
What you just posted is one of the dumbest comments I have seen on this forum.
So it is morally and ethically righteous to be a bystander to a violent military invasion, even though you have the ability to assist in repelling deadly aggression? If it is an absolute, you're fine in all situations to better not get involved for your own perceived righteousness than to prevent others from getting hurt?
And how else are you supposed to discuss a historical event rooted in the relations between nations without sounding like a nationalist? And what do you mean by 'invasion' rhetoric when an invasion was the basis of this conflict? Do the peoples' lives affected by this conflict not matter because they live within nations, a concept I assume you disagree with?
And how is it xenophobic to support intervention when it is on behalf of a foreign people? Do you think that posters here are xenophobes because siding with Kuwait, an invaded country and an ally, would mean to side against Iraq? There is no prejudice in that, just the reality of the conflict.
This would be funny if it wasn't close to what happened already.
Down to the unwillingness to go to war leading to desperate situations.