Yes, Iraq did annex Kuwait. And yes, the goal of the war was to liberate Kuwait. But why was it necessary for us to libertate Kuwait? Was it to preserve the rules-based international order, as George H.W. Bush claimed? Of course not. It was to protect our oil interests in the Middle East. The most important of those interests - by far - was and is the petrodollar; and the petrodollar's very existence was and is guaranteed by OPEC in general and Saudi Arabia in particular selling oil in dollars and ONLY in dollars. This system was and is the only thing standing in the way of the dollar losing its international reserve currency status, which in turn was and is the only thing standing in the way of the dollar losing much of its value. It also was an is the only thing standing in the way of Washington being able to spend whatever it wants, whenever it wants. The petrodollar is the reason why Washington is able to get away with total fiscal irresponsibility for what appears to be perpetuity. In other words: Bush the Elder went to war in order to ensure Washington was able to keep up its self-enrichment.John wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 11:46 amThis goes way over the line.
Iraq annexed Kuwait. The US formed a coalition to eject Iraq from
Kuwait. That was not a lie. That was the truth. That was the actual
reason.
If you're going to manufacture additional reasons, you might as well
say that it was to protect Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan as well
as Saudi Arabia.
When the US became Policeman Of The World, the goal was to prevent a
repeat of WW I and WW II. Thus, we fought wars in Korea and Vietnam
to stop the spread of Communism, and we fought the Iraq war for the
stability of the entire Mideast. It wasn't just to protect Saudi
Arabia. It was to prevent a destabilization of the entire Mideast
that would lead to a repeat of World War I.
The stability of the Mideast is important for a lot more reasons than
your single-minded focus on the petrodollar. If the Mideast oil
supply suddenly stopped, then the US would do fine internally. But it
would instantly lead to war in Asia and Europe. Those are reasons
that go way beyond the petrodollar or some some CIA meddling fantasy.
You seem to be starting from a conclusion and then searching for
things to support it. You seem to want to blame the US for
everything, which is consistent with a number of other things you've
written. Lately you've been agreeing with the CCP propaganda that the
US army developed the Covid strain and spread it around the world,
rather than the Wuhan lab.
You can't just make up "facts" because you want to blame the US for
every problem in the world. The wars in Libya, Syria and Ukraine were
caused by the reasons that I've written about, not because of CIA
meddling. The CIA does not have that power, even when it does
"meddle." You want to blame the US for everything, and when there's
no rational reason, you make things up with no evidence at all.
Meanwhile, would Iraq getting away with the annexation of Kuwait have resulted in the Middle East destabilizing, and consequently a disruption in the global oil trade? Probably. But for the USA in particular, the collapse of the petrodollar would've had even more serious consequences than that.
As for the conflicts in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine, yes there were underlying ethno-religious tensions which made such a conflict possible. But said underlying tensions were merely the powder. For that powder to explode, a fuse would have to be lit. And in all three cases, the US government certainly played a significant role in lighting that fuse, even if it wasn't the only party that lit a match (Gaddafi also lit a match in Libya; Assad, Sarkozy, Putin, Cameron, Abdullah bin Saud, Erdogan, Khamenei, Hamad bin Khalifa all lit matches in Syria; Yanukovych, Merkel, Hollande, Putin, and Komorowski all lit matches in Ukraine).
And while were are almost never the only country to light a match to use on the fuse, we are almost always the country which is the most remote from the epicenter of the conflict in question. Thus, our intervention is often the most unnecessary out of all the unnecessary interventions with the conflict in question. It's ridiculous. We're supposed to be a Republic, not an Empire.