NBC News and news services Brian Williams’ Round Table Discussion With The Desert Storm War Mongers.
I don’t know about you, but this latest NBC series
“Desert
Storm Commanders Together Again”
(this title almost makes me want to sing the old drinking song
"TOGETHER AGAIN" by Buck Owens)
with Brian Williams, just made me want to puke. The War Mongers and Oil Moguls (best embodiment: Dick Cheney) had gathered together in one room to discuss their motivations back in 1991 when they took our country to (A Televised) war.
These Commanders (war-mongers) are quite old now and perhaps have lost their lust for war a little but they still maintain that the reasons behind thrusting so many people into certain death, in a haphazardly decided war, was just.
As they sit stoically, as so many old powerful men who have come to the end of their lifetime usually do, not lamenting but rationalizing (still trying to save face) their reasons why war is not only necessary but beneficial.
As they speak I look at their wrinkled faces and hear their cracked voices (men who were once so arrogant and sure of themselves, who held so much power in the palms of their hands over so many of the world’s population) I think to myself… “Will we as a species ever evolve away from our past evolutionary roots of kill or be killed; the rudimentary basics embedded in the food chain instincts of all animal life forms?”
We, the species who have the power to reason and figure out how not to be eaten by a carnivore much larger than ourselves, without destroying all of Earth’s carnivores in order to keep us safe. Since we can do that then why can’t we figure out how to get along with our own kind? How can we still be so enslaved by the food chain’s instinctual bondage?
It’s mind boggling to me but if we as a society of intelligent beings keep on allowing those who have clawed their way to powerful world positions, to keep using us like chess pieces in a chess game, we have only ourselves to blame. Tell them NO I will not fight your wars over oil or whatever you deem necessary to keep you rich, or powerful, or satisfied. When we can standup to the powerful and tell them No More War, maybe then our evolutionary process of intellectual greatness will begin. (Once again, I can dream can't I?)
Please watch
the clip below if you can stomach it. thinkingblue
Video can also be seen at this link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#41182130
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BRIEF EXCERPTS BELOW ON THE REASONINGS OF THE GULF WAR:
NBC News and news services
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Former President George H.W. Bush defended the decision to kick Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait in the first Gulf War on Thursday and said his own adviser's criticism of his son's policies and invasion of Iraq in 2003 didn't bother him.
Bush said disagreements on policies "go with the territory" as president.
Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security adviser under the elder Bush, maintained in the run-up to the invasion that it wasn't clear that Hussein was part of the global terrorism network
"You can't worry about that," Bush told NBC News anchor Brian Williams in a roundtable discussion on the 20th anniversary of the start of the war. "You can't worry about the differences. They're bound to happen, bound to take place." MORE HERE
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The Persian Gulf War (August 2, 1990 –
February 28, 1991), commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War,
was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from
thirty-four nations led by Britain and the United States, against
Iraq.
The initial conflict to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait began with an aerial bombardment on 17 January 1991.
Reasons and campaign for intervention
The United States and the United Nations gave several public justifications for involvement in the conflict, the most prominent being the Iraqi violation of Kuwaiti territorial integrity. In addition, the United States moved to support its ally Saudi Arabia, whose importance in the region, and AS A KEY SUPPLIER OF OIL, made it of considerable geopolitical importance. Shortly after the Iraqi invasion, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney made the first of several visits to Saudi Arabia where King Fahd requested US military assistance. During a speech in a special joint session of the U.S. Congress given on 11 September 1990, U.S. President George H.W. Bush summed up the reasons with the following remarks: "Within three days, 120,000 Iraqi troops with 850 tanks had poured into Kuwait and moved south to threaten Saudi Arabia. It was then that I decided to act to check that aggression."
The Pentagon claimed that satellite photos showing a buildup of Iraqi forces along the border were the source of this information, but this was later shown to be false. A reporter for the Saint Petersburg Times acquired commercial satellite images made at the time in question, which showed nothing but empty desert...
There was some criticism of the Bush administration, as they chose to allow Saddam Hussein to remain in power instead of pushing on to capture Baghdad and overthrowing his government. In their co-written 1998 book, A World Transformed, Bush and Brent Scowcroft argued that such a course would have fractured the alliance, and would have had many unnecessary political and human costs associated with it.
In 1992, the United States Secretary of Defense during the war, Dick Cheney, made the same point:
"I would guess if we had gone in there, we would still have forces in Baghdad today. We'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home. And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don't think you could have done all of that without significant additional U.S. casualties, and while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the (1991) conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war. And the question in my mind is, how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is, not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the President made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq". (Said, in 1991, by the world's biggest hypocrite) – Dick Cheney
Gulf War controversies:
Gulf War Illness, Effects of depleted uranium, Highway of Death, Bulldozer assault, Killing of unarmed Iraqi Soldiers, Coalition bombing of Iraq's civilian infrastructure, Abuse of coalition POWs, Operation Southern Watch, Gulf war sanctions