34 years ago today, on August 2, 1990, Iraq (a “bigger country” as Kamala Harris might–in context–have explained) invaded and annexed Kuwait (a “smaller country,” ditto.)
So, as she said herself, “Basically, that’s wrong.”
The West didn’t take it well. And so–a week later–on August 9, 1990, the United States launched Operation Desert Shield with the intention of expelling Iraqi troops from Kuwait and and reestablishing the pre-war boundaries.
Cue huge success.
Subsequent events have not worked out quite so unequivocally well.
And we are still living with the consequences.
I, like many Americans, was shocked that Bush I did not travel deeper into Iraq and clean house. It might have prevented the need gor the second Iraq war.
Agree. IMHO, there’s always been something of an aspect that the US didn’t really need to try too hard to establish Democratic regimes around the world.
Many years ago, a friend pretty much forced me to watch the movie “Full Metal Jacket” (long story). In the movie (which is largely worthwhile) the Pogue Colonel says at one point, “We are here to help the Vietnamese, because inside every gook there is an American trying to get out.”
That’s false. It’s something that the British Colonialists (at least the good ones like my dad) realized was false long before the bureaucrats of the State Department, or the minions of the Foreign Office, figured such a thing out.