Re: NO! Don't Confiscate it, Daddy!smadafJanuary 6 2008, 19:43:25 UTC
Most of the time, I've called 'the Gulf War' Operation Desert Storm. That's the military name it had, which everyone at the time knew. People also call it the First Gulf War and the Persian Gulf War.
On August 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein, of Iraq, had his military invade Kuwait, one of the countries nextdoor. I was 10½, and it was five days after we'd moved from Virginia to Ohio. We were still moving in and unpacking. I was on the family-room floor, at the coffee table, watching TV. There was a sci-fi movie that took place in the desert and had fancy, futuristic motorcycles. I was drawing such a motorcycle. And then the TV was playing this news about a man with an unfamiliar name, apparently the dictator of a country I wasn't familiar with, crossing a real desert and invading another country whose name was new to me.
Anyway, the first President Bush had been in office for about a year and a half. People in many countries thought it was pretty despicable of Saddam Hussein to latch suddenly onto this idea that all the land and resources and people of Kuwait really belonged to Iraq, and to try to take over that country, and they thought that something should be done about this. (Part of their motivation probably was that they wanted to maintain good relations with other people (some of them also rather dictatorial) in the region, who opposed Saddam Hussein.)
Six days later, the U.S. sent parts of its own military to nearby Saudi Arabia. This was Operation Desert Shield, a deterrent to keep things from getting worse. Soon, several other countries' militaries arrived in countries around the Persian/Arabian Gulf, for the same purpose.
Individual countries, and groups of countries, including the United Nations, did various things to try to persuade Saddam Hussein to pull out of Kuwait. This went on for months, and he continued to refuse.
On January 17, 1991, the night before my birthday, Pres. Bush was on TV, announcing the beginning of military attacks against Iraqi forces, to drive them out of Kuwait. This is when the name was changed from Desert Shield to Desert Storm.
For the coalition of countries opposing Iraq, the war went fairly well and quickly. Soon, Iraq's military was pushed back into Iraq and surrendered.
Although the war was over in several weeks, and Saddam Hussein was considered the loser, there was still plenty mess. The biggest oil spill in history had occurred, when 400,000,000 gallons were poured into the Persian Gulf; some said Iraq had done it intentionally, as a defensive measure, while Iraq said it was caused by its enemies. Also, when fleeing Kuwait, the Iraqi forces set fire to the fields of oil wells in Kuwait, filling the sky over so much land with thick, black clouds of the smoke of the burning oil; these fires took ages to put out.
The coalition opposing Saddam Hussein stopped short of removing him from power and seeing about a new way of governing that country. That problem brewed for the rest of the '90s, until March 2003, when the second Pres. Bush made his effort, which he called Operation Iraqi Freedom. He succeeded at removing Saddam Hussein from power; but, of course, other aspects of this war have not gone nearly as well.
The first Gulf War came on the heels of a whole bunch of other strife in the Middle East, which had been going on among Christians & Westerners, Jews, and different groups of Muslims, for decades, centuries, and indeed millennia.
On August 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein, of Iraq, had his military invade Kuwait, one of the countries nextdoor. I was 10½, and it was five days after we'd moved from Virginia to Ohio. We were still moving in and unpacking. I was on the family-room floor, at the coffee table, watching TV. There was a sci-fi movie that took place in the desert and had fancy, futuristic motorcycles. I was drawing such a motorcycle. And then the TV was playing this news about a man with an unfamiliar name, apparently the dictator of a country I wasn't familiar with, crossing a real desert and invading another country whose name was new to me.
Anyway, the first President Bush had been in office for about a year and a half. People in many countries thought it was pretty despicable of Saddam Hussein to latch suddenly onto this idea that all the land and resources and people of Kuwait really belonged to Iraq, and to try to take over that country, and they thought that something should be done about this. (Part of their motivation probably was that they wanted to maintain good relations with other people (some of them also rather dictatorial) in the region, who opposed Saddam Hussein.)
Six days later, the U.S. sent parts of its own military to nearby Saudi Arabia. This was Operation Desert Shield, a deterrent to keep things from getting worse. Soon, several other countries' militaries arrived in countries around the Persian/Arabian Gulf, for the same purpose.
Individual countries, and groups of countries, including the United Nations, did various things to try to persuade Saddam Hussein to pull out of Kuwait. This went on for months, and he continued to refuse.
On January 17, 1991, the night before my birthday, Pres. Bush was on TV, announcing the beginning of military attacks against Iraqi forces, to drive them out of Kuwait. This is when the name was changed from Desert Shield to Desert Storm.
For the coalition of countries opposing Iraq, the war went fairly well and quickly. Soon, Iraq's military was pushed back into Iraq and surrendered.
Although the war was over in several weeks, and Saddam Hussein was considered the loser, there was still plenty mess. The biggest oil spill in history had occurred, when 400,000,000 gallons were poured into the Persian Gulf; some said Iraq had done it intentionally, as a defensive measure, while Iraq said it was caused by its enemies. Also, when fleeing Kuwait, the Iraqi forces set fire to the fields of oil wells in Kuwait, filling the sky over so much land with thick, black clouds of the smoke of the burning oil; these fires took ages to put out.
The coalition opposing Saddam Hussein stopped short of removing him from power and seeing about a new way of governing that country. That problem brewed for the rest of the '90s, until March 2003, when the second Pres. Bush made his effort, which he called Operation Iraqi Freedom. He succeeded at removing Saddam Hussein from power; but, of course, other aspects of this war have not gone nearly as well.
The first Gulf War came on the heels of a whole bunch of other strife in the Middle East, which had been going on among Christians & Westerners, Jews, and different groups of Muslims, for decades, centuries, and indeed millennia.
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