Which was worse, Iraq invading Kuwait, or US invading Iraq?

[DrWeird]

Pleas disregard any propaganda. Like WMDs, liberation, or taking babies off life support. For the sake of fairness, disregard propaganda from Iraqi sources as well.

[Walt Starr]

1. Well, since Bush I told Saddam to go for it

It's hard to blame him from following his master's orders.

[arcane1]

5. exactly

we gave Saddam the green-light to invade Kuwait, then turned around and invaded Iraq because of it...

10 years of sanctions later, we invade again, and one of the reasons given was his invasion of Kuwait :eyes:

[Festivito]

22. There's the short of it. n/t

[Hamlette]

2. at least Iraq had a reason to invade Kuwait

(flooding the oil market keeping prices too low and allegations of diagonal drilling)

[mmonk]

3. We've got our fingerprints on both.

[truthspeaker]

4. Pretty much the same

Invent a pretext, roll in, start pumping oil.

[TNOE]

6. Excellent question

wonder if it will ring any bells for the visiting freepers.

[CatWoman]

7. This is an excellent question

I had to think really hard for my answer.

DrWeird posts = food for your brain :D

[lectrobyte]

8. Interesting poll... for the 70 or so percent who think US invading...

is worse, can you explain why? Both seem wrong to me.

[arcane1]

10. hell the hypocrisy alone makes it worse

Saddam warned us that he was going in, and we told him to feel free to. We could've stopped the invasion of Kuwait before it happened. This would've also stopped the Gulf War from happening..

and Poppy couldn't have THAT

[Djinn]

23. couple of reasons

1. the US is supposedly a democracy, I hold them to slightly higher standards than meglomaniacal dictators.

2. Saddam had (or atleast thought with good reason he had) US suport for his actions

3. Neighbours invading each other is usually a bit more complicated, long standing issues of where a border should be is a bit more hazy than lying about weapons that don't exist half way around the world

Also found it very strange that the US invaded to protect the Kuwaiti's - what so they could live under a undemocratic Kingdom, instead of an undemocratic dictator

[kiahzero]

9. I voted Iraq invading Kuwait

There was no justification for that action. There were justifications for Iraq - it would just require knocking off all the repressive dictators in the world to be consistant.

[rangerfan]

11. I voted Iraq invading Kuwait also.

Now if we could just find those pesky WMDs.

[CatWoman]

12. ok -- you tell me why you voted

and I'll tell you why I voted.

gime me time to get home and log on.

[rangerfan]

13. OK

I pretty much agree with kiahzero. There was no justification for Iraqs invasion of Kuwait. There were justifications for the US invasion of Iraq no matter how flimsy or propagandized we may think they are.

[DrWeird]

15. Is stealing natural resources justification?

Apparently Kuwait was slant drilling into Iraqi oil fields.

[rangerfan]

17. Now you're using Saddams propaganda.

I don't know whether that is true or not.

[DrWeird]

18. Is that Saddam's propaganda?

I was under the impression it was true. I'll retract it if it's not.

For the sake of argument, assume that it was. Now which was worse?

[rangerfan]

20. Ok. If in fact Kuwait was slant drilling...

then it seems as if the better course would be through the UN not invasion. But then I wouldn't want to suppose what Saddams real justifications were.

[DrWeird]

21. I dare say...

Saddam's real intentions were probably exactly the same as Bush's.

[dpibel]

28. So lemme get this straight

You assume for the sake of argument that Kuwait was slant drilling into Iraq's oilfields. Your prescription: go to the UN.

The situation with the US invading Iraq differs exactly how? (Please don't say the US did go to the UN, unless you mean delivering transparent lies to the UN and then saying, we're gonna do what we want anyway.

Since we're not speculating on Saddam's real justifications, let's suppose George's. Whaddaya think? How come he did it?

[Djinn]

26. and the beleif that THIS

war had ANYTHING to do with ousting dictators is White House propaganda

And Saddam probably ignored the UN-route for EXACTLY the same reasons Chimpy did.

[mike_c]

14. there were historical territory issues that don't get much media play...

...in the U.S. Kind of like Mexico invading Texas. Of course, both countries were "created" by the British anyway.

I voted that the U.S. action was worse. It has resulted in far greater death and destruction, has permanently damaged U.S. credibility, was based upon lies and disinformation, has hidden mnotives that the general public won't know about openly for years, if ever, and has done a great deal more to destablize the ME than the invasion of Kuwait. One might expect an act of unbridled aggression from a despot like Hussein, but the U.S. has fallen a long way in its descent to his level.

[DrWeird]

16. I said no propaganda.

The war was never about removing a repressive dictator. That's just monday morning quarterbacking.

[kiahzero]

19. It was mentioned beforehand

I don't thimk that's why the Bush Administration did it - I'm not that naive. But it was a valid reason for intervention; too bad we don't care about repressive dictators enough to do something about it over the rest of the world.

[bpilgrim]

27. being the worlds cop is NOT a valid reason for UNILATERAL action

meaning we need to have the support of the UN before any such act could be considered LEGAL and makes what we did JUST as bad but by tallying up the destruction it would make our INVASION and OCCUPATION worse and on top of that we weren't even THREATENED :puke:

peace

[kiahzero]

32. Actually,

the invasion was technically legal, just as the NATO action in Kosovo was technically illegal. Just ask Wes Clark - he'll be happy to tell you that, and has said so on national television in the past.

What this demonstrates is the very casual relationship between legality and morality - the NATO action in Kosovo was moral, and the invasion of Iraq was almost certainly not.

[dpibel]

29. Remember, kids!

Dictator removal begins at home!

[kiahzero]

33. Indeed it does

Let's go get those Bush Bastards, eh?

[Djinn]

25. except that WASN'T the justification used to invade Iraq

historically the areas of Kuwait and Iraw have been ruled by the same people, there are also other factors which, while I don't know if they are true or not sound a lot more plausible than anything the Bushists came up with.

1. The theft of Iraqi oil from the Rumeila oil field
2. The stonewalling of negotiations over Warbah and Bubiyan islands
3. Kuwaiti flooding of the oil markets driving down the price and reducing income for the war depleted Iraq

No-one is saying that Saddam was RIGHT to invade but if we had a true world court - he'd have got a fine and a good behaviour bond (until the court case for all his OTHER crimes came up) - the Bushists would go to jail

[jpgray]

30. Sure there was--Kuwait used to be part of Iraq

Pretty damn flimsy, but with standards the way they are these days? :shrug:

[MadProphetMargin]

24. They were both acts of international brigandage. There is NO

difference.

[ConcernedCanuk]

31. Kuwait was part of Iraq for over 4,000 years, taken away by Britain

.
.
.

in 1961.

And think about this, Iraq invented writing,

The States invented the Atomic Bomb. And used it.

HISTORY:
_____________________________________________________________________

"George Bush has attacked Iraq as a barbarous state and implied that Kuwait, by contrast, was much more civilized. Nothing could be further from the truth. We won't trouble you with an exhaustive history of Iraq, just enough to demonstrate that it is Iraq, not Kuwait, that is civilized, and to prove that Iraq's claim to Kuwait is ironclad. As you will see, the history of the United States is a mere snap of the fingers as against that of Iraq. Located at the crossroads of three continents, Asia, Europe, and Africa, and having nothing in the way of significant geographical barriers against invasion, Iraq has been part of many different countries, some based on Iraq, some elsewhere.

But throughout this long and complicated history, one thing emerges clearly: Kuwait has always been part of Iraq. Check the maps below. "Iraq's history reaches back to the very origins of civilization, for it was here in the fertile valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that the world's first urban, literate civilization was born." (— Encyclopaedia Britannica)

Sargon of Akkad, 2300 B.C.

This ancient sculpture immortalizes the first Iraqi to create an empire that included Kuwait — 4,300 years ago.

"The Cradle of Civilization". Iraq is the modern name for the bulk of Mesopotamia, which Western historians agree is the oldest civilization on Earth. Mesopotamia is a Greek term that means "the land between the rivers" Tigris and Euphrates, at the eastern end of the Fertile Crescent, a great arc of farmable land surrounded by deserts, stretching from the Nile up thru Palestine and Syria, and down the valley of Mesopotamia. The two great rivers (Tigris, 1,150 miles long; Euphrates, 1,700) water a region where intense agriculture made possible by irrigation gave rise to the world's first cities, in the part of southern Iraq known as Sumer. The very first entry under "Daily Life" in The Timetables of History, in the box dated "-5000 to -4001", says "Earliest cities in Mesopotamia (carbon-test dated)." The first three entries under "Literature, Theater" all relate to Iraq. Two tell of Iraq's greatest contribution to world culture: "Sumerian writing, done on clay tablets, shows about 2,000 pictographic signs" (4000 to 3501 B.C.); and "Sumerian wedge-shaped (cuneiform) writing, the earliest known" (3500 to 3001 B.C.). Yes, writing, which fairly defines "civilization", was invented in Iraq. From there it spread west to Egypt and Canaan (Palestine), then thru Phoenicia (northern Canaan), into the Greek and eventually Roman alphabets. Sumerian writing even went the same direction as modern Western languages read, horizontally, from left to right.

/snip/

"In 1775, the British made Kuwait the starting point of their desert mail service to Aleppo, Syria. This route formed part of a system that carried goods and messages from India to England. Over the years, British interest in Kuwait grew. In 1899, Great Britain became responsible for Kuwait's defense." (World Book Encyclopedia)

In 1961 Britain gave Kuwait independence, whereupon Iraq immediately asserted its rightful claim to restoration of Kuwait to Iraq. Though one government decided not to pursue that claim, President Hussein had to reassert it because Kuwait was a thorn in our side and we realized that leaving a border between us would produce perpetual conflict between the house of Al-Sabah and the people of Iraq.

There you have it: the entire history of Kuwait.

http://members.aol.com/xpus/Iraq.htm . . MUCH more at the link
________________________________________________________________________________________

So as far as History goes, the USA hasn't hit puberty yet.

Obviously.