On this day 28 years ago

[ADK Native]

On January 17, 1991, Allied forces initiated Operation Desert Storm.  Under the outstanding leadership of General Norman Schwarzkopf, those forces ultimately drove out the invading Iraqi forces from Kuwait and liberated that occupied nation.

One fact that is seldom, if ever mentioned, is the fact that the majority of American military leadership in both the field grade officer and senior non-commissioned officer ranks were Vietnam and Vietnam Era veterans.  They are the generation of veterans who were subjected to verbal and physical attacks by cowardly communist appeasing sympathizers.  Even some segments of society ostracized this generation of veterans.

So given the green light to win this war, they did along with a new generation of brave young Americans who believe in fighting for freedom, not just talking about.

[The_Real_TCIII]

https://www.military.com/video/off-duty/humor/chris-farley-as-general-schwarzkopf/663148156001

 

Those were awesome times! General Norman Schwarzkopf is a national treasure

[Rattler]

What many do not realize is, Iraq fought a war with Iran for about a decade prior to the Kuwait invasion.  Iraq agreed to fight Iran as a proxy for Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.  Those countries agreed to finance Iraq's war expenses.  Kuwait reneged on their debt and refused to pay Iraq even after they were threatened with military force to collect it.  Iraq, after exhausting all diplomatic options with regard to the payment, decided to invade Kuwait and take over it's oil fields in retaliation.  The US government, being a Kuwait ally, sided with Kuwait and used the US armed forces to run Saddam Hussein out of the oil fields and back to Iraq.

Worried about a vacuum in the Iraq power structure, with a possible rise in terrorists expected, the US government stopped it's pursuit and let Hussein be in the end.

Not long after, Osama Bin Laden, being pissed the US government put troops on "sacred" Saudi soil during the Iraq war, implemented the 9/11 attacks against the US.  Consequently, troops were sent to Afghanistan to fight the terrorists operating there, in order to prevent future attacks.

It was during that operation, the US government claimed Iraq was also involved with the terrorists and possessed "weapons of mass destruction".  Consequently, the US government deployed troops to Iraq again to find and kill Hussein.  No weapons of mass destruction were ever found, but evidence indicates they may have been moved to Syria prior to US troops returning to Iraq.

So, when you think about it, all of the brave, patriotic US fighting men who did their duty to the point of dying, fighting like true warriors and deserving all of our respect, plus all of the civilians and firefighters who died on 9/11, were involved in conflicts that could have been avoided if the US government simply told Kuwait to pay Iraq what it owed them.

Why didn't the US government do that? 

The government doesn't always tell the truth about it's goals.  The government is not your friend.