The vaunted coalition that George H.W. Bush put together was not due to last very long as it was limited in scope to strictly the liberation of Kuwait. There was no “New World Order” and frankly making alliances with nations such as Syria, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia is loaded with danger. Foolishly, we allowed Saddam to survive and we are paying the price for that today.
by Arthur Herman
Twenty years ago today, ground operations in Operation Desert Storm came to a halt. American arms had won their most dazzling success in two generations, perhaps ever.
After five weeks of round-the-clock air strikes, forces under Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf shattered Saddam Hussein’s army, the biggest and most heavily armed in the Middle East, in just five days. The victorious 34-nation coalition lost only 392 killed, 294 of them Americans. Saddam had been driven from Kuwait; his regime teetered on collapse. A bright, new, world order seemed in the offing.
But two decades later we can see how many Americans, including our leaders, drew the wrong lessons from Desert Storm — creating myths that haunt us to this day.
One myth is that Desert Storm was the “good war” in which America and the world drew together to defeat a tyrant, compared to the deep divisions over the more recent Iraq war.
In fact, resolutions authorizing military action in Kuwait faced fierce opposition from the likes of then-Speaker Dick Gephardt, future Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Chuck Schumer and then-Sen. Joe Biden, and passed the House and Senate by inches. The first President George Bush went ahead despite the nay-sayers and prophets of doom and the thousands of protesters chanting “no blood for oil” — essentially the same folks who’d later brand his son a liar and war criminal.
A similar myth hovers over that amazing coalition, with not just the Brits and Aussies but also France (which sent 18,000 troops) and Greece and Pakistan, not to mention Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Its success bred the notion that the rightness of US military action rests on the number of nations willing to support it.
In fact, that coalition was a one-time event. There was no new world order, only an American president taking bold action and other countries calculating it was in their best interest to go along.
Plus, pressure from that same coalition helped to cut the campaign short and left Saddam in power — a gross mistake that would give Iraq’s dictator more than a decade to rebuild his power base, at brutal cost to the Iraqi people, before the United States under George W. Bush returned to complete the job. That is, it was thanks to that vaunted coalition that Americans threw away the advantages gained in the most successful military campaign any of them had ever witnessed.
And that was the other problem. Night after night, we saw videos of precision-guided smart bombs blowing up Iraqi positions with breathtaking accuracy. Smart weapons go back to Vietnam, but in Desert Storm they were 74 percent of all bombs dropped. Together with Stealth bombers and the new GPS guidance systems, they made war seem a clean, bloodless video game.
As we’ve learned since, most if not all wars aren’t like that. Grinding and violent, they require boots on the ground, boots from tough hardened units like Marines and airborne. They require men ready to charge a position and take it fighting room to room, bayonet to bayonet — as Marines did in Fallujah in 2004.
Wars also require a moral commitment to victory, a stoic endurance and patience at home as well as abroad. Desert Storm made the burden seem easy; when the Iraq campaign failed to be a rerun of 1991, many Americans asked for their ticket-money back. What they needed instead was a dose of sober realism about what our military could do after years of Clinton budget cuts, and how long it would take.
Desert Storm was the last hurrah of a military fed on Cold War budgets. It wasn’t GPS or smart bombs that destroyed Saddam’s military but old-fashioned planes and tanks and training — training that enabled our tank crews to shoot faster than the Iraqi automatic loaders.
[...]
Read the rest: Debunking the myths of Desert Storm
Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama by their mishandling of the North African crisis as well as their poor treatment of old friends and allies shows that they are both out of their league. Neither one was prepared to take that 3:00 AM phone calls. Yes the White House and Foggy Bottom are staffed by blithering incompetents who see the world the way it ought to be rather then as it really is.
by Michael A. Walsh
Remember the ad Hillary Clinton ran against Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign?
“It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep,” it began. “But there’s a phone in the White House and it’s ringing. Something’s happening in the world.
“Your vote will decide who answers that call. Whether it’s someone who already knows the world’s leaders, knows the military, someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world . . . Who do you want answering the phone?”
Now we know the answer: neither of the above.
Since the winds — and fires — of change began to sweep North Africa two months ago, first in Tunisia, then in Egypt and now in Libya, the Obama administration has distinguished itself by its utter ineptitude in dealing with what is both a crisis and a historic opportunity to change the governments and the culture of the Arab world.
The intelligence community failed to see the revolutions coming. The president adopted a strangely dispassionate, disinterested stance — hanging his spokesmen, both in the White House and at the State Department, out to dry.
“The president puts out statements on paper sometimes,” said new White House Press Secretary Jay Carney last week, in reply to a reporter’s question about what was taking Obama so long to weigh in on Libya. Carney also blamed a “scheduling issue” for the lack of a rapid response.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton – “someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world” — came off like she’d literally woken up at 3 a.m. and stumbled out to face the cameras armed only with a mouthful of platitudes. Sounding more like a grief counselor than secretary of state, she said:
“The world is watching the situation in Libya with alarm. We join the international community in strongly condemning the violence in Libya. Our thoughts and prayers are with those whose lives have been lost, and with their loved ones . . . We are working urgently with friends and partners around the world to convey this message to the Libyan government.”
The Maria Dolores, a US chartered ferry hired to evacuate American citizens from Tripoli to Malta, was too small to sail in rough seas and had to delay its departure. To add insult to injury, the White House even misspelled the name of the country as “Lybia” on Twitter.
And UN ambassador Susan Rice? She blew off a Security Council meeting on the Libyan crisis in order to attend a UN panel discussion on “global sustainability” in South Africa. The Roxy had better amateur nights than this.
Once again, President “Present” has signally failed to lead, preferring instead to hide behind a fog of “consultations with allies.” True, on Saturday he finally — in a phone call to German Chancellor Angela Merkel – called for Khadafy to step down, and also took diplomatic action against the beleaguered regime, issuing an executive order that blocks property and other transactions.
Insiders say that Obama hesitated to take a public stand against the doomed dictator for fear that US diplomats might be taken hostage. But a great power can’t conduct a robust foreign policy in fear; that way lies the path of Jimmy Carter, whom Obama is coming more and more to resemble. As Christopher Hitchens pointed out recently, America is starting to look like Switzerland in its international irrelevance. Is that what Obama meant by “fundamental change”?
[...]
Read the rest here: Untested and Unready
Tags: Arthur Herman, Michael A. Walsh
This whole administration is a bunch of incompetent boobs. And FIRST!
Lt. for Life, Democrat Party leader, U.S. Senator John F. Kerry sits in our U.S. Senate, proven, liar, fraud awards and citations in a combat zone, false swearing under oath before the U.S. Senate, traitor who work with the NVA and VC while still in the U.S. Navy Reserves.
Until he and others like him sit in the dock for a full Captains Mast for his and their crimes the treson will go on.
Fix what is wrong within.
The “coalition” that was cobbled together for Desert Storm was mostly a PR move, anyway, just like the ones for OIF and OEF.
The bulk of the fighting was done by the US.
The Arab forces, in particular, had to be kept segregated away from our units, because they were equipped with the same Soviet-built hardware the Iraqis had. There’s no way to tell an Egyptian T-72 from an Iraqi one through a thermal sight…
20 years,whoa! I remember watching the fireworks commence on CNN live.
Yes,a damned shame we were not permitted to finish the job right then and there. Who the he11 would have stopped us.
@ vagabond trader:
I had the bizarre experience of sitting in a foxhole in the desert, listening to the audio feed from Nightline over AFN radio the first night of the air war.
Without that, we wouldn’t have known what was going on.
@ lobo91:
Yeah, America always does the heavy lifting.
@ lobo91:
That must’ve been surreal. You guys and gals done good.
lobo91 wrote:
True although the British were there by our side as well.
I always thought that Bush called off the ground assault too soon. We should have totally annihilated the so called “elite” Republican Guard.
vagabond trader wrote:
I also remember the morning of the cease-fire. It went into effect at 6 am. We’d been moving all night, and at 6, we just stopped and pulled over on the side of the road. Someone got out a Coleman stove and started heating water to make coffee.
And several of us had the same thought: “We’re going to end up coming back to finish this in a few years.”
Neither Hillary or Obama is prepared for the 3:00 A.M. call. The events of the past two years has clearly made that manifest.
But but but,that was the war Osama bin Laden got upset about and we should never have been there in the holy kingdom of Saudi Arabia.So 9/11 was the fault of GW and his son. War for oil and Haliburton!///
vagabond trader wrote:
That camel ****er gets upset at just about anything.
Israel made a huge mistake by taking the Scud attacks. She should’ve sent some Jericho missiles into the heart of Baghdad. The Arabs viewed the Israeli restraint naturally as a sign of weakness.
@ vagabond trader:
Speaking of oil, where is the oil we supposedly went to war for?
My fat cat is more competent than Hil and Hussein put together.What a frightening duo to be holding so much power at such a point in our history. I cannot recall a worse bunch of nincompoops.Maybe Carter?
In reaction to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and to Operation Desert Storm, this is what the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Ibn Baz, wrote…
Muslims should also fight the Kafirs (disbeliever) other than the Jews, if possible, to let them enter into the religion of Allah in multitudes or pay the Jizyah (poll tax required from non-Muslims living in an Islamic state). Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) says: And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allâh) and (all and every kind of) worship is for Allâh (Alone). Allah (Glorified be He) also says: Fight against those who (1) believe not in Allâh, (2) nor in the Last Day, (3) nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allâh and His Messenger Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم) (4) and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth (i.e. Islâm) among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians), until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. Muslims should fight all the Kafirs, until the religion, all of it, is for Allah, except for whoever pays the Jizyah…Allah (Glorified be He) says: (So keep your duty to Allâh and fear Him as much as you can)…
[T]he Communists and Ba`thists are worse in disbelief than the People of the Book, may Allah save Muslims from their evil!
The French committed 18,000 tropps. None of them fought.
@ Speranza:
Yes,I was ticked off when Israel agreed to show restraint in order for the coalition to hold. As if we needed those ragtag camel thumpers to annihilate Saddams vaunted military,who surrendered to the press for crying out loud.
@ vagabond trader:
Although Carter made some bad decisions, he at least tried to do things.
This bunch seems to be paralyzed into inaction when it comes to foreign affairs.
@ lobo91:
Agreed, and I actually don’t believe he hated America back then. Misunderstood her,yes,but not the snickering hatred these commies so blatantly display on a daily basis. Not nearly as corrupt either.
The French Defense Minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement turned out to have too many Arab connections and was sabotaging the coalition. Thankfully he was replaced right before the war began. The French tried to act as if they were independent of everyone else. Not the most cooperative of allies -- to say the least.
vagabond trader wrote:
Israel did not need to attack Iraq by the air, she had/has long range missiles of her own.
Mike C. wrote:
Gaul has certainly fallen since the days of Vercingetorix…
@ Speranza:
Now theres a shocker. The French acting in an arrogant above their pay grade manner?
lobo91 wrote:
This country would’ve been in better shape had Carter (and Obama now) just sat on his ass and did nothing. These POTUS’s who have this moralistic crusading vigor cause more trouble (think LBJ) then it is worth.
A liberal friend said that Obama had to do something for the economy. I said I would rather he had done nothing because the genius of capitalism is that it eventually corrects itself, rather then him doing what he eventually did with his stimulus plan which stimulating nothing but the national debt.
@ Speranza:
Israel should have been allowed to get in a few punches,without a doubt. Again,what was going to stop her,a UN resolution?
I just love that the Libyan protesters are marking images of Gaddafi with Stars of David! That rapacious Zionist, Gaddafi, that wicked Jooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo who bankrolled the Black September terrorists who carried out the Munich massacre in 1972!
vagabond trader wrote:
It speaks more of French national insecurity combined with an insufferable national pride that they feel compelled to do that.
@ Philip_Daniel:
You mean those are not Jeffersonian democrats out there? Shocked!
@ Philip_Daniel:
Critical thinking isn’t their strong suit, that’s for sure.
Mike C. wrote:
Why would they?
They don’t want to spoil their reputation.
@ Philip_Daniel:
Where would these seething mobs be without the Zionist Entity™ ?
vagabond trader wrote:
The US (actually the odious James Baker) refused to give them the IFF (Identification Friend/Foe) codes so there would be a real risk of dog fights between Israeli and Coalition fighter planes and that would have been unthinkable.
@ Speranza:
They need to ignite that pride right quick and drive their muzz invaders out of France before its too late. Then again,it probably is. Degenerates.
Philip_Daniel wrote:
The average French soldier over the past 200 years or so has always been a brave, tough soldier -- the problem has been ossified political and/or military leadership.
Speranza wrote:
Well, it’s North Africa, so there’s at least one way they’re like Jefferson…
@ Speranza:
Yeah,I recall that. James Baker. spit**spit.
vagabond trader wrote:
They are addicted to the concept of joie de vivre and are not into the sacrifices and struggles that that would entail. While you’re at it -- pass me another croissant and a cafe au lait Madamoiselle Marie!
vagabond trader wrote:
You know, just today I drank a bottle of vintage Palestinian blood. Yum!
I have no liberal friend, I do not see those who are of the Democrat Party.
Turn away, shun them, hold the center.
Secure the borders.
Gain strength for the fight to come.
Philip_Daniel wrote:
Probably supplied by the Zionist sharks which were terrorizing swimmers off of Sharm el Sheik.
@ Speranza:
@ Philip_Daniel:
Oh yes,thanks for the reminder,must pick up my special order of Pesach matzo. Umm umm umm. From Israel,secret ingredients.
The mob can not read, so they use these simple things to fan the hate. The only history they know is what the mullas yell at them in the mosque and such.@ Philip_Daniel:
lobo91 wrote:
But they will move heaven and earth to tear down our country. The they feed us sh1t and tell us its pudding.
18th anniversary passed this weekend of the first WTC bombing. Please call to protest the glorification of this treasonous creature.
@ vagabond trader:
Think I said that on a previous thread…
Some people just need killing…
Disclaimer:
Not advocating that someone go and do this vile piece of crap any harm.
There, now the lawyers are happy…
@ vagabond trader:
Disgusting.
@ MikeA:
Sorry,didn’t see it,the more who call the better.
@ vagabond trader:
Sorry, Didn’t have your link… I just said the same thing about some other vile POS who needed the same thing done to them. Some designer who thought jews needed to be killed.
@ citizen_q:
There go my plans for desert tonite. We’ll still enjoy the bison London Broil tho.
@ MikeA:
Oh yes,the drunken scrunt who thinks people give a flying flip what he thinks. lol.
@ vagabond trader:
Speaking of treasonous swine, did you see the story about ted kennedy a of entries down?
@ taxfreekiller:
Yeah me either. If I do, they’re the quite type and keep it to themselves.
That’d be their best bet around here, lol!
Nice!
Pro-Life Flash Mob in Chicago Surprises “Walk for Choice”
((as an aside, the “Walk for Choice” wasn’t walking for choice… they were walking for a bill to make the taxpayers pay for their choices. *spit*))
@ citizen_q:
omg,behold, heroes of the modern liberal. Sick sick sick.
vagabond trader wrote:
Oh God I remember that day very well. It was a Friday.
Bill Clinton -- in office a little more then a month, never even visited the WTC.
I guess the perpetrators were just guys angry at Hillary’s health care bill (even though she had not yet been appointed to do one). //
Who is uglier -- Lynne Stewart (who needs a shave by the way) or Helen Thomas?
@ lobo91:
That turned out to be the case.
@ Speranza:
Inside and out they’re running neck to ugly ass neck.
@ Speranza:
The muzzies probably thought she was one of the goats they were used to…
With her, a burqa would be a good thing.
Rodan wrote:
We just underestimated the time frame.
Mike C. wrote:
Not sure about their ground forces, but their Air Force did fly air missions
Speranza wrote:
But we have to support them! They are fighting for Democracy!
/
Speranza wrote:
Today’s Democrats aren’t, either…
Rodan wrote:
The right to vote in the tyranny of their choice.
@ lobo91:
I do remember some troops who came back and participated in the victory parade in NYC. Some interviewed said, We’ll probably have to go back.
m wrote:
Most hard core lefties tend to be ugly. Just sayin’
@ lobo91:
Yeah the Modern Democratic Party is a coalition of Wall Street Hedge Fund Managers, Public Sector Unions, Hollywood, Black Nationalists, Brainwashed Hispanics, Radical Leftists, College Professors and Islamists.
What grand alliance!
@ Speranza:
They both give lipstick lesbians a bad name.
Check this out.
Nevergiveup wrote:
the french had 18th airborne corp’s left flank…armor and FFL were involved in combat
coldwarrior wrote:
Thanks
@ Rodan:
Funny how the AGW crowd never acknowledges that fact about their models…
This might already have been covered. It is from Michelle
Malkin yesterday.
Tobin was punched by a union goon. Imagine if a CNN or
MSNBC reporter was even threatened at a Tea Party.
@ lobo91:
check yinz’s emial
@ lobo91:
They never factor reality into their models.
RIX wrote:
Yup, and it is a non-story other than FOX. The MSM should be embarrassed how in the bag they are
@ Nevergiveup:
These Union thugs are vicious.
Rodan wrote:
Brain washed morons
Rodan wrote:
reality doesn’t write/fund grant money…
Nevergiveup wrote:
And it’s going to get worse…
Susan Rice speaking on FOX
coldwarrior wrote:
I saw it already.
Thanks.
The UN is indespensable?
@ Nevergiveup:
You would think that journalistic professionalism
would make them rally to a colleague.
I guess that there is no longer even a pretense
to integrity.
Speranza wrote:
Lynne Stewart, because I don’t wish to be perceived as being racist against brown-skinned Arabs like Helen Thomas…
Gee I never knew the UN was so important??????
//////////
Nevergiveup wrote:
It is to her.
Walmart probably isn’t hiring…
Nevergiveup wrote:
NO!!!
Shitcan it now!!
US out of the UN
UN out of the US
@ Nevergiveup:
More like indefensible…
New DOD.
More Stand Up Comedy by Ludwig
@ Philip_Daniel:
Even though Helen Thomas is actually Greek!
@ Nevergiveup:
If I was younger I would’ve actually went to Madison with some of my old friends and confront these Union Thugs..
New DOD!
More Stand Up Comedy by Ludwig
@ Rodan:
Yes, Helen Antonius. Pasty white (whitest woman I ever did see) “Arab” member of the Greek Orthodox Church who tells all Israeli Jooooooooooooooooooos to return to Scandinavia and the Baltic Sea! All you Joooooooooooooooooos from Bukhara and Gujarat and Yemen and Georgia and the Kabylie and Ethiopia and Syria and Baluchistan, go back to Estonia and the Lappland and Iceland, you fake-Semites, you Khazars, you Nazis, you!
What a riot!
Rodan wrote:
Well if I were younger, and I knew what I know now, well there are other places I’d be!
Iran: London 2012 logo ‘racist’
Islamic Republic says Olympic Games emblem spells word ‘Zion’, accuses British organizers of indulging in racism
Ya know something, Iran is right. Pretty funny
Nevergiveup wrote:
That whole nation needs a psychiatrist.
So is it wet and grey where everyone else is or is it just like that here???
Rodan wrote:
Lewdy never fails to deliver the laughs.
He is a real laugh machine.
Billions will die!
NoThreat2U wrote:
Wet and gray symbolizes The Age of Obama.
NoThreat2U wrote:
It’s 25°F and sunny, very nice for the last day of February.
@ Speranza:
Now that is just too depressing. lol
Nevergiveup wrote:
“Safe sex” as the liberal mantra goes.
NoThreat2U wrote:
Sunny and 82 down here!
NoThreat2U wrote:
It’s 54 and sunny here.
NoThreat2U wrote:
On Monday’s I get into symbolism for some reason.
Rodan wrote:
God, I’m glad that he came back. Life is just more
fun when Ludwig posts.
@ Rodan:
Yeah rub it in. lol lol It is starting to get cold now. I have huge branches all through the backyard. The house next door…I have their downspouts in my yard. It is a mess out there. ANd yesterday was so nice.
RIX wrote:
He is quite the Village Idiot.
@ NoThreat2U:
I don’t know what my yard looks like, it’s still under a couple of feet of snow.
Ahem.
About 4,000 Canadian Forces personnel participated in the Gulf War, with a peak of 2,700 personnel in the Persian Gulf region. In addition to ships in the Persian Gulf (Operation FRICTION), a sizeable Canadian Air Task Group was deployed to Doha, Quatar with the joint Headquarters, in Manamah, Bahrain. This force provided combat air patrols, air transport and air-to-air refuelling missions, and Canadian CF-18 aircraft completed 56 bombing sorties against Iraqi forces.
@ NoThreat2U:
Dank dreary depressing dismal and downright icy here in southern New England. Hubby took a flyer on the driveway twice. One more time and he is going to the nursing home.
vagabond trader wrote:
You guys have all the fun. We just get green jello and funeral potatoes.
@ Bureaucat:
You ain’t lived til you’ve had my matzo and eggs fried in schmaltz. Even the Italian hasbund like it.
Speranza wrote:
Massive cultural personality disorders using Mohammed as the perfect man would not respond to therapy, medication, or a rubber room.
@ Speranza:
But NOT the Village Idiot’s Apprentice. That a total different person, and one who just retired from the USN.
vagabond trader wrote:
The weather here sucks AND blows.
@ Da_Beerfreak:
At least the snow keeps it bright outside. This rain is just making everything so dreary.
@ vagabond trader:
With the temps dropping this will probably all turn to ice.
@ yenta-fada:
They all could use a good dose of that mystery anesthetic gas the Russians used to end the theater terror attack in Moscow a few years back.Unfortunately it killed many of the hostages.
vagabond trader wrote:
Muslims obviously prefer to murder Infidels, but, in a pinch, they kill each other off without a problem./
@ Nevergiveup:
Could be I am just that tired, but I don’t see it.
Perhaps if you are used to looking for Joooooos behind every boxthorn tree…. I am thinking it is manifestation of the general psychosis that is islam. Like that bad trip Hunter Thompson described in Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas where police officers in the police convention he was covering turned into lizards……..
@ Speranza:
He is all of that & it is even funnier because
he sees himself as an intellectual. He is full
blown Charlie Sheen crazy, but entertaining.
Civility!
@ vagabond trader:
Kolokol-1:
fentanyl dissolved in halothane solvent…aerosolized opiod
@ citizen_q:
i love that movie.
@ coldwarrior:
Oh, I forgot they made the book into a move. Was it called Where the Buffalo Roam?
Sad thing is I did see the movie in the theater. I guess the book made more of an impact on me.
citizen_q wrote:
where the buffalo roam was a romp through several of hst’s escapades.
fear and loathing was just done as the book fear and loathing…terry gilliam nailed it tho.
RIX wrote:
I think Sheen is going to be interviewed tonight or tomorrow on one of the networks. The selfish bastard cost many people on that show who do not make the salary that he does plenty of money.