Ah, good ol' &TOTSE. I haven't been there in a long time...
But I find interesting the segment which goes:
'We have no opinion on your Arab - Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960Õs, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America.Ó (Saddam smiles)'
I would like a copy from a more authoritative source, but it does explain a bit, like why an ally would precipately invade when the US ostensibly was so dead set on protecting Kuwait that it would go to war.
And does it really matter that technically 'was the first invasion and
> absorption of a second country since WWII'? Seems a pretty worthless distinction.
~Maru
Robert J. Chassell wrote:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote,
I remember reading a long time ago that Saddam had quietly informed the White House before the Kuwait invasion, and taken the official silence as tacit consent. Any truth to this?
According to a partial transcript at
http://www.totse.com/en/conspiracy/the_new_world_order/glaspie.html
U.S. Ambassador Glaspie said the following to Saddam Hussein on 25 July 1990, referring to a possible forthcoming invasion:
Normally that would be none of our business, but when this happens in the context of your threats against Kuwait, then it would be reasonable for us to be concerned.
I cannot find the full transcript that I cut out of the New York Times in the fall of 1990, a transcript that the NYT said was the Iraqi version. If my memory serves me rightly, there were slight differences in the wording between that version and this. In particular, in the NYT version the `but' begins a new sentence. But as I remember, this is a fair restatement of what the NYT said was the Iraqi version.
The critical point is that almost all quotations I see in the US media quote only the part that says
... that would be none of our business ...
which does suggest a `green light'.
Incidentally, the latter part of the Web page I quoted records a journalist as saying or asking Glaspie that `America green-lighted the invasion.'
As far as I can see, since the US did not have a treaty with Kuwait, Glaspie could not say any more than she did, which was that
... it would be reasonable for us to be concerned.
In any event, she was blamed by the US government as well as by others for the invasion.
You will note that the invasion of Kuwait was the first invasion and absorption of a second country since WWII. (Kuwait was recognized by the UN as a sovereign country. It was not a `protocol state' like the Koreas or Vietnams. Other invasions and occupations between 1945 and 1990 either were civil wars in the international legal sense or else did not involve annexation.)
Also, I have heard it said that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was the person who persuaded US President Bush to support the UN.
_______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
