[extropy-chat] Re: US not right to invade say Iraqis

[John K Clark]

"Samantha Atkins" <sjatkins at mac.com>

 > The point was that Kuwait was stealing Iraqi oil.

Saddam said that, but I have some doubt it's true. Just between you and me
I'm beginning to suspect that sometimes Saddam shades the truth just a
teeny tiny bit.  Kuwait has plenty of oil and it's hard to understand why
they'd need to steal it from somebody much stronger than they are, but
it's irrelevant even if true.

 > Saddam asked us if we had any problem with the action he
> proposed to take.  we said "no".

I've heard conflicting stories about that, but again, for what I was
discussing the incompetent nature of American diplomacy is irrelevant.

 > Then we proceeded to pretend to be surprise

Oh I don't think we needed to pretend very hard.

> and to outright  lie about the size of force involved and Saddam's
> intentions.

Why would we need to lie about Saddam's intentions? Nobody needed to come to
us to know what Saddam's intentions were, they were obvious from his
actions, his soldiers occupied Kuwait in a matter of hours. Saudi Arabia
would rather eat ground glass than let American soldiers on their land but
they did it anyway because they knew they were next on Saddam's hit list and
he had the fourth largest army on Earth; they could never stop him alone.

 > he had no intentions to rule either country .

What on earth are you babbling about?! The man was already ruling one of
them!

> What would he gain by such an attempt

I suppose he did it for the same reason another dictator thought invading
Poland was a good idea.

  John K Clark