• OneCardboardBox@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      It was pretty avoidable if US diplomats had told Hussein that America would intervene if he invaded Kuwait. Instead, April Glaspie told him:

      We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Glaspie#Meetings_with_Saddam_Hussein

      This meeting took place a week before the invasion.

        • OneCardboardBox@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 year ago

          No, but if America told Iraq not to fuck with Kuwait, then they might never have invaded at all. Then Saddam wouldn’t have attacked the Kurds for helping us during the invasion.

          Not to mention how we bravely stood by and let him use mustard gas on Kurdish civilians after they helped us.

          We might have avoided a lot of death and destruction by being more assertive before the invasion started. I don’t think it’s as simple as calling our intervention based if our mishandled foreign policy caused the invasion to happen in the first place. Like, yeah it was good that we did one thing right, but we did things wrong that made the situation bad in the first place.

          • SaakoPaahtaa@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            So the USA was imperialist for…

            NOT telling other countries they’re gonna attack under certain circumstances?

            Please

            • OneCardboardBox@lemmy.sdf.org
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              1 year ago

              Where did I even say America was imperialist? This isn’t hexbear. Nuance is allowed.

              Giving Saddam the idea that invading Kuwait was OK is absolutely a mistake. Independent of any other fact.