NOTE:
This subject on world challenges is spread across five pages. This is page 1 on the subject.
This is 21st Century!
It is not 1955!
It is 2009, 2010, or 20xx depending
on when you read this web page and we find ourselves fighting two wars. Hopefully, they are over when you
read this.
The beginning of the end of the cold war began with Mikhail Gorbachev when
he came to power in 1985. As the new leader, he decided to loosen the repression on liberties that the
old governments had used to keep their people in line. The leaders found they could no longer control the
desires of the people in the Iron Curtin countries. Liberty became the fashion in the East. Thus
the end of the Soviet Union.
With the cold war
over, terrorism seemed to be on the rise. The United States began to turn its attention to the Middle East.
On August 2, 1990 Saddam
Hussein attacked Kuwait.
In January, 1991 the United
States began Operation Desert Storm to push Saddam out of Kuwait.
On February 24, 1991 the main coalition forces invaded Iraq and in four days expelled Saddam from Kuwait.
Obviously, this was totally justified but more important, was the way it was done.
President George H.W. Bush spent months establishing a coalition force in association
with the United Nations. He obtained the support of 34 nations with the expressed
purpose of expelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait. The following is a list of those supporting countries.
| | Number of | | Number of |
| Country | Personnel | Country | Personnel |
| United States | 575,000
–725,000 | Netherlands | 700 |
| Saudi Arabia | 52,000
- 100,000 | Niger | 600 |
| United Kingdom | 43,000
- 45,400 | Sweden | 525 |
| Egypt | 33,600
- 35,000 | Senegal | 500 |
| France | 18,000 | Spain | 3500 |
| Syria | 14,500 | Bahrain | 400 |
| Morocco | 13,000 | Belgium | 400 |
| Kuwait | 9,900 | Poland | 319 |
| Oman | 6,300 | South Korea | 314 |
| Pakistan | 4,900 -
5,500 | Czechoslovakia | 200 |
| United Arab Emirates | 4,300 | Greece | 200 |
| Canada | 2,700 | Denmark | 100 |
| Qatar | 2,600 | New Zealand | 100 |
| Bangladesh | 2,200 | Hungary | 50 |
| Italy | 1,200 | Norway | 50 |
| Australia | 700 | | |
The important point here is how President George HW Bush did this!
It is well known, the elder President Bush was an experienced diplomat; he knew how to obtain the support of other
countries.
The next president was
Bill Clinton. His term as president was somewhat free of significant wars and military operations.
The exceptions were the 1995 attack by NATO aircraft against
Bosnian Serb targets to halt attacks on UN safe zones. The next event was in 1999 when American aircraft were used in
Kosovo to stop the ethnic cleansing of Albanians. During the period in 1988, from December 16 to December 19, Clinton
launched a four-day bombing campaign against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to weaken Saddam’s grip of power.
The hope was to encourage an insurrection in Iraq.
This was a mistake because to anyone who attempted this insurrection, there was no following support.
Any attempts at insurrection were crushed!
During the last two years of Clinton’s
Administration, U.S. aircraft routinely attacked hostile Iraqi anti-air installations and Iraqi aircraft
inside the Iraqi no-fly zones.
Then along came George W. Bush and the era
of “macho diplomacy” which is no diplomacy at all! We all remember “bring
it on”.
