Selwyn Lloyd - Michael Moore TV - Ian R Crane - truthseeking online - James Burke TV - Peter and Dan Snow TV - Noam Chomsky - Fires of Kuwait 1992 - Lessons of Darkness 1992 - Our World: Silicon Valley’s Online Slave Market TV -
(a) to ensure free access for Britain and other Western countries to oil produced in States bordering the Gulf; (b) to ensure the continued availability of that oil on favourable terms and for sterling; and to maintain suitable arrangements for the investment of the surplus revenues of Kuwait; (c) to bar the spread of Communism and pseudo-Communism in the area and subsequently beyond; and, as a pre-condition of this, to defend the area against the brand of Arab nationalism under cover of which the Soviet Government at present prefers to advance. Selwyn Lloyd, foreign secretary, telegram to prime minister
1990: Iraq invades Kuwait with weapons from the US. Michael Moore, Bowling for Columbine, 2002
1991: US enters Iraq. Bush reinstates dictator of Kuwait. ibid.
The oil fires in Kuwait at the end of the Gulf War were not actually set alight by the retreating Iraqi troops; they were set alight by the American special forces. Ian R Crane, radio interview
The Kuwait oil fires were started by the US Special Forces. Why? Who do you think was going to get all the money for putting them out? $7 billion paid for by the Emir of Kuwait. How do I know this? Because I was in Iraq two days after the end of hostilities; I was driving around the oil fields in the south of the country with a military escort ... and there were bodies of Iraqi soldiers around many of the wells. I mean, it was very obvious; they’d been defending the oil wells. It was the American Special Forces that had started the fires. Ian R Crane, lecture Liverpool 2008, ‘New World Order’
At the time the oil industry was in a bit of a recession. So this provided $7 billion’ worth of work for the US oil industry. It also meant that the Kuwaiti oil was kept off the market. And what a lot of people don’t realise is that the whole charade over Iraq for the last almost twenty years now has been about keeping Iraqi oil in the ground. All this myth that is put out about Peak Oil is for the gullible. Ian R Crane, interview Ross Hemsworth, Now That’s Weird!
During the past six years, the American Gulf War Veterans Association has received numerous reports from veterans stating that US forces – including Navy Seals, Marine Force Recon and Delta Force – were responsible for the setting of the oil well fires at the end of the Gulf War. truthseeking online article
Kuwait represents the immense power of technology used in a way most of us has never experienced ... Kuwait has suddenly become like New York, totally dependent on that technology. James Burke, Connections s1e1: The Trigger Effect, BBC 1978
In 1991 the small Arab state of Kuwait was at the centre of the last major war of the 20th Century. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had invaded Kuwait, putting nearly half the world’s oil within his reach. Virtually everyone agreed: he had to be stopped. Peter and Dan Snow 20th Century Battlefields s1e8: 1991 Gulf War, BBC 2013
In the early hours of August 2nd 1990, Iraq’s army shocked the world by invading its neighbour Kuwait. ibid.
One of the biggest deployments of troops since World War II was underway. ibid.
Operation Desert Storm had begun. ibid.
Prior to Hussein’s attack on Kuwait the Bush Administration and its predecessors treated this murderous thug as an amiable friend, encouraging trade with his regime and credits to enable it to purchase US goods. Before that, Washington had supported his invasion of Iran. Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy
Now that the US victory in the Gulf has been secured, jingoist rhetoric has subsided, and it is possible to survey just what happened in the misnamed ‘Gulf War’ – misnamed, because there never was a war, at least, if the concept involves two sides in combat. That didn’t happen in the Gulf. ibid.
The crisis began with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which left hundreds killed according to human rights groups. That hardly qualifies as war. Rather, in terms of crimes against peace and against humanity, it falls roughly into the category of the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1978, or the US invasion of Panama. In these terms it falls well short of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and cannot remotely be compared with the near-genocidal Indonesian conquest of East Timor, to mention only two cases of aggression and atrocities that continue with the decisive support of those who most passionately professed their outrage over Iraq’s invasion. ibid.
In brief, from August 1990 there was little that could qualify as ‘war’. Rather, there was a brutal Iraqi takeover of Kuwait, followed by various forms of slaughter and state terrorism, the scale corresponding roughly to the means of violence in the hands of the perpetrators, and their impunity. ibid.
Kuwaiti democrats too discovered that Bush would lend them no support. ibid.
In the summer of 1990 eastern Kuwait was shattered by the expansionist plans of the neighbour Iraq. On August 2nd Saddam Hussein sent 100,000 troops across the border announcing that Kuwait had ceased to exist. Fires of Kuwait, 1992
‘This will not stand … this aggression against Kuwait.’ ibid. George H W Bush
The United States led a 32-nation coalition against Iraq in Operation Desert Storm. ibid.
Saddam ordered the detonation of almost 700 oil wells. ibid.
5,000,000 barrels a day going up in clouds of poisonous clouds and soot. If left alone the fires could burn for 100 years. ibid.
The direction of the wind is the key to the assault on the fires. ibid.
Every fire has its own personality and requires its own approach. ibid.
You’re trusting your life to the men around you. ibid.
The war lasted only a few hours. Then everything was different. Lessons of Darkness, 1992
We can only see traces of human beings who lived here. ibid.
Everything that looks like water is actually oil: ponds and lakes scattered throughout the land. ibid.
‘This child has not spoken since then.’ ibid. mother
In the Gulf, women employed as domestic workers are being sold on apps provided by Apple and Google. It’s been called an online slave market. Our World: Silicon Valley’s Online Slave Market, BBC 2019
There are more than 700,000 domestic workers in Kuwait. ibid.
The seller sends us the passport of the 16-year-old girl. ibid.