"Charles Angelich" wrote to "Matt Mc_carthy" (30 Dec 02
 02:44:06)
 --- on the topic of "Word Trade Center"

 MM> Ahhh! Viet Nam, the leftovers of WWII when President
 MM> Roosevelt closed the books on WWII prematurely, just as the
 MM> Gulf War was closed prematurely by the elder President Bush.

 CA> Yes, it did seem the Gulf War ended abruptly with no resolution
 CA> of any of the issues that initiated it.

I recently had an insight into the reasons why the war ended so
abruptly. Perhaps it may be my mistaken understanding however.
The reason is simply because of Turkey. If you remember the USA had
encouraged the northern Kurds to revolt but then when the time came the
USA did not lift a finger to help. Turns out that Turkey had been afraid
that if Iraq's northern Kurds had created an independent state that
the Turkish majority Kurd provinces would have likely joined.
 AND
Since the USA cherishes its airforce bases in Turkey, it isn't
inconceivable that the USA had to make a deal with the devil to keep
those bases. Hence about 150,000 northern Kurds in Iraq were gassed and
massacred by Saddam Hussein. Not entirely the USA's fault but it isn't
entirely blameless either. In pragmatic terms, the USA needed Hussein to
keep the factions in Iraq under control, thus the war was stopped short
of Baghdad. I could be wrong...

 Mike
 ****

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