The Desert Storm
The Desert storm and the Vietnam War will remain in history as the remarkable wars of the 20th century. Both wars were based on the fact of revolution or limiting an authoritarian rule over a country or the citizens although other factors may have been involved. Despite all this, the actual ideologies behind the wars remain unknown and the justifications not well convincing to the political class as well as the public.
In the wake of the Vietnam War, the Americans had to device a theory that they had to use to start involving them selves in the war. The 1950’s “Domino Theory” stated that “if the South Vietnam falls to the Communist, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, India, and Pakistan would also fall like the Dominos. The Pacific Island as well as Australia could be at risk” (learnhiostory. ). This was the justification theory that led to the Americans involvement in a war that involved the North and South Vietnam.
On the other hand, the Desert storm of the early 90’s was seemingly fought due to the Iraqi’s invasion of Kuwait. “Although the Iraqi war was as a result of Iraqi’s invasion of Kuwaiti in 1990, it seemed like a rout for U.S and allies at that time to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Baghdad. The war started in July 1990 when Iraqi threatened to invade Kuwaiti as the later had dropped the oil prices leading to high lose in Iraqi” (Bernard, 1991). This was the main cause of the Desert Storm operation which as per the reasons given above was very justified. After the invasion of Kuwait ended with the help of the UN forces, we expected the war to be over. Several years later the war is still ranging and the justification that we received according to American President G. W. Bush was that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that posed serious threats to the whole world. Note that the weapons were never recovered and then the reason shifted to “the people of Iraq are now free from the Saddam dictatorial regime”
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(Bernard, 1991). With all these reasons and justifications the reason for the Desert storm has never been clear and it continues up to date although assumed to have ended 16 years ago.
The government of U.S. was also to blame for the Vietnam War because it directly interfered with a independent election process in that nation. “The U.S prevented the elections that were promised under Geneva conference because it knew that the communists would win. Vietnamese Buddhist monks protested against American involvement by self immolation” (learnhiostory). This is a clear indication to the interference of political decisions and the people’s displeasure to those decisions. This was part of the reasons that would later cause the Vietnam War.
It should remember that in both cases America had previously given full support to the regimes before advancing war on the same regime later. The U.S government handed a lot of financial support to the Diem’s regime in Vietnam as they were in support of capitalism to help and defeat the counter parts that were supporting the communism ideologies. Later, President Johnson had to send troops in large numbers to stop a regime that killed a lot of citizens. (Learn history).
The events preceding these two wars are very suggestive and leave a lot of doubt if the actual reasons are as per the authorities. It seems there must be some ulterior motives that are either known or not known. In the case of the gulf war, oil, the hate against Saddam or the need to fix a certain regime may have led to the invasion of Iraq, and then justification given in order to distract attention from the real issue.