The Gulf War Explained

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Mr. Beat explains the Persian Gulf War, aka The Gulf War.

Produced by Matt Beat. All images and video by Matt Beat, used under fair use guidelines, or found in the public domain. Music by Dyalla and King Canyon.

Here's an annotated script with footnotes:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hDIwKk-bxy-WvTLAithAspJyYqFW1r940dNbpaqj2-w/edit?usp=sharing

Sources/further reading:
Simons, Geoff (2004). Iraq: from Sumer to post-Saddam (3rd edition). Palgrave Macmillan.
Purchase here: https://amzn.to/3vuHl4H
Kennedy, David M. (2015). The American Pageant. (16th edition). Cengage Learning.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/1991-gulf-war-looms-large-over-bushs-mideast-legacy
https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/art/exhibits/conflicts-and-operations/the-gulf-war-1990-1991--operation-desert-shield--desert-storm-.html

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#gulfwar #ushistory #apush

The Gulf War was lopsided. Just 292 coalition soldiers died in this war, compared to as many as 50,000 Iraqi soldiers killed.

Most Americans were happy about the quick and decisive victory, and George H.W. Bush’s approval rating skyrocketed to around 89%, the highest approval rating for an American President recorded in history up to that point.

Many coalition soldiers came home with lingering sickness with common symptoms like chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and serious stomach issues. In fact, this sickness was so common it became known as “Gulf War syndrome.” Historians still debate what caused this sickness, but one recent study found a strong link to exposure to the nerve agent sarin.

There were other unintended consequences of the Gulf War.

Because the embargo against Iraq for invading Kuwait was never lifted by the United Nations after the war was over, millions of ordinary Iraqis suffered. Poverty dramatically increased in Iraq over the next several years. Not only that, after the Gulf War the Shiite in the south of Iraq and Kurds in the north of Iraq both rebelled against Saddam’s regime. Well, Saddam responded to these rebellions with extreme brutality, and this brutality led to the United States and United Kingdom continuing to patrol skies over Iraq, setting up no-fly zones, which are basically areas where aircraft are not allowed to fly and if they do they may get shot down.

After the United States accused Saddam of developing weapons of mass destruction and him refusing to let the United Nations look for them, the next President, Bill Clinton ultimately ordered Operation Desert Fox in December 1998. The American military dropped bombs on around 100 military sites around Iraq, killing or wounding as many as 1400 Iraqis.

And then, of course, the much more controversial and devastating Iraq War, which the United States started after invading Iraq again, this time without support from the United Nations. While it DID ultimately lead to the overthrow and execution of Saddam Hussein, the war, and especially the occupation of the country by American forces afterward, did not go so well, especially compared to the Gulf War. And this ultimately led to what’s simply known as the War in Iraq later on, which many people don’t realize was just as devastating.

Simply put, because of all these conflicts hundreds of thousands of civilians have died in Iraq since the Gulf War.

Even today, Iraq is not a stable place, still recovering from decades of warfare. Now, we often treat the Gulf War as a blip, a short victory overshadowed by much bigger losses later on.

In fact, while we SHOULD remember what went RIGHT during the Gulf War, we are more likely to remember what went WRONG after it.