Are you a Gulf War veteran still suffering from mysterious symptoms or post-combat trauma? The Veteran's Administration has just the prescription for you: "Obecalp," otherwise known as placebo. (p.s. -- They'd better start working on an Extra-Strength version for Iraq War vets.)
posted by digaman on Mar 4, 2006 - 55 comments

War as metaphor, again. The linguist George Lakoff writes a sequel to his seminal piece on the first Gulf war. The Nation as Person, The Just War, War as Business (and Politics), War as Fairy Tale: will these ways of thinking ever be re-framed in the interests of peace and common humanity? Not if any dissent from the accepted line continues to be silenced. Source: Too Much News
posted by cbrody on Apr 4, 2003 - 4 comments

Where did those chemical and biological weapons come from?
”According to the December declaration, treated with much derision from the Bush administration, U.S. and Western companies played a key role in building Hussein's war machine. The 1,200-page document contains a list of Western corporations and countries -- as well as individuals -- that exported chemical and biological materials to Iraq in the past two decades.”

I’ve always been surprised that this type of report doesn’t get more attention. During the UN hearings I half expected the Administration to level with the world and simply say: ”We know they have the stuff because we sold it to them.”
posted by peebo on Mar 26, 2003 - 32 comments

This Is Gulf War 2 The realities of war, in photos. Not fun viewing, for sure.
posted by Postroad on Mar 25, 2003 - 69 comments

War as national therapy- revisiting the Gulf War: (scroll down 5 paragraphs to "Powell and the Persian Gulf War") Some 100,000 retreating Iraqi troops were incinerated, blown to bits, etc. (Schwarzkopf's estimate) with unexpectedly light US casualties (383 from all causes). “Even in Vietnam I didn’t see anything like this. It’s pathetic.“ said Major Bob Nugent, Army intelligence officer. But the stunning victory - and the ensuing US euphoria - were almost sabatoged by a Russian peace plan.... "The President's problem was how to say no to Gorbachev without appearing to throw away a chance for peace"(wrote Colin Powell in American Journey) “We have to have a war,” Bush told his inner circle of Secretary of State James Baker, national security adviser Brent Scowcroft and Powell" (narrates Bob Woodward)...."Fear of a peace deal at the Bush White House [wrote columnists Evans and Novak] had less to do with oil, Israel or Iraqi expansionism than with the bitter legacy of a lost war. 'This is the chance to get rid of the Vietnam Syndrome,' one senior aide told us." Peace threatened, but Colin Powell had a plan......
posted by troutfishing on Feb 16, 2003 - 31 comments

Not really a game, but is scary/funny: This is a projection of the most likely outcome of a new war in the Gulf. I used sophisticated temporal algorithms and historical semiotic analysis to achieve an accuracy rating of 99.999%. It's the mother of all Flash games.
posted by samelborp on Jan 27, 2003 - 31 comments

The Unseen Gulf War is a photo exhibit from the Gulf War that shows an aspect that I doubt many people have had a chance to see, the "human consequences". Why because the US government after Vietnam fears a media that is not corralled. Besides the fact that this is undemocratic, this view that the media really turned the tide of public opinion in Vietnam seems to be debated by many as this article explains. I must warn that many of the images can be highly disturbing
posted by GreenDragon on Jan 21, 2003 - 44 comments

A Blast from the Past. In 1998, George Bush, Sr. explains why Saddam was not removed in the Gulf War: "Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome."
posted by owillis on Sep 12, 2002 - 19 comments

What happened in the final days of the Gulf War? "The Battle of Rumaila was closely reviewed at the war's end by an analyst for the C.I.A., who confirmed that the Iraqi losses were great. The toll included at least a hundred tanks from the Hammurabi division. "It's like eating an artichoke," one colonel had said of combat.... 'Once you start, you can't stop.' One of the destroyed vehicles was a bus, which had been hit by a rocket. The precise number of its occupants who were injured or killed is not known, but they included civilians and children. One of the first Americans at the scene was Lieutenant Charles W. Gameros, Jr., a Scout platoon leader, who called in a Medevac team for the victims. At the time, he was "frustrated" by what he saw as needless deaths, Gameros recalled in an interview. 'Now I look at it sadly,' he said. Unresisting Iraqis had been slain all morning, but the deaths of the children troubled many soldiers."

What's happening in "the final days" of the war in Afghanistan? What will be happening in the upcoming war in Iraq?
posted by fold_and_mutilate on Sep 5, 2002 - 100 comments

US demands information on long forgotten downed pilot while insisting they not release the names or allow legal counsel to "enemy combatants" held within the US?
posted by specialk420 on Aug 23, 2002 - 15 comments

U.S. Spy agencies say Gulf War pilot likely seized. A U.S. intelligence report on the case of Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher provides the most complete explanation by the U.S. government on why the pilot probably was captured alive by Iraqis after ejecting from his F-18 in 1991. Interesting that this story comes out just as the U.S. is preparing to war on Iraq.
posted by Ty Webb on Mar 15, 2002 - 26 comments

Emergency Broadcast Network: The Lost Tapes. "Formed during the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91, E.B.N. created its first arsenal of counter-psy-ops programming, cleverly disguised as music videos, inspired by the spectacular media frenzy surrounding the war and its aftermath."
posted by tranquileye on Oct 19, 2001 - 6 comments

Kuwaitis Still Missing 11 Years After Invasion "They go on about the suffering of the Iraqi people under sanctions and say we are doing this just to keep the embargo in place."
posted by semmi on Oct 3, 2001 - 2 comments

The Gulf War: Hidden agenda? A documentary just released suggests that the Gulf War was a staged American effort to put American forces into the Gulf region and that there was no abiding reason our troops had to be sent to Desert Storm. You read; you decide.
posted by Postroad on Apr 20, 2001 - 20 comments

USA's Depleted Uranium Weapons

1 in 7 Gulf War veterans suffer from Gulf War Syndrome, including a high incidence of birth defects, respiratory, kidney and liver problems. There are outrageously high rates of leukemia and severe birth defects among Iraqi civilians. Now Israel uses DU weapons against Palestinians. After DU weapons were used in Kosovo, Italy wants to know why Kosovo veterans are getting cancer. Still the pentagon insists that "... we do not believe it poses any significant health risk." Does anybody in the US give a damn?
posted by snakey on Jan 23, 2001 - 22 comments

'Gulf War Syndrome' cause? An interesting potential link (via thewebtoday).
posted by Sean Meade on Nov 15, 2000 - 5 comments

Excellent Suck Skewering of Dick Cheney makes it clear that this is not a person we should let anywhere near our "national security" (again).
posted by wiremommy on Sep 1, 2000 - 7 comments