Essay about The Persian Gulf War

Essay about The Persian Gulf War

Introduction



Wars have been apart of this world almost as long as anything else has. Even in the Bible days there are records of wars. There are many reasons that states choose to go to war. Sometimes it is for the expansion of a nation or state, other times it is for financial gains, and it also could be for security or defense purposes. Whatever the case may be, wars have been apart of human life and will always be. There were no differences when it came to the Persian Gulf War. This war involved the United States, Iraq, and Kuwait. When trying to determine the purpose behind this war I chose to view it from a comparison of both the realist and liberalist views on the war.



The Case



The Persian Gulf War stemmed from tension over ... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...According to Albert Bin, "the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency estimated 100,000 Iraqi military deaths" (Bin, 237). Philip Taylor adds, "the United States had only 148 killed in action, 458 wounded, and 121 died through non combat incidents" (Taylor, 102). The United States victory was the most lopsided in recent history, in terms of numbers who died when looking at both sides. Casualties did not only occur during the progress of the war, "about 12,000 Iraqi civilians died during the war, and 5,000 civilians died since the end of the war due to wounds, lack of medical care, or malnutrition" (Lopez 1991). These statistics reinforce the realist belief concerning wars because of the numerous deaths that resulted from the Persian Gulf War; That is, the casualty count of the war supports the belief that the war was inadequate and preposterous due to the lack of concern for lives, rather the concern for substantial power and stability. Both Iraq and the United States were at war only because they both had oil interests that would help to expand either state's power.

The United States savage bombing campaign caused most of the Iraqi deaths. The air campaign of the United States was very successful in terms of doing what it set out to do and that was to bomb everything that supported Iraq's war. This even includes some civilian facilities. Nothing was safe; Radar installations, military airfields, bunkers, electric power plants, highways, water treatment facilities,

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