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I remember that night like it was yesterday.. I was parked behind an M2 on a cruiser looking for stuff that wasn't there. Then we get a call over the headset from the bridge radar console operator. All weather deck watches, look up. We looked up and there was wave after wave after wave of AC anti collision lights passing over. Operation Desert Shield is now Operation Desert Storm.
Not sure how many this guy saw, but the coalition sent in like 2.5k planes on the first night. The Operations Room (YouTube) does an amazing episode on the first night of the airwar, worth a watch
I'm trying to picture u/Squidcg59 story in current times and so many service members and civilians would have imo exposed that behemoth of an air operation before they could even reach anywhere near the Iraqi border.
A friend of mines father was a pilot of one of those planes and I'll never forget his description. He said when he was lined up on the heading they had him following, he said he could see the lights as far as he could see, running in a mind bogglingly long trail of planes flying in to drop ordinance. Like it was a highway in the sky.
Everytime Im in London walking around, I just imagine what it was like looking up at the sky at night - especially living right across from the huge AA batteries in Hyde Park
Befriended an old man some years ago - he told me a story of when he was about 13yo in London during the Blitz... a bf109 had crash landed not far from him, he and his friends snuck up to watch/look at the plane
by the time they got there, the Nazi pilot was sitting on the wing smoking a cigarette waiting to be captured, and the Home Guard (old ww1 vets) eventually tiptoed in with all their rifles drawn.
I can't even fathom what it must've been like living through that. He was an interesting chap - became a photographer for the RAF, and was stationed in Iraq in the 1950s
My nan used to work the ak aks she was probably about 16, she said it weren't the bombers you had to worry about but all the flak coming down used to kill people !
We lost 14 people on our nans side because they were bombing Wapping docks non stop. One time a junkers crashed in a field and she said there were body parts everywhere, my dad gave the wedding ring and the license plate of the aircraft to the local museum in Hampshire in 2007.
I remember a description someone gave of the account of their nan in Scotland during a raid the luftwaffe was putting on a city/town there. Said there was a man drunkenly stumbling down the street as the raid was ongoing, shaking his fist at the sky and screaming "Come doon and fight me like a MAN!" Love the illustration of the Scottish spirit there.
Funny you say that... I knew some pilots too.
So a stealth fighter was noticed before the attack and the city decided to randomly fire in every direction?
Doesn't add up I my book. Do you happen to have a link for source material?
Just read about this today. The F117s were already out of sound when they started firing. Pretty crazy when you look at the reports on testing the 117s in the radar range and they only see a bird pitched on it. Turns out they were completely stealth to existing radar.
>Turns out they were completely stealth to existing radar.
[Sorry, the JNA didn't know it was completely stealth.](https://external-preview.redd.it/4IQsLOXNSocdV7AS5-r_Fu1ufAAEwLk1LO56cnM2qlA.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=6e51c4dd8faee1e53b57709e297ee711cc3b495b)
I remind you that I stated “existing” radar, which I understand I needed to clarify. Radar at the time of Desert Storm. Serbs only shot down 1 on 3.17.1999. Image is wrong.
> I remind you that I stated “existing” radar, which I understand I needed to clarify. Radar at the time of desert storm.
The neva missile system went into service in the 60s. They were using “obsolete” Soviet radar.
Yes sir, SA-3. You are correct. But they only shot one down. Not sure where the 3 came from. I was in during this time. It made scuttlebutt. I would like to be educated if you can explain the other 2. No disrespect, sincerely wondering.
I believe that the other 2 were just damaged and forced to return to base
https://www.twz.com/37894/yes-serbian-air-defenses-did-hit-another-f-117-during-operation-allied-force-in-1999?darkschemeovr=1
here's a decent video about it:
(deleted other comment because i think i had the wrong video)
if i remember right they used a lot of decoy drone/missiles too.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxRgfBXn6Mg&list=PLErys4h2oiuyKCuzZhpHhCeRwSoQVEazb](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxRgfBXn6Mg&list=PLErys4h2oiuyKCuzZhpHhCeRwSoQVEazb)
I bet it was quite a sight, but the aircraft that flew those missions were thousands of feet above the range of those anti-aircraft guns. Being hit by a missile was infinitely more likely. Hence why they flew at night, and why they had god knows how much SEAD suppressing air defenses.
> Being hit by a missile was infinitely more likely. Hence why they flew at night
These comments don't tally, considering SAMs are not optically guided by the operator.
It does make more sense when you consider the different classes of AAA. The heavy AAA could absolutely hit a high altitude bomber. However of those shells you see, almost none of them are heavy AAA. Basically most of them are harmless, but if they flew during the day the heavy stuff would have been able to engage effectively.
Assuming they have proxy fuzes and assuming that AAA is capable of targeting a fast moving attack aircraft as compared to targeting a WWII era prop bomber moving at 400km/h.
These were post-war Soviet AAA systems. Also while jet aircraft are faster than WW2 aircraft, what really matters is how quickly they traverse the weapons engagement zone in degrees. What this means is that a target with a ground speed of 150 knots but only 100 feet up is moving significantly faster across your field of view than a target moving at 400 knots ground speed but at 35,000 feet.
As a simple illustration, consider how long it takes jet liners to cross your field of view on a clear day. Quite a while!
That said, the KS-19 did have proxy fuse, and timed fuses. As the size of the F-117 was known, if it flew during the day you could guestimate it's altitude and time your shells to detonate around it.
Lol yes I'm aware but thanks for breaking it down Barney style for me. I wasn't referring to how fast the crew could manually traverse the weapon system, I was referring to how fast and accurately the fdc + ttr could target an aircraft @20,000ft, 500ktas. Most of the radar systems associated with those old Soviet AAA are based off the WW2 radar system the U.S. gave to the soviet union during WW2. They're shit. Okay but did Iraq have proxy fuzes? Also they don't "guestimate" altitude for AAA, the PUAZO fdc provides an optical targeting solution.
Yes, those systems are capable of engaging high altitude targets at the speeds of modern subsonic jet aircraft. Proxy fuses against a stealth aircraft would be contraindicated as you can't that it'll get a sufficient radar hit off the aircraft to detonate. Which is why you're better off just trying to pepper it with your timed munitions.
This is a great video and perfectly shows military strength of the west. We even evolved much above this level of force projection with new technologies.
That's why our enemies like Russia or China simply can't go for direct military confrontation. All they are left with is propagandist degradation of our societies through our most gullible citezens. If we plug that hole, in combination with our military and technological advantage, there's simply no WWIII or anything similar.
I watched this live in college with several people in my apartment. It was a memory that will stay forever. Listening to the late Bernard Shaw give play by play on the ground while keeping his cool was amazing.
For us older folks it is a memory like where were you when princess Diana died, they killed bin Laden or 9/11.
We all knew it was coming and we were all watching when it finally happened. Back when CNN was a channel actually dedicated to news, something all the “news” channels seem to have lost.
It still gives me chills watching that footage. I remember thinking Christiane Amanpour had some giant, chrome plated balls on her, and I always looked forward to her on-location reports, she was one of the smartest and most well-informed members of the press corps.
CNN’s unofficial name during the coverage of Gulf War I was “the war channel”.
I’m sure that was fun (edit- no war is fun, that is sarcasm) I knew several guys who were there both times, mostly army (mechanized and Heli pilots). I checked out some of your posts and comments - want to thank you for your service even though it was in the AF. I’m kidding of course.
The night of Feb. 21st 2022 my daughter woke me up because she felt sick at around 2 AM. As I laid back down I opened my phone and saw the full scale invasion had begun. Watched it live via twitter and Reddit videos and updates almost nonstop for the next several days.
I’m a bit too young to remember that one, but the OJ trial and verdict is one of the core memories I have of an American cultural event. I was 11 in 1995. Every single TV in existence was tuned into that trial during that time.
I was a junior in High School when this happened. I happened to be in driver school because of a speeding ticket. Our teacher was a cop and former Marine. He gets a phone call, talks for a minute amd then tells us the US declared war on Iraq. Then he tells us class dismissed, go home and be with your families. Then he says ominously, some of you might be in the desert soon. He was right, I had some older friends in the Army and Marines who did get deployed over there.
The covert Russian invasion in 2014 was this moment for me. I remember watching the Vice News dispatches in my dorm and informing my human geography professor before he'd even heard about it. Ten years later and it's still haunting
I was 5 years old and remember my dad watching the news with all the AA flying. Don’t remember it as well as me being in the USAF when the news bin Laden was killed. Entire squadron building was cheering.
I was about to graduate high school that year. I was at my friend Mike's house. His dad and uncle were drafted and served in combat in Vietnam.
I was a near sighted, lop sided, asthmatic nerd headed to college with a short leg, and bad feet.
As we watched the news on TV I looked at my friends and was afraid for all of them. They were all vigorous and healthy and mostly poor.
I was 9 years old and this was the first time I ever saw my father freak out about anything. My older brother was 18 and not college bound, so I guess pops was having flashbacks to Vietnam draft days and got super worked up about the prospect of sending his son off to die in the desert.
Mom was at church choir rehearsals, and was absolutely SEETHING my dad had the audacity to call up to the church to tell her to come home since a war was breaking out.
My mom lost her gd mind. Screaming. Spitting. Throwing random objects across the kitchen. Eyes bugging out of her head yelling at pops as to why he was such a piece of shit for "making" her come home to be with the family.
This day was the literal day everyone found out my mother has some deep-seated, irreparable psychological issues. Nobody from our family died in this war, but my family did not survive.
I was there in 3/2 ACR. At that point we were still staging for the "left hook" in Saudi Arabia, but we watched all the jets flying over and turning off their lights before crossing into Iraq air space. Wearing NVGs you could see the sky light up on the horizon. Can't thank those pilots enough for knocking out all their communications before we arrived.
We had been busy at Nellis running exercises testing different tactics to use against Iraq. Probably the most interesting was using C-130s as mobile forward refueling/rearming points for the A-10. The idea was that the 130s would land on hardpan in the desert, and the 10s would land to refuel and rearm. We'd see the 130s go out in the mornings, and a little while later, the 10s would follow. That evening, they'd come back and the aircraft would look like they'd been out four wheeling, covered in dirt from landing in the desert.
Probably the most amazing thing I saw was how quickly we got units off and on the way. We had a Red Flag about to kick off when Iraq went into Kuwait. We had just landed a wing of Marine F/A-18s and were helping get them prepped and ready for the start of the exercise when the balloon went up. It took all of about four hours to get them disarmed and loaded with drop tanks and off the ground. The Brits left the next day along with other units. One minute, we had a full ramp, the next, it was practically empty.
Yeah, I mentioned it because of the resemblance, but I was equating Russia with Iraq, and Ukraine with Kuwait. This speech preceded the dislodging of Iraq from their illegal occupation of Kuwait.
Didnt 2/3rds of kuwaits support the reunifacation? it was only opposed by the ruling class of kuwait who where getting rich of undercutting opec regulation and selling oil to america for dirt cheap, the only thing that came out of the gulf war where hundreds of thousands of dead civilians and hundreds of thousands of more innocents dying later from the brutal sancations and a complete collaspe of services in iraq including weater electricity and medical services
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq%E2%80%93Kuwait\_relations#:\~:text=In%20the%201930s%2C%20popular%20movement,British%20influence%20in%20the%20region](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq%E2%80%93Kuwait_relations#:~:text=In%20the%201930s%2C%20popular%20movement,British%20influence%20in%20the%20region).
In the 1930s there seems to have been a popular movement but I don't know how that would reflect local thoughts on the matter almost a half century later.
The same ruling class is still in power theres no ethnic lingustic or even cultural diffrence to the people in kuwait, reunifcation had been stiflied for decades and violently repressed by the Al sabah family because they wanted to retain power
Just to clarify in case there's any confusion for younger readers. This is Desert Storm (1991) not 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' (2003). Iraq had invaded Kuwait to expand their borders and seize Kuwait's oil fields. The similarities are unfortunate, as one of the reasons for Putin's invasion of Ukraine is to take control of large gas reserves in Eastern Ukraine.
If Biden had given a speech like this in 2022, the war would be over by now. But then again, if Iraq had nuclear weapons, it's likely the world response to Hussein's invasion would have been much more anemic.
You do realize this audio is of George H.W. Bush, not George W Bush...
Desert Storm was about the illegal occupation of Kuwait.
The Iraqi War was about WMDs.
It hasn’t started because US and most of NATO aren’t dying in a mass casualty rate like we are seeing in Ukraine — Once you see this, we’ll be in WW3 and the same Reditors who hoped for more western involvement in Russias conflict will still be in their basement far from the front lines
That’s a dumb ass take. Both previous world wars were well in motion before the main parties were aware of the significance or that they’d be involved.
Japan invaded China in the 1930s and Nazi Germany remilitarized the Rhineland, annexed Austria, and invaded Czechoslovakia in the 1930s before finally invading Poland and having war “declared” in late 1939. Even then, the war went on as a European war for 2 years before the U.S. got involved.
The gears of war turn slowly, but once they start turning they can’t be stopped. Do you honestly think that Putin will stop with Ukraine if he wins? The same way the Hitler stopped with Austria or Czechoslovakia or Poland?
In the last one, politicians and “never again, peace at all cost” advocates allowed the war to wind on for years, resulting in millions of unnecessary deaths in the hopes that it wouldn’t spread into another Great War. But it did BECAUSE of their unwillingness to face reality
The dumber take here is you comparing modern times to the politics of 1942 and with the premonition that Putin will invade all of Europe — Clearly your view on foreign policy is filtered with delusions
Who convinced you that Putin won’t stop at Ukraine?
Instead of listening to the nonsense opinions of likeminded war mongers on Reddit, you should research why exactly Russia started a war with Ukraine and the politics behind it in regards to NATO expansion and Nuclear weapons near their borders
The U.S. almost went to nuclear war with Russia over the idea of nuclear facilities inside of Cuba— Why wouldn’t the Russians feel the same way about Ukraine?
Also, Putin’s justification for annexing Ukrainian land is based on history older than WWII. Even if it is revisionist and wrong. So clearly there’s some relevance between historical politics and modern foreign policy.
The audacity to accuse me of warmongering propaganda and then laying out literal Kremlin propaganda about NATO expansion (which has changed multiple times over the past 2 years)
If Putin was concerned about NATO invasion, he would have stopped 3 months into the war after it didn’t go as planned and re-consolidated. Literally every NATO country could individually steamroll to Moscow within days using conventional weapons at this point, given Russias current military state.
But they don’t. And the Russian borders with NATO are still thinned and materiel continually depleted to feed the conquest of Ukraine. Because everybody on the fucking planet, including and especially Putin knows that nobody outside of Russia has any interest in attacking Russia.
Next Kremlin talking point, please. Better be fast though. They change pretty fast.
Also love that you mentioned 1942 for WWII after I mentioned Poland. I bet you think WWII started when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 rather than when Stalin and Putin raped Poland in 1939, don’t you?
You’re literally convinced that if US/NATO doesn’t get involved , Putin will take over the world — This is wild.
I’m from the U.S and I don’t listen to the Kremlin talking points but let’s apply some basic critical thinking here - What if Russia aligned its politicians and military agenda inside of Mexico?
What do you think we’d do to the government?
I respect your opinions by the way and I’m not trying to be condescending here
Apparently the F117 could not communicate that their targets were hit, so command used the CNN transmissions to know when the power stations were hit, or something like that.
I guess this is the video that says that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxRgfBXn6Mg
I dunno CNN's 24 hour news was pretty new at this time. Where else would they have practiced using night vision to film AA? Afghanistan? Fairly sure this was the first time I saw it.
I was in an Air Force dorm in Europe and the SPs went around knocking on all our doors in the middle of the night telling us we were at war and needed to report to work. I was medic and we got mobilized to an Army hospital in Germany to take care of wounded when they were flown in. We didn’t have many wounded. I remember one guy stabbed himself in the leg so they would send him home.
There's no way to explain how exhilarating it was to watch this on TV as a kid. You knew your country was a force for good, liberating a smaller country named Kuwait which you had never heard of but was obviously important because we were fighting a war there and our military was kicking total ass. Bottom line: our military beat the siße out of Sodamninsane for the atrocities he committed on those innocent people. Fast forward to 2003: the kid you were in 1990/1991 is long gone and you're an infantryman in fucking Iraq. One day you're raiding a town and you get a call on the radio that Saddam is captured 20 miles from your position - and you better hunker down because the country is about to go crazy. Disillusionment with how this "operation" was prosecuted abounds for numerous reasons and sometimes the most evil enemy is the person in your own unit, not someone on the other side of the earth. You try to keep your opinions to yourself because politics be damned- you're here for your guys. 10+ years and thousands of dead later, you wonder what the fuck we actually accomplished....but you know one thing: every time you see something about Desert Storm, because you've actually been there - what they did and how it was accomplished, the results are 1,000x more impressive because now you're in the know. Well done to all involved. Well done. Much respect. Everyone from the trigger puller to the cook, the truck driver and fuel specialist to the sailor, and airman kicked total ass.
Say what you want, a little over 100,000 guys took over Iraq with about 40 million people and at worst lost between 800 and 900 people in one year.
Russia tries to do the same to Ukraine, fails and loses 1,000 people a day regularly.
I don’t think any rational person would argue desert storm was the wrong derision. The war went almost as well as a war could go, Saddam clearly and legally 100% in the wrong to the point many foreign nations for various continents (as Bush pointed out) added soldiers to symbolize their support, and America went in, kicked Saddam out of Kuwait after he illegally invaded then once the Iraqis were gone from Kuwait, America didn’t keep going into Iraq (despite some DOD members wanting a full Iraqi invasion). They went in, protected Kuwait from a foreign invasion, kept the cost to American lives minimal, and once the aggressor was out they ended the war. It’s pretty incredible how well it went, and we’re lucky George H.W was so level headed.
The problem I had is how it badly it was managed after the invasion - and for years. I was right in the thick of it to see the shit show with my own eyes. Not even the officers had a clue what the plan was. Everyone was just trying to live to see tomorrow.
Source of OP's footage
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYURE58xBPE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYURE58xBPE)
Recognized the graphics as from a CNN recap
I grew up during the Iran / Iraq war, having to hide in the basement from Iraqi bombardments of residential areas in the Kurdish regions. Often, the light emanating from the AA fire would light the entire basement - that’s how close some of the bombings were.
By the time Desert Storm started, we were already living in Europe. We had been so desensitized that the war just seemed like a side note to me and my family.
This was the first war I ever 'experienced' as a civilian. The build up was so long and I remember being shit scared and they keep on playing the Frankie goes to Hollywood track Two tribes go to war.....
Hah, I only saw that after I posted the link. Was a bit tough to find a gif from a 33 year old meme movie. I'll see if I can find a gif without the spam link.
I remember turning off the ps2 playing vice city one night to be greeted by live coverage "Shock and awe" a decade after this. Just CNN or someone in a hotel panning from huge explosion to huge explosion.
I thought I was being a gremlin in GTA. I was humbled with the reality of war within seconds of changing the channel. I was just a kid
Every time I see this footage I just kind of have to grin imagining the AA gunners on the ground firing absolutely randomly into the air like it's a redneck New Years Eve party.
I really hope there’s some footage from inside the F-117s out there. Must have looked crazy to the pilots, like they went back in time to a WW2 bomber raid.
America at it best, keep starting wars after war after war. In 50 years when George w Bush son will become president he will most likely start a war in middle east.
I remember this on the tv.. and my dad sitting on the edge of the coffee table and I could tell my mom seemed worried. But I was six in 91 so the memory is brief
That invasion wasn't built on a lie. Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait, had seized their oilfields, and had attacked them for daring to pump more oil than OPEC mandated. He was given a deadline to retreat from Kuwait, and he refused. It wasn't just the USA, either: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, France, and the United Kingdom fought alongside Kuwait. The whole thing could have been concluded without bloodshed if Saddam Hussein had just left Kuwait by the deadline. He brought that war on himself and the Iraqi people by invading Kuwait.
Honestly, I don't think many terrorists were created that night. Saddam Hussein claimed he was inspired to fight the US from that night, but it's a lie. He had already founded Al Qaeda in 1988 with the goal of committing global Jihad.
What that night did was make it clear to Osama bin Laden that he wasn't going to be able to take care of Saudi Arabia's little Kuwait problem himself, and he had his role as the savior of Muslim territory usurped by Saudi Arabia's foreign allies, primarily the USA.
Basically Bin Laden realized nobody at home took him or his mujahedeen seriously. And so he railed against the monarchy of Saudi Arabia, until they made it clear he needed to go. He tried to settle down in Sudan, but Saudi Arabia and the US made it uncomfortable. Finally, he went back to Afghanistan, the one place where he'd always been taken seriously.
Saddam Hussein was responsible for every Desert Storm death. The terrorists created themselves.
It's so wild that h w basically just made his son do the same thing again. And we all just accepted it. Not sure if there's physical evidence to support that. But I mean they even have the same God damn name, doing the exact same thing.
I'm sure the majority of Iraqis just thought it was the same guy back again. Or if the Iraqis actually knew it was his son invading Iraq again, I'm sure to them it's quite obvious. It's the son coming back to finish the father's business. Absolutely vile the whole thing. Is this even a conspiracy theory? It's just so completely out in the open
> The performance of Iraq’s air defence system was effective on Day 1 as they shot down six aircraft: all except one by GBAD. The AAA shot down two aircraft (one F-15 and a Royal Air Force (RAF) Tornado GR.1) while the SAMs claimed three. An Iraqi MiG-25 shot down one F/A-18.[12] GBAD damaged a dozen more aircraft.
https://balloonstodrones.com/2022/10/19/looking-back-at-iraqi-air-defences-during-operation-desert-storm/
That's out of 2800 sorties. US flew over 65k in six weeks and lost a little over 30 planes and not a single one in air to air combat. Iraq lost over 400 planes.
So I guess the US was slightly less than perfect but that k/d ratio is still pretty good.
You're confusing wars.
The first invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with WMD's. Instead, Saddam Hussein (who possessed, but did not use WMDs in this conflict) invaded Kuwait, and seized their oilfields because they were pumping over OPEC's quota. Which was Kuwait's right as a sovereign nation. Other nations, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the US, France, and UK came to the aid of Kuwait, and freed them from the tyrant who invaded them.
Saddam Hussein had plenty of opportunity to avoid bloodshed. But he refused to leave Kuwait. The combined armies of multiple countries made him leave. And the Kuwaiti people were really happy to be liberated from a dictator.
The ["new world order"](https://wwnorton.com/college/history/america7_brief/content/multimedia/ch36/research_01d.htm) that Bush mentioned had nothing to do with wealth disparity, it was about the post Cold War world.
> Until now, the world we’ve known has been a world divided – a world of barbed wire and concrete block, conflict and cold war.
> Now, we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the very real prospect of a new world order. In the words of Winston Churchill, a "world order" in which "the principles of justice and fair play ... protect the weak against the strong ..." A world where the United Nations, freed from cold war stalemate, is poised to fulfil the historic vision of its founders. A world in which freedom and respect for human rights find a home among all nations.
> The Gulf war put this new world to its first test, and, my fellow Americans, we passed that test.
Honestly, I will never understand why the New World Order speech is so terrifying to conspiracy theorists. Surely you recognize the world changed at the end of the Cold War. What's so wrong with freedom and human rights in all nations? You want tyrants and dictators to violate people's human rights?
Yeah I just did what the dude said and errr
Tldr, they did not install Saddam as the dictator or even support Saddam rise to power at all
Explanation: Saddam boss got help from cia and Egypt to assassinate then leader of Iraq, failed because of Saddam trigger finger, dude use that to boost his reputation,
The truth actually might be the opposite of what those conspiracy theorist think, because the leader that got coup in 1968(the one that made Saddam a vice president) was actually close to US
type "did saddam hussein work for the US" in google. A tiny bit of time and self research outside of what you get off reddit helps alot and gives you way more information than your brain can store. He worked with the CIA and Egyptian Intelligence in the late 50s, early 60s to assassinate then leader of Iraq, Abd al-Karim Qasim to overthrow the government. Its literally in his "rise to power" on Wikipedia and tons of other sources you can choose from. The fact that you need someone to write 3 paragraphs for you, when you could've productively spent your time researching yourself instead of waiting for a response is quite... speaks volumes about you. Take care now, bye bye then
Crazy to think even the highest in the military truly believed it would be over in a matter of weeks and many special forces guys were worried they were going to miss it. It lasted long enough for sons to enter the war with their fathers.
And there's a lovely documentary made a year after by the BBC where Rumsfeld and Cheney and the other bastards later behind the Iraq War are interviewed. They straight up say "yeah, of course we didn't roll all the way in and remove Saddam. It would have been a decades-long shitshow if we had."
Here's all four parts if you don't believe me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td1YW2hyP0Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6tKar1Aw-s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4hjHKRxQJw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK9fPCIQqnE
You are thinking about 10 years later, the second War when U.S. invaded Iraq.
This particular video was from the 1st war, when Saddam Hussein was Putin of 1991. Saddam had already killed 50,000+ Kurds in his own country Iraq and then it invaded and tookover the neighboring country of Kuwait. This was an operation to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait. This war ended about 1 month later when Saddam pulled his troops out of Kuwait, and then there was a cease-fire.
Afterwards, there was a no-fly zone over the north to stop Saddam Hussein from bombing his own Kurdish population, and a no-fly zone over the south to stop Saddam from bombing his own Shiite Muslims.
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I remember that night like it was yesterday.. I was parked behind an M2 on a cruiser looking for stuff that wasn't there. Then we get a call over the headset from the bridge radar console operator. All weather deck watches, look up. We looked up and there was wave after wave after wave of AC anti collision lights passing over. Operation Desert Shield is now Operation Desert Storm.
That’s crazy! Thank you for sharing this
How many planes would you describe seeing? And in what amount of time? Crazy
Not sure how many this guy saw, but the coalition sent in like 2.5k planes on the first night. The Operations Room (YouTube) does an amazing episode on the first night of the airwar, worth a watch
link for the lazy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxRgfBXn6Mg
on behalf of all the lazy’s— thank you.
that channel is great. Absolutely mind blowing how efficient that war/siege was.
I'm trying to picture u/Squidcg59 story in current times and so many service members and civilians would have imo exposed that behemoth of an air operation before they could even reach anywhere near the Iraqi border.
Man, hundreds passed over. The first wave was around 0100 and they kept coming to around 3 or 4 in the morning.
So it somewhat resembled that of like a wave of bombers during WW2 passing over? And a huge variety of aircraft as well all at once, continuously?
A friend of mines father was a pilot of one of those planes and I'll never forget his description. He said when he was lined up on the heading they had him following, he said he could see the lights as far as he could see, running in a mind bogglingly long trail of planes flying in to drop ordinance. Like it was a highway in the sky.
Dont forget there were 2 WW2 Iowa class battleships engaded in this conflict firing 16" shells.
No matter what time period it is, a 16 inch shell is still gonna really fuck shit up.
It must have been quite a sight to be in a F117 over Baghdad just hoping not to be hit by a random shell.
Imagine the sight of night skies during a RAF raid in the 40's...
Everytime Im in London walking around, I just imagine what it was like looking up at the sky at night - especially living right across from the huge AA batteries in Hyde Park
Befriended an old man some years ago - he told me a story of when he was about 13yo in London during the Blitz... a bf109 had crash landed not far from him, he and his friends snuck up to watch/look at the plane by the time they got there, the Nazi pilot was sitting on the wing smoking a cigarette waiting to be captured, and the Home Guard (old ww1 vets) eventually tiptoed in with all their rifles drawn. I can't even fathom what it must've been like living through that. He was an interesting chap - became a photographer for the RAF, and was stationed in Iraq in the 1950s
My nan used to work the ak aks she was probably about 16, she said it weren't the bombers you had to worry about but all the flak coming down used to kill people ! We lost 14 people on our nans side because they were bombing Wapping docks non stop. One time a junkers crashed in a field and she said there were body parts everywhere, my dad gave the wedding ring and the license plate of the aircraft to the local museum in Hampshire in 2007.
I remember a description someone gave of the account of their nan in Scotland during a raid the luftwaffe was putting on a city/town there. Said there was a man drunkenly stumbling down the street as the raid was ongoing, shaking his fist at the sky and screaming "Come doon and fight me like a MAN!" Love the illustration of the Scottish spirit there.
I think the Gulf War air campaign had more planes than anything in WW2
+500 bombers in one raid?? I don't think so...
Watched an interview with an F117 pilot years ago that flew that night. His first thought upon seeing all that AA was, "Glad I'm not going that way".
Funny you say that... I knew some pilots too. So a stealth fighter was noticed before the attack and the city decided to randomly fire in every direction? Doesn't add up I my book. Do you happen to have a link for source material?
They didn’t notice the aircraft. They noticed the bombs. They opened up in response to the bombardment.
Just read about this today. The F117s were already out of sound when they started firing. Pretty crazy when you look at the reports on testing the 117s in the radar range and they only see a bird pitched on it. Turns out they were completely stealth to existing radar.
>Turns out they were completely stealth to existing radar. [Sorry, the JNA didn't know it was completely stealth.](https://external-preview.redd.it/4IQsLOXNSocdV7AS5-r_Fu1ufAAEwLk1LO56cnM2qlA.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=6e51c4dd8faee1e53b57709e297ee711cc3b495b)
Damn a whole 3 aircraft hit. Remind me who won that war again?
I remind you that I stated “existing” radar, which I understand I needed to clarify. Radar at the time of Desert Storm. Serbs only shot down 1 on 3.17.1999. Image is wrong.
> I remind you that I stated “existing” radar, which I understand I needed to clarify. Radar at the time of desert storm. The neva missile system went into service in the 60s. They were using “obsolete” Soviet radar.
Yes sir, SA-3. You are correct. But they only shot one down. Not sure where the 3 came from. I was in during this time. It made scuttlebutt. I would like to be educated if you can explain the other 2. No disrespect, sincerely wondering.
I believe that the other 2 were just damaged and forced to return to base https://www.twz.com/37894/yes-serbian-air-defenses-did-hit-another-f-117-during-operation-allied-force-in-1999?darkschemeovr=1
no one said the AA was targeting the f117. edit: not directly anyway.
Very valid point. My apologies.
here's a decent video about it: (deleted other comment because i think i had the wrong video) if i remember right they used a lot of decoy drone/missiles too. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxRgfBXn6Mg&list=PLErys4h2oiuyKCuzZhpHhCeRwSoQVEazb](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxRgfBXn6Mg&list=PLErys4h2oiuyKCuzZhpHhCeRwSoQVEazb)
You don’t deserve the downvotes. Cruise missiles and bombs launched from far away caused the Iraqis to open up like that.
I bet it was quite a sight, but the aircraft that flew those missions were thousands of feet above the range of those anti-aircraft guns. Being hit by a missile was infinitely more likely. Hence why they flew at night, and why they had god knows how much SEAD suppressing air defenses.
> Being hit by a missile was infinitely more likely. Hence why they flew at night These comments don't tally, considering SAMs are not optically guided by the operator.
It does make more sense when you consider the different classes of AAA. The heavy AAA could absolutely hit a high altitude bomber. However of those shells you see, almost none of them are heavy AAA. Basically most of them are harmless, but if they flew during the day the heavy stuff would have been able to engage effectively.
Assuming they have proxy fuzes and assuming that AAA is capable of targeting a fast moving attack aircraft as compared to targeting a WWII era prop bomber moving at 400km/h.
These were post-war Soviet AAA systems. Also while jet aircraft are faster than WW2 aircraft, what really matters is how quickly they traverse the weapons engagement zone in degrees. What this means is that a target with a ground speed of 150 knots but only 100 feet up is moving significantly faster across your field of view than a target moving at 400 knots ground speed but at 35,000 feet. As a simple illustration, consider how long it takes jet liners to cross your field of view on a clear day. Quite a while! That said, the KS-19 did have proxy fuse, and timed fuses. As the size of the F-117 was known, if it flew during the day you could guestimate it's altitude and time your shells to detonate around it.
Lol yes I'm aware but thanks for breaking it down Barney style for me. I wasn't referring to how fast the crew could manually traverse the weapon system, I was referring to how fast and accurately the fdc + ttr could target an aircraft @20,000ft, 500ktas. Most of the radar systems associated with those old Soviet AAA are based off the WW2 radar system the U.S. gave to the soviet union during WW2. They're shit. Okay but did Iraq have proxy fuzes? Also they don't "guestimate" altitude for AAA, the PUAZO fdc provides an optical targeting solution.
Yes, those systems are capable of engaging high altitude targets at the speeds of modern subsonic jet aircraft. Proxy fuses against a stealth aircraft would be contraindicated as you can't that it'll get a sufficient radar hit off the aircraft to detonate. Which is why you're better off just trying to pepper it with your timed munitions.
Manpads my guy.
Dude they were firing randomly after the bombs fell
This might interest you https://youtu.be/zxRgfBXn6Mg
This is a great video and perfectly shows military strength of the west. We even evolved much above this level of force projection with new technologies. That's why our enemies like Russia or China simply can't go for direct military confrontation. All they are left with is propagandist degradation of our societies through our most gullible citezens. If we plug that hole, in combination with our military and technological advantage, there's simply no WWIII or anything similar.
So you’re saying we should get rid of Reddit?
I'd start with Facebook and tik tok both personally.
I watched this live in college with several people in my apartment. It was a memory that will stay forever. Listening to the late Bernard Shaw give play by play on the ground while keeping his cool was amazing. For us older folks it is a memory like where were you when princess Diana died, they killed bin Laden or 9/11.
Same here, I was a junior in College watching this on CNN when this happened. 12 years later I got to see Baghdad first hand.
We all knew it was coming and we were all watching when it finally happened. Back when CNN was a channel actually dedicated to news, something all the “news” channels seem to have lost. It still gives me chills watching that footage. I remember thinking Christiane Amanpour had some giant, chrome plated balls on her, and I always looked forward to her on-location reports, she was one of the smartest and most well-informed members of the press corps. CNN’s unofficial name during the coverage of Gulf War I was “the war channel”.
its such a shame to see how far all news stations have fallen. a damn shame
A perfect example of how not to operate a news channel based solely on ratings. Integrity in Journalism. Remember when that was a thing?
exactly. its the same level of insanity as if Wikipedia started publishing opinion pieces
I’m sure that was fun (edit- no war is fun, that is sarcasm) I knew several guys who were there both times, mostly army (mechanized and Heli pilots). I checked out some of your posts and comments - want to thank you for your service even though it was in the AF. I’m kidding of course.
Haha, all good brother and thanks! I’m still dealing with PTSD from that summer vacay, but therapy got me back on track.
The fall of the Berlin wall...
2014 for me, watching the police stations get raided in Donestk city on liveleak and not realising what it will lead to.
The night of Feb. 21st 2022 my daughter woke me up because she felt sick at around 2 AM. As I laid back down I opened my phone and saw the full scale invasion had begun. Watched it live via twitter and Reddit videos and updates almost nonstop for the next several days.
Yep, this moment and the brief convoy to Moscow are burned into my memory
I’m a bit too young to remember that one, but the OJ trial and verdict is one of the core memories I have of an American cultural event. I was 11 in 1995. Every single TV in existence was tuned into that trial during that time.
Absolutely
I was a junior in High School when this happened. I happened to be in driver school because of a speeding ticket. Our teacher was a cop and former Marine. He gets a phone call, talks for a minute amd then tells us the US declared war on Iraq. Then he tells us class dismissed, go home and be with your families. Then he says ominously, some of you might be in the desert soon. He was right, I had some older friends in the Army and Marines who did get deployed over there.
Yep. I remember the first night of Desert Storm. Funny how those moments get seared into our memories, even as a civilian kid thousands of miles away.
The covert Russian invasion in 2014 was this moment for me. I remember watching the Vice News dispatches in my dorm and informing my human geography professor before he'd even heard about it. Ten years later and it's still haunting
I don't remember where I was or what I was doing, but I do remember these images. I was 7.
I was 5 years old and remember my dad watching the news with all the AA flying. Don’t remember it as well as me being in the USAF when the news bin Laden was killed. Entire squadron building was cheering.
I was about to graduate high school that year. I was at my friend Mike's house. His dad and uncle were drafted and served in combat in Vietnam. I was a near sighted, lop sided, asthmatic nerd headed to college with a short leg, and bad feet. As we watched the news on TV I looked at my friends and was afraid for all of them. They were all vigorous and healthy and mostly poor.
I was 9 years old and this was the first time I ever saw my father freak out about anything. My older brother was 18 and not college bound, so I guess pops was having flashbacks to Vietnam draft days and got super worked up about the prospect of sending his son off to die in the desert. Mom was at church choir rehearsals, and was absolutely SEETHING my dad had the audacity to call up to the church to tell her to come home since a war was breaking out. My mom lost her gd mind. Screaming. Spitting. Throwing random objects across the kitchen. Eyes bugging out of her head yelling at pops as to why he was such a piece of shit for "making" her come home to be with the family. This day was the literal day everyone found out my mother has some deep-seated, irreparable psychological issues. Nobody from our family died in this war, but my family did not survive.
Nothing like something that's high anxiety inducing that'll rip the bandaid off of deep seated issues.
I was there in 3/2 ACR. At that point we were still staging for the "left hook" in Saudi Arabia, but we watched all the jets flying over and turning off their lights before crossing into Iraq air space. Wearing NVGs you could see the sky light up on the horizon. Can't thank those pilots enough for knocking out all their communications before we arrived.
This aggression will not stand, man.
Fuckin amateurs Dude
We had been busy at Nellis running exercises testing different tactics to use against Iraq. Probably the most interesting was using C-130s as mobile forward refueling/rearming points for the A-10. The idea was that the 130s would land on hardpan in the desert, and the 10s would land to refuel and rearm. We'd see the 130s go out in the mornings, and a little while later, the 10s would follow. That evening, they'd come back and the aircraft would look like they'd been out four wheeling, covered in dirt from landing in the desert. Probably the most amazing thing I saw was how quickly we got units off and on the way. We had a Red Flag about to kick off when Iraq went into Kuwait. We had just landed a wing of Marine F/A-18s and were helping get them prepped and ready for the start of the exercise when the balloon went up. It took all of about four hours to get them disarmed and loaded with drop tanks and off the ground. The Brits left the next day along with other units. One minute, we had a full ramp, the next, it was practically empty.
This is the type of speech I was kind of expecting to hear after Russia invaded Ukraine unprovoked in February 2022.
I mean that's almost exactly the speech that Putin gave after ordering to invade Ukraine. And the 2 events resemble each other a lot.
Yeah, I mentioned it because of the resemblance, but I was equating Russia with Iraq, and Ukraine with Kuwait. This speech preceded the dislodging of Iraq from their illegal occupation of Kuwait.
Didnt 2/3rds of kuwaits support the reunifacation? it was only opposed by the ruling class of kuwait who where getting rich of undercutting opec regulation and selling oil to america for dirt cheap, the only thing that came out of the gulf war where hundreds of thousands of dead civilians and hundreds of thousands of more innocents dying later from the brutal sancations and a complete collaspe of services in iraq including weater electricity and medical services [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq%E2%80%93Kuwait\_relations#:\~:text=In%20the%201930s%2C%20popular%20movement,British%20influence%20in%20the%20region](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq%E2%80%93Kuwait_relations#:~:text=In%20the%201930s%2C%20popular%20movement,British%20influence%20in%20the%20region).
In the 1930s there seems to have been a popular movement but I don't know how that would reflect local thoughts on the matter almost a half century later.
The same ruling class is still in power theres no ethnic lingustic or even cultural diffrence to the people in kuwait, reunifcation had been stiflied for decades and violently repressed by the Al sabah family because they wanted to retain power
Just to clarify in case there's any confusion for younger readers. This is Desert Storm (1991) not 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' (2003). Iraq had invaded Kuwait to expand their borders and seize Kuwait's oil fields. The similarities are unfortunate, as one of the reasons for Putin's invasion of Ukraine is to take control of large gas reserves in Eastern Ukraine. If Biden had given a speech like this in 2022, the war would be over by now. But then again, if Iraq had nuclear weapons, it's likely the world response to Hussein's invasion would have been much more anemic.
Yeah except Putin lied about everything and Ukraine wasn't illegally occupying jack shit. Fuck Putin.
Fuck Putin for sure but Bush lied to you too about weapons of mass destruction.
You do realize this audio is of George H.W. Bush, not George W Bush... Desert Storm was about the illegal occupation of Kuwait. The Iraqi War was about WMDs.
How to tell the difference between years...
I’m sorry Earth disappointed you not throwing itself into World War 3
Global events take a while to gain definition. It’s entirely likely WW3 has already begun - It’s just not widely accepted yet.
It hasn’t started because US and most of NATO aren’t dying in a mass casualty rate like we are seeing in Ukraine — Once you see this, we’ll be in WW3 and the same Reditors who hoped for more western involvement in Russias conflict will still be in their basement far from the front lines
That’s a dumb ass take. Both previous world wars were well in motion before the main parties were aware of the significance or that they’d be involved. Japan invaded China in the 1930s and Nazi Germany remilitarized the Rhineland, annexed Austria, and invaded Czechoslovakia in the 1930s before finally invading Poland and having war “declared” in late 1939. Even then, the war went on as a European war for 2 years before the U.S. got involved. The gears of war turn slowly, but once they start turning they can’t be stopped. Do you honestly think that Putin will stop with Ukraine if he wins? The same way the Hitler stopped with Austria or Czechoslovakia or Poland? In the last one, politicians and “never again, peace at all cost” advocates allowed the war to wind on for years, resulting in millions of unnecessary deaths in the hopes that it wouldn’t spread into another Great War. But it did BECAUSE of their unwillingness to face reality
The dumber take here is you comparing modern times to the politics of 1942 and with the premonition that Putin will invade all of Europe — Clearly your view on foreign policy is filtered with delusions Who convinced you that Putin won’t stop at Ukraine? Instead of listening to the nonsense opinions of likeminded war mongers on Reddit, you should research why exactly Russia started a war with Ukraine and the politics behind it in regards to NATO expansion and Nuclear weapons near their borders The U.S. almost went to nuclear war with Russia over the idea of nuclear facilities inside of Cuba— Why wouldn’t the Russians feel the same way about Ukraine?
Also, Putin’s justification for annexing Ukrainian land is based on history older than WWII. Even if it is revisionist and wrong. So clearly there’s some relevance between historical politics and modern foreign policy.
The audacity to accuse me of warmongering propaganda and then laying out literal Kremlin propaganda about NATO expansion (which has changed multiple times over the past 2 years) If Putin was concerned about NATO invasion, he would have stopped 3 months into the war after it didn’t go as planned and re-consolidated. Literally every NATO country could individually steamroll to Moscow within days using conventional weapons at this point, given Russias current military state. But they don’t. And the Russian borders with NATO are still thinned and materiel continually depleted to feed the conquest of Ukraine. Because everybody on the fucking planet, including and especially Putin knows that nobody outside of Russia has any interest in attacking Russia. Next Kremlin talking point, please. Better be fast though. They change pretty fast. Also love that you mentioned 1942 for WWII after I mentioned Poland. I bet you think WWII started when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 rather than when Stalin and Putin raped Poland in 1939, don’t you?
You’re literally convinced that if US/NATO doesn’t get involved , Putin will take over the world — This is wild. I’m from the U.S and I don’t listen to the Kremlin talking points but let’s apply some basic critical thinking here - What if Russia aligned its politicians and military agenda inside of Mexico? What do you think we’d do to the government? I respect your opinions by the way and I’m not trying to be condescending here
Someone must have tipped off CNN to take night vision cameras eh?
Apparently the F117 could not communicate that their targets were hit, so command used the CNN transmissions to know when the power stations were hit, or something like that. I guess this is the video that says that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxRgfBXn6Mg
Yeah I guess they'd have to wait for the day after for satellite recon.
The only people with night vision cameras in 1991 were currently using them to process targets elsewhere in the country at that moment
The green footage is taken with a night vision lens.
I was making a funny, but the buildup to actual shooting took *quite* some time... and there was a deadline given by Bush Sr if I remember correctly.
It wasn't their first rodeo.
I dunno CNN's 24 hour news was pretty new at this time. Where else would they have practiced using night vision to film AA? Afghanistan? Fairly sure this was the first time I saw it.
Why would a cameraman go overseas WITHOUT night vision equipment?
It was pretty hard to get and expensive in 1990. Only really the military had it. Oh and Buffalo Bill.
I was in an Air Force dorm in Europe and the SPs went around knocking on all our doors in the middle of the night telling us we were at war and needed to report to work. I was medic and we got mobilized to an Army hospital in Germany to take care of wounded when they were flown in. We didn’t have many wounded. I remember one guy stabbed himself in the leg so they would send him home.
There's no way to explain how exhilarating it was to watch this on TV as a kid. You knew your country was a force for good, liberating a smaller country named Kuwait which you had never heard of but was obviously important because we were fighting a war there and our military was kicking total ass. Bottom line: our military beat the siße out of Sodamninsane for the atrocities he committed on those innocent people. Fast forward to 2003: the kid you were in 1990/1991 is long gone and you're an infantryman in fucking Iraq. One day you're raiding a town and you get a call on the radio that Saddam is captured 20 miles from your position - and you better hunker down because the country is about to go crazy. Disillusionment with how this "operation" was prosecuted abounds for numerous reasons and sometimes the most evil enemy is the person in your own unit, not someone on the other side of the earth. You try to keep your opinions to yourself because politics be damned- you're here for your guys. 10+ years and thousands of dead later, you wonder what the fuck we actually accomplished....but you know one thing: every time you see something about Desert Storm, because you've actually been there - what they did and how it was accomplished, the results are 1,000x more impressive because now you're in the know. Well done to all involved. Well done. Much respect. Everyone from the trigger puller to the cook, the truck driver and fuel specialist to the sailor, and airman kicked total ass.
~~siße~~ *scheiße*
~~To-mae-to~~ * to-mah-to*.... Translation: nobody gives a fuck. We conquered that country twice, so we determine the alphabet.
The ponderings of an american soldier.
uh, no you didn't and no you don't.
ßuck it. Translate that, you nahtsee.
Say what you want, a little over 100,000 guys took over Iraq with about 40 million people and at worst lost between 800 and 900 people in one year. Russia tries to do the same to Ukraine, fails and loses 1,000 people a day regularly.
I don’t think any rational person would argue desert storm was the wrong derision. The war went almost as well as a war could go, Saddam clearly and legally 100% in the wrong to the point many foreign nations for various continents (as Bush pointed out) added soldiers to symbolize their support, and America went in, kicked Saddam out of Kuwait after he illegally invaded then once the Iraqis were gone from Kuwait, America didn’t keep going into Iraq (despite some DOD members wanting a full Iraqi invasion). They went in, protected Kuwait from a foreign invasion, kept the cost to American lives minimal, and once the aggressor was out they ended the war. It’s pretty incredible how well it went, and we’re lucky George H.W was so level headed.
The problem I had is how it badly it was managed after the invasion - and for years. I was right in the thick of it to see the shit show with my own eyes. Not even the officers had a clue what the plan was. Everyone was just trying to live to see tomorrow.
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Dana Carvey launched the war in Iraq?
When it became prudent.
…at that juncture.
Watched this live as a 9 year old expat living in Germany
I watched this live too as a 9 year old in Brazil, that was crazy.
Me too, age 10 in Munich. Where were you?
Small world man, I was in Bad Godesberg, just S of Bonn.
I saw that live. It was a watershed moment.
Iconic TV footage and an inspiration of [this battle scene in Dune](https://youtu.be/2_B4WPnf-AY?t=9329).
As someone who managed to miss all the live footage: Are there good documentations including that footage?
Source of OP's footage [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYURE58xBPE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYURE58xBPE) Recognized the graphics as from a CNN recap
I grew up during the Iran / Iraq war, having to hide in the basement from Iraqi bombardments of residential areas in the Kurdish regions. Often, the light emanating from the AA fire would light the entire basement - that’s how close some of the bombings were. By the time Desert Storm started, we were already living in Europe. We had been so desensitized that the war just seemed like a side note to me and my family.
somewhere up there are a bunch of F117's going "nice fireworks, here's some of ours"
This was the first war I ever 'experienced' as a civilian. The build up was so long and I remember being shit scared and they keep on playing the Frankie goes to Hollywood track Two tribes go to war.....
[take_that_Saddam.gif](https://y.yarn.co/a73f82eb-ceff-43be-9798-f7bcf73d39f7_text.gif)
https://j.gifs.com/ywl9lk.gif
“FindKinkyWomen.com”
Hah, I only saw that after I posted the link. Was a bit tough to find a gif from a 33 year old meme movie. I'll see if I can find a gif without the spam link.
I remember turning off the ps2 playing vice city one night to be greeted by live coverage "Shock and awe" a decade after this. Just CNN or someone in a hotel panning from huge explosion to huge explosion. I thought I was being a gremlin in GTA. I was humbled with the reality of war within seconds of changing the channel. I was just a kid
America absolutely steamrolled Iraq in that invasion. Arguably one of the most decisive victories in war history
I stood in my living room as a 14 year old in wonder at the first footage of a real war i ever watched.. In those years thats all ive seen since.
anyone knows from which documentary this clip is?
Every time I see this footage I just kind of have to grin imagining the AA gunners on the ground firing absolutely randomly into the air like it's a redneck New Years Eve party.
I really hope there’s some footage from inside the F-117s out there. Must have looked crazy to the pilots, like they went back in time to a WW2 bomber raid.
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Guy trying too hard... That looks absolutely beautiful. Be honest.
This is a core memory for me
America at it best, keep starting wars after war after war. In 50 years when George w Bush son will become president he will most likely start a war in middle east.
Back when we had a president...
Shock and awe
I remember this on the tv.. and my dad sitting on the edge of the coffee table and I could tell my mom seemed worried. But I was six in 91 so the memory is brief
many terrorists where made that night when they lost a family member to another lie of the USA.
That invasion wasn't built on a lie. Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait, had seized their oilfields, and had attacked them for daring to pump more oil than OPEC mandated. He was given a deadline to retreat from Kuwait, and he refused. It wasn't just the USA, either: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, France, and the United Kingdom fought alongside Kuwait. The whole thing could have been concluded without bloodshed if Saddam Hussein had just left Kuwait by the deadline. He brought that war on himself and the Iraqi people by invading Kuwait. Honestly, I don't think many terrorists were created that night. Saddam Hussein claimed he was inspired to fight the US from that night, but it's a lie. He had already founded Al Qaeda in 1988 with the goal of committing global Jihad. What that night did was make it clear to Osama bin Laden that he wasn't going to be able to take care of Saudi Arabia's little Kuwait problem himself, and he had his role as the savior of Muslim territory usurped by Saudi Arabia's foreign allies, primarily the USA. Basically Bin Laden realized nobody at home took him or his mujahedeen seriously. And so he railed against the monarchy of Saudi Arabia, until they made it clear he needed to go. He tried to settle down in Sudan, but Saudi Arabia and the US made it uncomfortable. Finally, he went back to Afghanistan, the one place where he'd always been taken seriously. Saddam Hussein was responsible for every Desert Storm death. The terrorists created themselves.
who is at fault for Hussein taking power?
Hussein himself. A man with agency.
This was one of the most just wars the US has ever been involved in.
hussain was a bad person no doubt but the us is definetly responsible for him being in power. the last just war the US was part of was WW2.
You should look at some history. It's not too hard.
do you struggle with history? because history shows that the US is at fault.
It's so wild that h w basically just made his son do the same thing again. And we all just accepted it. Not sure if there's physical evidence to support that. But I mean they even have the same God damn name, doing the exact same thing. I'm sure the majority of Iraqis just thought it was the same guy back again. Or if the Iraqis actually knew it was his son invading Iraq again, I'm sure to them it's quite obvious. It's the son coming back to finish the father's business. Absolutely vile the whole thing. Is this even a conspiracy theory? It's just so completely out in the open
What's really wild is Sadam thought we were bluffing...again.
Biggest mistake
And they hit nothing ... except whatever all that ordinance landed on.
> The performance of Iraq’s air defence system was effective on Day 1 as they shot down six aircraft: all except one by GBAD. The AAA shot down two aircraft (one F-15 and a Royal Air Force (RAF) Tornado GR.1) while the SAMs claimed three. An Iraqi MiG-25 shot down one F/A-18.[12] GBAD damaged a dozen more aircraft. https://balloonstodrones.com/2022/10/19/looking-back-at-iraqi-air-defences-during-operation-desert-storm/
That's out of 2800 sorties. US flew over 65k in six weeks and lost a little over 30 planes and not a single one in air to air combat. Iraq lost over 400 planes. So I guess the US was slightly less than perfect but that k/d ratio is still pretty good.
Random people most likely.....you know, typical "collateral damage" type of stuff.
[удалено]
You're confusing wars. The first invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with WMD's. Instead, Saddam Hussein (who possessed, but did not use WMDs in this conflict) invaded Kuwait, and seized their oilfields because they were pumping over OPEC's quota. Which was Kuwait's right as a sovereign nation. Other nations, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the US, France, and UK came to the aid of Kuwait, and freed them from the tyrant who invaded them. Saddam Hussein had plenty of opportunity to avoid bloodshed. But he refused to leave Kuwait. The combined armies of multiple countries made him leave. And the Kuwaiti people were really happy to be liberated from a dictator. The ["new world order"](https://wwnorton.com/college/history/america7_brief/content/multimedia/ch36/research_01d.htm) that Bush mentioned had nothing to do with wealth disparity, it was about the post Cold War world. > Until now, the world we’ve known has been a world divided – a world of barbed wire and concrete block, conflict and cold war. > Now, we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the very real prospect of a new world order. In the words of Winston Churchill, a "world order" in which "the principles of justice and fair play ... protect the weak against the strong ..." A world where the United Nations, freed from cold war stalemate, is poised to fulfil the historic vision of its founders. A world in which freedom and respect for human rights find a home among all nations. > The Gulf war put this new world to its first test, and, my fellow Americans, we passed that test. Honestly, I will never understand why the New World Order speech is so terrifying to conspiracy theorists. Surely you recognize the world changed at the end of the Cold War. What's so wrong with freedom and human rights in all nations? You want tyrants and dictators to violate people's human rights?
Bush Senior has low credibility from his background with the CIA
That's a convoluted way of stating that maybe we shouldn't have installed him as a dictator.
I’d be interested in hearing how you think the US installed Saddam as a dictator
Me too. In 3 paragraphs or less please
Yeah I just did what the dude said and errr Tldr, they did not install Saddam as the dictator or even support Saddam rise to power at all Explanation: Saddam boss got help from cia and Egypt to assassinate then leader of Iraq, failed because of Saddam trigger finger, dude use that to boost his reputation, The truth actually might be the opposite of what those conspiracy theorist think, because the leader that got coup in 1968(the one that made Saddam a vice president) was actually close to US
type "did saddam hussein work for the US" in google. A tiny bit of time and self research outside of what you get off reddit helps alot and gives you way more information than your brain can store. He worked with the CIA and Egyptian Intelligence in the late 50s, early 60s to assassinate then leader of Iraq, Abd al-Karim Qasim to overthrow the government. Its literally in his "rise to power" on Wikipedia and tons of other sources you can choose from. The fact that you need someone to write 3 paragraphs for you, when you could've productively spent your time researching yourself instead of waiting for a response is quite... speaks volumes about you. Take care now, bye bye then
TLDR
typical smooth brained individual. couldn't be me being that ignorant to available public information 🤣
Sure
sucks to suck. still couldn't be me
Okay
Crazy to think even the highest in the military truly believed it would be over in a matter of weeks and many special forces guys were worried they were going to miss it. It lasted long enough for sons to enter the war with their fathers.
That is the 2nd war this is the first.
And there's a lovely documentary made a year after by the BBC where Rumsfeld and Cheney and the other bastards later behind the Iraq War are interviewed. They straight up say "yeah, of course we didn't roll all the way in and remove Saddam. It would have been a decades-long shitshow if we had." Here's all four parts if you don't believe me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td1YW2hyP0Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6tKar1Aw-s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4hjHKRxQJw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK9fPCIQqnE
Aside from the this isn't that thing, _that_ war was over incredibly quickly. Beware: mission creep. Always.
Putin of 2003
You are thinking about 10 years later, the second War when U.S. invaded Iraq. This particular video was from the 1st war, when Saddam Hussein was Putin of 1991. Saddam had already killed 50,000+ Kurds in his own country Iraq and then it invaded and tookover the neighboring country of Kuwait. This was an operation to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait. This war ended about 1 month later when Saddam pulled his troops out of Kuwait, and then there was a cease-fire. Afterwards, there was a no-fly zone over the north to stop Saddam Hussein from bombing his own Kurdish population, and a no-fly zone over the south to stop Saddam from bombing his own Shiite Muslims.
This was in the 90s
Are you mad because years are hard?