okay
well i haven't uh you know when the war was on i watched um CNN and um Nightline
uh-huh
pretty regularly and read the paper and all but when uh lately like the last week or two i guess with Easter and spring break with the kids i um
i hadn't been thinking much about the Middle East and what's going on over there have you been keeping up
uh well uh just really the last couple of days since this uh the UN
debate or whatever you want to call it that uh
voted on whether there was going to be a cease fire i guess
you know the thing really isn't over they uh
uh-huh
they had uh kind of uh i don't know if you call it stand down or whatever but anyway they stopped
and wait to see if Iraq would accept a permanent cease fire situation though
as i understand it from the Iraqi point of view this current cease fire thing that the UN uh
had set up you know the Iraqis are probably not going to go for at all unless they're just absolutely forced to
uh
hum
so i guess from what i understand the thing could just
they could take off at any moment without uh
start it
you know any
uh-huh you know any local um
you know congressional effort or anything else because you know it's not really settled yet
there's no official document signed or anything
not yet not yet at all
well i um when the when the crisis began last August i began to think well i i um couldn't remember things that i had studied in the past in school and all so i got out like my encyclopedias and
tried to read about the history and it was really what i felt was kind of cynical because it there just hasn't been any peace over there
uh-huh
ever in thousands of years of history
no
yeah i don't know why they expect it's going to start this week you know
yeah
that's right and it just it's just not people they
and it's not uh you know there isn't any real Arab coalition because they do fight among themselves
uh-huh
and they fight with each other and they have such hatred for
Israel and
yeah the uh the thing that's kind of interesting uh about this my sons in the Air Force
oh yes
and uh he came within about a quarter of an inch of going uh to Saudi he ended up in Korea instead and because of the way they split a transportation group out in Lubbock
hum
so he ended up going to Korea but his buddies ended up going to Saudi
well he's still in Korea and his buddies are home now he he almost wishes that that he could have gone home
oh no
he
and got it over with well i just there's just no way for us to be involved over there and hope that there will be much peace
yeah
uh-huh
and um with and that i'm afraid that we would have to stay
yeah the thing uh the other thing too when this all started if you you know if you did much reading on the thing you know Kuwait
the country of Kuwait was just you know somebody's
uh you go back to World War i when the uh Ottoman empire broke up
and the British and the French and the English yeah the British and the French mostly
uh-huh
decided to carve up that part of the world and call part of it Persia and part of it uh Iraq and part of it something else you know and they they split things along um
uh-huh
geographical lines but they didn't take any kind of consideration into uh
social or cultural
things at all so the country of uh of Kuwait really doesn't make just a whole lot of sense
right
except that it is an accepted
place you know it's like any other country you know for whatever reason it's
yeah
it's actually there well Iraq has had uh designs on that place since nineteen twenty two
so you know it wasn't like something that just suddenly popped up
yes
and it's just that this was an excuse
you know to make some noise now something that i read in the paper the other day that i thought was kind of interesting was that the Arab
uh
uh their version or vision or whatever the United States now is somewhat changed in that we won you know now now we are a uh a legitimate player in the game over there you know the
yes
we i don't think we can really understand their attitude because their culture's just so much different
right
uh we are now a legitimate player in the
in the in the game because we came in with a certain amount of force and we
you know we defeated
you know Iran couldn't do it in seven years and we went in and did in in seven days what Iran couldn't do in seven years you know so
right right
that kind of ups our stock in there just a little bit it makes us more legitimate
so now what they're saying is that well since we won whatever we say goes because it's a kind of a might makes right attitude about it and you know we've got the power
yeah
yeah
which is why for centuries you know hundreds of years the British and the French had so much influence in there because they'd go in and they'd win something
right
and then and then they could call the shots for the next
you know period of time until the next strong man came up and you know and
right
and caused problems so
well i just uh i'm not interested in keeping big military over there and having to go in and call the shots like you say and and i just would prefer that i mean sometimes we've said let's keep we
yeah yeah
we're not interested in what other countries do and then other times we jump in and do things and while i'm really glad that they
uh-huh
uh i it was important demilitarize demilitarize that area because of all the build up armaments
yeah
i don't hope i'd i hope we don't try to keep uh
in there and try to
keep our fingers in the pot and try to
yeah
stay over there because we just don't want to send our people there and make them stay
yeah that's that's the uh
that's that's the big thing you know we still got a little bit of the old
you know Vietnam um
problem in you know in the back of our minds we we got this we're we're used to wars where you can get in do the job and get out
yeah
Vietnam we never did get out you know never did get the job done because they were too ham strung
yeah
uh this thing they they gave the guys uh the power and the material and the
told them to go do it and they did it you know got in and got out i'm not sure the the big fuss that we're going to see now for the next few weeks i would think
yeah and
is uh you know the uh the business with the uh the Shiites of all people you know in the southern part of the country and also the Kurds because these people evidently are you know being killed off by the thousands
yeah
and whether the the United Nations i don't think the US will do it on their own but whether the United Nations comes around and says hey wait a minute we know this thing isn't
uh all that much over we've got to go back in there and and be sure tha t this large population isn't just wiped out
which is seems to be exactly what's happening right at the moment
uh-huh i noticed that
but uh you know
well i don't think there's much hope for a lasting peace over there like they
oh well no no there there never will be i mean uh uh the only way that you're going to have peace over there if if we determine that we want to go in and wipe out every last one of them
yeah
history
you know until we make a decision to do that there won't be peace but i don't think we want to make that decision either
uh-huh
no
so that's that's a little rough you know we're not we're not quite up to that sort of thing
no
so
well i guess i better go i have a repairman just came for my refrigerator
oh
oh well that's fun
but yes well i enjoyed the topic i hope you have have a good day okay bye-bye
you too bye bye
