Gulf War

“ If the last two years of our history have failed to educate them up to the meaning of this war, I confess that I think them almost incorrigible; yet I cannot believe that even they, if they had had the experience which has placed not only General Butler, but almost every one of the twenty thousand men composing the old "Army of the Gulf," firmly on the side of freedom to all, of whatever complexion, could longer withstand the dictates of God and humanity.
Let me describe one or two of the scenes I witnessed in New Orleans, that opened our eyes to the true nature of human bondage. ”

“ Should the war cease to-morrow, it has inaugurated a new era in our nation's history. The folly of the Gulf States, in throwing away a political condition where the conservative sentiment stood by them only too well, must inevitably recoil on their own heads, whether the strife last a day or a generation. No man can estimate the new measures and combinations to which it is destined to give rise. ”

“ The war with Iraq is over. The quest for solutions to the problems in Lebanon, in the Arab-Israeli dispute, and in the gulf must go forward with new vigor and determination. And I guarantee you no one will work harder for a stable peace in the region than we will.
Fourth, we must foster economic development for the sake of peace and progress. The Persian Gulf and Middle East — and Middle East — form a region rich in natural resources with a wealth of untapped human potential. Resources once squandered on military might — military might must be redirected to more peaceful ends. ”

“ We keep a British ship of war in the Gulf. We feel that it is a matter of the first importance that those countries should remain under our protection, and that the Turks should not build forts at Fao and otherwise interfere with our trade in the Karoun, and that no other power should have a foothold thereon. The last generation talked much about a Euphrates Valley Railway, with its terminus at Koweit; we now hear a great deal about the opening up of the Karoun, but it is the lordship of the Gulf which is the chief matter of importance just at present both for India and for ourselves. ”

“ The biggest difference is while the United States is talking to coalition allies and asking for various things, the war to be fought is a very different war. In 1991, the Persian Gulf War was much more a traditional war. ”

“ The Gulf of California should be made neutral waters forever, by treaty between the United States and Mexico, and this treaty should be agreed to by all the nations of the world. The neutral waters thus created should extend far enough into the open sea so that all commerce from the shores of the Gulf of California or reaching the markets of the world through that waterway from any of the vast interior territory embraced in the drainage basin of the Colorado River, could at any time reach the ocean highways of commerce without danger of being waylaid by the hostile ships of war of any nation. ”

“ The positions now or hereafter occupied by them on island or mainland, however strong, will be but outposts of their power; while in all the raw materials of military strength no nation is superior to the United States. She is, however, weak in a confessed unpreparedness for war; and her geographical nearness to the point of contention loses some of its value by the character of the Gulf coast, which is deficient in ports combining security from an enemy with facility for repairing warships of the first class, without which ships no country can pretend to control any part of the sea. ”

“ But the pirates of the West Indies and the Gulf were not the only ones the United States had to deal with. You have read the story of the Moorish corsairs and of the fighting at Tripoli. Now I have something more to tell about them; for when they heard that the United States was at war with England, they tried their old tricks again, capturing American sailors and selling them for slaves. ”

“ The war in the gulf is not a war we wanted. We worked hard to avoid war. For more than five months we, along with the Arab League, the European Community and the United Nations, tried every diplomatic avenue. ”

“ It is certain that a mild and forbearing system of warfare, collecting no duties in their ports in our possession on the Gulf and levying no contributions, whilst our armies purchase supplies from them at high prices, by rendering the war a benefit to the people of Mexico rather than an injury has not hastened the conclusion of a peace. ”

“ Regarded as positions, therefore, these two islands are the real rivals for control of the Caribbean and of the Gulf of Mexico; and it may be added that the strategic centre of interest for both Gulf and Caribbean is to be found in the Windward Passage, because it furnishes the ultimate test of the relative power of the two islands to control the Caribbean. For, as has been said before, and cannot be repeated too often, it is not position only, nor chiefly, but mobile force, that is decisive in war. ”

“ Directly it became certain that Turkey had thrown in her lot with the Central Powers, in the autumn of 1914, an expeditionary force sailed from India for the Persian Gulf, and seized the mouth of the Shat-el-Arab, by which the Tigris and Euphrates pour into the sea. The objects of this expedition were at first limited. The protection of the oil-wells, of such importance to our Navy, and the blocking of the German strategical railway through Baghdad, were all that was immediately contemplated. ”

“ About two o’clock yesterday I left General Logan, with his division in pursuit of the enemy, to join General Grant at Grand Gulf, which the enemy had evacuated in the morning, first blowing up their magazines, spiking their cannon, destroying tents, etc. On my way to Grand Gulf I saw guns scattered all along the road, which the enemy had left in their retreat. The rebels were scattered through the woods in every direction. This army of the rebels was considered, as I now learn, invincible ”

“ Nothing is more probable, sir. Government has several, and, since this war has commenced, it has been sending off cruiser after cruiser into the Gulf. The Mexicans dare not send a vessel of war to sea, which would be sending them to Norfolk, or New York, at once ”

“ After a time we hope news will leak through, but at present there is none. We are to be allowed a German-inspired daily written in French and published in Stamboul, called the Hillal. According to it fighting still proceeds in France in the same old zone, while in Mesopotamia the front is near Amara—which one doubts. It is almost two years since the war started. Great movements in the national life of most European nations seem to be merging into international. With peace, I believe fresh and wonderful Gulf Streams will circulate in the new political world that must arise. ”

“ That with an established footing in the Gulf of Persia, which must soon become the emporium of our commerce, the seat of our political negotiations, and a dépôt for our military stores, we should be able to establish a local influence and strength that would not only exclude other European nations from that quarter, but enable us to carry on negotiations and military operations with honour and security to any extent we desired ”

“ There had been a school of thought in Egypt all along that the best defence of that region against Turkish invasion was by undertaking operations on the Syrian or Palestine coast, based on the Gulf of Iskanderun for preference, but possibly based on Beirut or Haifa. As the situation in the Near East grew rapidly worse during September, the War Council began to dream of diversions in new directions, (p. 183) quite apart from the Gallipoli Peninsula and Salonika, and some of them pitched upon the shores of the Gulf of Iskanderun, the strategical importance of which was unquestionable. ”

“ Many of those discharged would perish before they could reach their homes, and others might reach their friends mere walking skeletons, showing the glory of a campaign of conquest.
Military men, and those best acquainted with the country and its defences, are of the opinion, that to prosecute the war with vigor, would require a force of sixty or seventy thousand on the land, to say nothing of our naval force in the Gulf and on the Pacific. This force, in a single year, would be reduced nearly one half by death and disease ”

“ The Turkish offensive along her eastern frontier in Transcaucasia and in Persia was first undertaken. The Persian Gulf had long been controlled by Great Britain; even in the days of Elizabeth the East India Company had fought with Dutch and Portuguese rivals for control of its commerce. The English had protected Persia, suppressed piracy and slavery, and introduced sanitary measures in the [56] marshes along the coast. They regarded a control of the Persian Gulf as necessary for the prosperity of India and the Empire. The Turkish Government had never had great power along the Persian Gulf. ”

“ Enterprise by the branch railway through Aleppo and Damascus against Egypt, with a view to further developments in Africa, was related to this conception of land-power. The measures adopted by the Allies for the reconstitution of Serbia, the expeditions to the Dardanelles and Salonika, the strong action taken in Greece, the naval movements on the coast of Syria, the operations in the Sinai peninsula and Palestine, and the expedition from the Persian Gulf to Baghdad were the answer to these gigantesque projects of the enemy. ”

“ Before the Ottoman troops were ready, the British in the Gulf had made a start. On November 7th a British force under Brigadier-General Delamain bombarded the Turkish fort at Falon, landed troops and occupied [57] the village. Sailing north from this point they disembarked at Sanijah, where they entrenched themselves and waited for reinforcements. On November 13th reinforcements arrived, and on November 17th the British army advanced toward Sahain. From there they moved on Sahil, where they encountered a Turkish force. Some lively fighting ensued and the Turks broke and fled. ”

“ It secures us against all future annoyance from powerful Indian tribes. It gives us several excellent harbors in the Gulf of Mexico for ships of war of the largest size. It covers by its position in the Gulf the Mississippi and other great waters within our extended limits, and thereby enables the United States to afford complete protection to the vast and very valuable productions of our whole Western country, which find a market through those streams. ”

“ Since 1949 American ships have patrolled in the Gulf, an area that is a vital strategic and economic crossroad for the nations of three continents, an area that in the hands of a hostile power would be a chokepoint of freedom. ”

“ Tonight in Iraq, Saddam walks amidst ruin. His war machine is crushed. His ability to threaten mass destruction is itself destroyed. ”

“ Clearly, no longer can a dictator count on East-West confrontation to stymie concerted United Nations action against aggression.
A new partnership of nations has begun, and we stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment. The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective—a new world order—can emerge: A new era—freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice and more secure in the quest for peace. ”

“ We ask for peace and justice from all nations; and we will remain uprightly neutral in fact, though leaning in belief to the opinion that an English ascendancy on the ocean is safer for us than that of France. We begin to broach the idea that we consider the whole Gulf Stream as of our waters, in which hostilities and cruising are to be frowned on for the present, and prohibited so soon as either consent or force will permit us. We shall never permit another privateer to cruise within it, and shall forbid our harbors to national cruisers. This is essential for our tranquillity and commerce. ”

“ Hunters, choppers, tillers, fighters For epochs vast and new In Truth, in Liberty, Posters from land to land and sea to sea Till all the earth be free!
Ulysses of the great Atlantis, Dream not of disaster, Sleep the sleep of the brave In your couch afar from the Father of Waters! A new Ulysses arises, Who turns not back, nor stops Till the thing is done. He cuts with one stroke of the sword The stubborn neck that keeps the Gulf And the Caribbean From the luring Pacific. Roosevelt the hunter, the pioneer, Wholly American, Winner of greater wests Till all the earth be free! ”

“ The defense of the Gulf gateway of the United States of America not only against Nature's forces, whether coming in the form of an invasion by a mighty flood from the North, or the invasion of a great destroying storm wave from the South, must be accomplished by the adoption of a plan for the protection of that country similar to that proposed for the organization of a Homecroft Reserve in the Colorado River Valley and in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys and in the State of Nevada. ”

“ The squadron at once weighed anchor, cleared for action, and put on forced draft, while "dark-skinned men, with queues tightly coiled around their heads, and with arms bare to the elbow, clustered along the decks in groups at the guns, waiting to kill or be killed." Out of the smoke soon emerged 12 enemy cruisers which, with information of the Chinese movements, had entered the Gulf intent on battle. ”

“ She occupies an important position between the Gulf and the ocean for transit routes and for commerce. Is it possible that such a country as this can be given up to anarchy and ruin without an effort from any quarter for its rescue and its safety? Will the commercial nations of the world, which have so many interests connected with it, remain wholly indifferent to such a result? Can the United States especially, which ought to share most largely in its commercial intercourse, allow their immediate neighbor thus to destroy itself and injure them? ”