Salmiya

These days, Kuwaiti citizens celebrate their “Golden Independence Anniversary” and 20 years of liberation from Saddam Hussein’s hordes. And HH Amir Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah is five years in power, of course. 50-20-5. The city is beautifully illuminated and each citizen has got 1000 dinars ($3500) already. Panem et circensis. Uproars in North Africa and even Bahrain seem not to affect the Kuwaitis, although last week has seen some protests of bedouns, or stateless people. I remember similar celebrations when one of the current Amir’s predecessors, HH Jaber al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah (“Baba Jaber”), returned in 2002 from treatment in the United States after having recovered from a mild stroke. We got stuck in the traffic deadlock on our way back to Salwa, we had to walk. Young people were enthusiastically dancing on the cars. Kuwaitis love their Amirs. When once asking one of my bright Kuwaiti student what exactly they were celebrating on February 25/26, she responded...

On the 2nd of August 1990, Kuwait, the small country in the corner of the Persian Gulf was invaded by Iraqi troops. The tanks overran the tiny post at Abdaly, about 50 km north of the Al Mutlaa ridge. Saddam Hussein was pretty certain that the US would not interfere. He had enjoyed, for many years, a sort of friendship among rogues, and the handshake with Donald Rumsfeld is unforgotten, when the first war in the region, against America’s arch-enemy Iran, culminated with poison gas on one side and children with little plastic keys sent into the mine fields on the other. Stunningly, both parties, Iraq and Iran, had been eagerly supported by the West. Israel had even sold arms to Iran. It was a worldwide desire that both bastards, Saddam’s and Khomeini’s regimes, should better bleed to death, and vanish. But dictatorships do not vanish easily. One million had died when this war, which saw battles in trenches and usage of mustard gas, 70 years after WWI, ceased in August 1988. As other Ar...