Today, we salute and honor the #Veterans of the #OperationDesertStorm. Listen as SFC (Ret.) Fred W. Brown Jr. recounts his experience from thirty years ago.

Let's celebrate their service! Share a photo or a story or your favorite #DesertStorm Vet.

#ArmyHistory

The #PersianGulfWar (1990–91), was an international conflict that was triggered by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990.

Saddam Hussein, ordered the invasion and occupation of Kuwait with the apparent aim of acquiring that nation’s large oil reserves.

#DesertStorm
By January 1991, the allied coalition against Iraq had reached a strength of 700,000 troops, including 540,000 U.S. personnel and smaller numbers of British, French, Egyptians, Saudis, Syrians, and several other national contingents.

#DesertStorm
The allied coalition’s military offensive against Iraq began on Jan. 17, 1991, with a massive air campaign that continued throughout the war.

Over the next few weeks, this sustained aerial bombardment, destroyed Iraq’s air defenses and several key targets.

#DesertStorm
By mid-February the allies had shifted their air attacks to Iraq’s forward ground forces in Kuwait and southern Iraq, destroying their fortifications and tanks.

#DesertStorm
Operation Desert Sabre, a massive allied ground offensive, was launched northward from northeastern Saudi Arabia into Kuwait and southern Iraq on Feb. 24, and within three days Arab and U.S. forces had retaken Kuwait city in the face of crumbling Iraqi resistance.

#DesertStorm
Meanwhile, the main U.S. armored thrust drove into Iraq some 120 miles (200 km) west of Kuwait and attacked Iraq’s armored reserves from the rear.

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By February 27, these forces had destroyed most of Iraq’s elite Republican Guard units after the latter had tried to make a stand south of Al-Baṣrah in southeastern Iraq.

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By the time that U.S. Pres. George H.W. Bush declared a cease-fire for February 28, Iraqi resistance had completely collapsed.

#DesertStorm
Estimates of the number of Iraqi troops in the Kuwait theatre range from 180,000 to 630,000, and estimates of Iraqi military deaths range from 8,000 to 50,000. The allies, by contrast, lost about 300 troops in the conflict.

#DesertStorm

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MISREPRESENTED CONTEXT

1. I am indeed disgusted with attempts to misrepresent and take out of context what I wrote on my blog yesterday.


2. Those who did that highlighted only one part of paragraph 12 which read: “Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past.”

3. They stopped there and implied that I am promoting the massacre of the French.

4.If they had read d posting in its entirety & especially the subsequent sentence which read: “But by & large the Muslims hv not applied the “eye for an eye” law. Muslims don’t. The French shouldn’t. Instead the French should teach their people to respect other people’s feelings

5. Because of the spin and out of context presentation by those that picked up my posting, reports were made against me and I am accused of promoting violence etc… on Facebook and Twitter.
Watch the entire discussion if you have the time to do so. But if not, please make sure to watch Edhem Eldem summarizing ~150 years of democracy in Turkey in 6 minutes (starting on 57'). And if you can't watch it, fear not; I've transcribed it for you (as public service). Thread:


"Let me start by saying that I am a historian, I see dead people. But more seriously, I am constantly torn between the temptation to see patterns developing over time, and the fear of hasty generalizations and anachronistic comparisons. 1/n

"Nevertheless, the present situation forces me to explore the possible historical dimensions of the problem we're facing today. 2/n

"(...)I intend to go further back in time and widen the angle in order to focus on the confusion I  believe exists between the notions of 'state', 'government', and 'public institutions' in Turkey. 3/n

"In the summer of 1876, that's a historical quote, as Midhat Pasa was trying to draft a constitution, Edhem Pasa wrote to Saffet Pasa, and I quote in Turkish, 'Bize Konstitusyon degil enstitusyon lazim' ('It is not a constitution we need but institutions'). 4/n

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I’m torn on how to approach the idea of luck. I’m the first to admit that I am one of the luckiest people on the planet. To be born into a prosperous American family in 1960 with smart parents is to start life on third base. The odds against my very existence are astronomical.


I’ve always felt that the luckiest people I know had a talent for recognizing circumstances, not of their own making, that were conducive to a favorable outcome and their ability to quickly take advantage of them.

In other words, dumb luck was just that, it required no awareness on the person’s part, whereas “smart” luck involved awareness followed by action before the circumstances changed.

So, was I “lucky” to be born when I was—nothing I had any control over—and that I came of age just as huge databases and computers were advancing to the point where I could use those tools to write “What Works on Wall Street?” Absolutely.

Was I lucky to start my stock market investments near the peak of interest rates which allowed me to spend the majority of my adult life in a falling rate environment? Yup.