A little time travel for you...

I have been given a December 1990 TIME (International) magazine talking about Gorbachev and Russia. That was the original intent, but it has turned into a little bit of time travel and looking back on what was going on when I was about 4 years old. I have found a similarity between the 2 Bush administrations, and their form of foreign policy. Here is what I have found:

During the late 1980's and early 1990's, there was a recession, and the pundits/news agencies were predicting that it would get worse. At this same time, George H W Bush was gearing up the country for the first Gulf War. Sound familiar? This is similar to what happened with George W Bush's administration. They came off the economic recovery of the Clinton years, and after September 11th, the economy started to slip back again. Then W decided to go to war in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. This history lesson really makes the Gulf Wars look more like a family political policy rather than a war of necessity. That is, of course, unless you look at the philosophy of "states, when given the choice to decline or to fight, they usually choose to fight." The other interesting thing that the "experts" in TIME have to say is that they were worried about a war in Iraq to bring about an economic downturn, even worse than they were experiencing at the time. Hmmm...Looks like they were about 15 years early on that prediction, but it still is quite interesting that even though the 1st Gulf War had the same possible consequences as we are now seeing from the 2nd Gulf War. Just something to ponder...