Gulf War I

It's time for the thirty-year-old thread of cartoons at this here blog to go to war with Iraq.

in UW-M Post, Milwaukee, Wis., January 14, 1991

President George H.W. Bush gave Iraqi President Saddam Hussein an ultimatum: withdraw from Kuwait by January 15, or the international coalition Bush had been painstakingly assembling since Iraq annexed the emirate in August would attack. Hussein called Bush's bluff.

in UW-M Post, January 22, 1991

And it was no bluff.

There was no "Khattam Shud military base," by the way. Khattam Shud is the villain in Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories, which I had recently read. It also translates as "completely finished."

in UW-M Post, January 29, 1991

Not that we could know in January that the war would be over in a matter of weeks. As Hussein and his commanders pulled their army back from the front to defend the capital (and seemed more committed to shelling Israel than hindering U.S. military advances), coalition forces prepared for a possible siege of Baghdad, urban warfare, and the prospect of heavy civilian casualties.

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Kenosha, Wis., January 31, 1991

The retreating Iraqi army burned oilfields in their wake, to the alarm of environmentalists the world over. 

"Don't Look Now" was a follow-up to "Before, During and After," even though my parents may have been the only people to see both cartoons at the time.

in UW-M Post, January 31, 1991

I liked this cartoon so much I drew it twice, once for the Parkside Ranger and a week later for the UW-M Post. The second cartoon is a slight improvement over the first, in which there was only one cot; the Bushes in the later cartoon are also doing more than just standing around in their cell.