Kuwait

Kuwait is a country in the Middle East that shares borders with Iraq and Saudi Arabia. They are a non-democratic monarchy with a King as their leader. For political reasons, they have falsely been represented in US media as having a democracy, something which is actually false. This was done primarily to try to garner support for protecting Kuwait against Iraq during the annexation of Kuwait and subsequent justification of the invasion of Iraq by US forces in 1990. By falsely claiming that Kuwait was a democracy, and Iraq a dictatorship, they quickly gained public support within US for the invasion. The reality was that at the time Iraq was a democracy (albeit a corrupt one) while Kuwait was a monarchy and furthermore that as at the Invasion of Iraq USA was allied to Iraq, not to Kuwait. These lies were told to the American people to try to support an otherwise unjustifiable invasion that produced many evil actions later on, including 9/11. To this day, still many Americans believe that Kuwait is a democracy. In spite of being a monarchy, Kuwait does have elections for their Prime Minister, in a similar way to most other monarchies around the world (e.g. Great Britain). The Prime Minister, however, does not have any real power as they can be overthrown by the King at any time. In May 2009, they elected their first female MPs for the first time. [1]

History of Kuwait

Kuwait is a tiny country with about 2.7 million people over an area of about 17,000 square km (7,000 sq miles), which borders Iraq and Saudi Arabia. It was originally colonised in the 4th century BC by Greeks but did not exist as a country until 1756 AD. In the 19th century, it came under control of the Ottoman Empire before coming under British control in 1899. In 1961, it became independent for the first time in its history, making it one of the newest countries in the world.

Kuwait's economy revolves around oil, which gives it a gross domestic product of $81,800 USD per capita per year, making it the 5th richest country in the world. While this wealth is not evenly spread, as much of it goes to the King and the royal family, nonetheless the average Kuwaiti is incredibly rich, richer even than the wealthiest people from Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia before the oil wars.

After the 1990 annexation of Kuwait by Iraq, Kuwait was threatened with losing much of its wealth, or at least having its wealth spread out amongst not only its own people but the people of Iraq as well. This would have more than halved the average income had the United States not intervened. Thanks to US intervention, today Kuwait is wealthier than ever and they do not need to fear reprisals from their Iraqi neighbours due to all of the protection by US military. Indeed, Kuwait remains the only nation in the area that actually wants US soldiers to be there in Iraq, as it helps to protect their wealth.