miko: If we needed that equipment to stay in Kuwait for some unfathomable reason, we could have used a couple of cratering bombs on the highway or just used our Spec-Op tropps to put "CLOSED" sign on the gas station.
Sikboy: It's just that easy isn't it? I'm curious to see how this would have been accomplished.
Like this: Take an airplane into the air. Drop a few bombs on the road, so the wheeled transport cannot get through. In case some iraqis bother to carry their vehicles over the resulting craters rather than leave them and walk, destroy any fuel dumps/gas stations close to the road. Done.
How about this dilemma for you: one dictator (Hussein) wanted to take ownetship of 700,000 peasants (kuwaitis) from another dictator (whichever sheikh) and also his oil reserves (which he would sell to the same buyer and close friend US of A). To thwart that plan we killed 100,000 peasants.
So all the peaseants are still ruled by dictators (except for 100,000 dead ones) and the oil still belongs to the same dictators.
There was a battle going on, and without a surrender I don't see how a military man could allow large enemy formations to withdraw, given that they could regroup and counterattack.
Did anyone offer those bastards to surrender? We shot people who had no way of shooting back and could only theoretically hurt us at a later date because we declared war on their country.
According to that logic of yours, Al-Qaeda declared war on us years ago and was justified blowing up 3000 civilians because those could have regrouped, got drafted into the army and hurt them back at some later date.
P.S. I participated in a war where helpless enemy soldiers, prisoners, women and children were murdered for reasons and in ways that would not be found acceptable by civilised societies. But I am not such a hyppocrite as to justify it or take pride in it.
miko
