Bush & Family HouseCleaning Co.

Growing up as child, I vividly remember a specific annual event my family held every year: Spring house cleaning. Every May, my mom would gather the family and allocate one specific weekend day for a total house cleaning after a long winter. Like my family, and many other American families, the Bush family also seems to have a fondness for "cleaning house." However, the Bush family takes the term "cleaning house" to a whole new level. It does not simply mean cleaning their ranch in Texas, nor the White house in D.C. but rather they want to clean the entire world of anything negative. Just as George W. Bush sent troops to clean house in Iraq in 2003, his father, President George H. W. Bush did the same some twelve years early, and evidently, he was also cleaning up the wrongdoings of Iraq.

In August of 1990, Iraq overtook Kuwait, a neighboring country, over an oil and debt dispute. Saddam Hussein then planned on invading Saudi Arabia and taking their oil. However, United States President George H. Bush was not ready to let Iraq run wild. He sent troops to defend Saudi Arabia. Only a few months later, the Persian Gulf war became official on January 16th, 1991 as Bush received the "OK" from the UN to schedule an air attack on Iraq. Three months later, Bush had succeeded in calming down Iraq and a ceasefire was accepted.

The prevalence in this story for me in not the Persian Gulf War itself but the platform it set up for later events. In my opinion, this was the beginning of Saddam's power. It became clear that he was leading Iraq in the wrong direction. President George H.W. Bush failed to suppress him during his term as president and so I believe one of the factors the U.S. went to war again in 2003 in because George W. was trying to finish something his father started and therefore the family business of cleaning house continued.