nations that do not write down their history and learn from it are doomed to repeat their mistakes. after the dawn of the liberation of the homeland from the grip of the despicable saddam and his forces, on february 26, 1991, after seven months of suffering and mental torture, we all expected that the government of kuwait and people would be something different after having learned lessons that cannot be forgotten.
nevertheless, with the cash flow from the first shipment of oil into our accounts, we forgot the invasion, the occupation, the lessons, and even the national assembly’s report on what happened on august 2, 1990, which held no one accountable for that painful event.
we decided to take advantage of the situation, and record the events of the invasion our way according to our visions, so we got into an agreement with a hobbyist who rides bicycles to undertake the mission of roaming around the world carrying the message of liberation of kuwait.
to finance his hobby, he contacted various major companies and institutions, asking them to provide sponsorship for the ‘hero’, in exchange for putting their badges or their company logos on the clothes the cyclist was wearing.
after “our brother” accumulated a good fortune, he announced the cancellation of the project on the pretext that the cyclist had broken his leg.
the sponsors’ money was lost in the belly of hajj ‘joseph’ of kuwait.
after the success of his first project, joseph obtained a government house in which he hung drawings and electronic games, and he obtained for himself huge donations from various companies to support his project related to documenting the events of the invasion and occupation, and it became clear from my contacts at the time with the heads of banks and major companies, he collected nearly a million dinars, all of which went to his own account and his project ended with nothing.
the occasion to talk about this topic, which we have earlier touched upon, is the emergence of videos related to military actions carried out by the “national resistance” during the abhorrent period of occupation, including interviews with those who participated in shooting down enemy planes with estrella missiles, and how they fired two missiles at an iraqi civilian jumbo plane transporting equipment, weapons with iraqi soldiers and officials on board, including aziz al-noman, the governor of occupied kuwait, who was killed in the plane crash.
it was later revealed, according to the plane’s captain himself, that the plane was hit but did not crash, and al-noman was not aboard, and its engine was replaced with one that was stolen from kuwait!
although thirty-one years have passed since the liberation, a majority of those who remained in kuwait at the time played no known roles in the resistance and are still alive among us and have remained silent and are stingy with their testimonies leaving the space for narrators (who played no role) to narrate what has nothing to do with the truth.
the story of the occupation of kuwait, the resistance, the executions, and the overwhelmingly popular and official rejection of the occupation in any form deserves to be documented as it is an unprecedented human experience and it is unforgivable to be forgotten in this unfortunate manner.
we repeat: nations that do not write down their history and learn from it are doomed to repeat their mistakes. is there anything to be ashamed of, of that history?