or even years to shut down a country, but with today's advanced knowledge, Kuwait's enemies wiped my country out in what seemed like the blink of an eye. Also, I learned that if an enemy could harm us, they would. And, if we were not adequately prepared, if not this enemy, then another.
I also learned that since the rising price of oil in the 1970s had fueled Kuwait's economy with a growth that was unprecedented in our country's entire history, like the handout's story of Bill Stith, our economic success and subsequent rapid expansion left Kuwait's businessmen no time to prepare for catastrophe. Like the other men in my country, I had a blind spot, I never thought about how the world was changing around us because I was too comfortable with Kuwait's horizontal economic growth. Thus, like most of my countrymen, and like Bill Stith in California, I was ill-prepared for unexpected change. Kuwait's entire economic system was based on selling and distributing oil, we had never learned how to rebuild a country like the Eur
...