a no tolerance policy

In August of 1990 when Saddam Hussein seized Kuwait the US launched Operation Desert Shield channeling American air, sea and ground forces into and around Saudi Arabia on the pretext first of preventing Saddam from launching an invasion there as well:



This saw a mass deployment of US troops onto Saudi territory, however even though the Saudis were happy to "rent" a superpower to do all the necessary fighting it wasn't ready to tolerate the various faiths of the foreign soldiers that were ready to fight and die for their land!

Not only were coalition troops on station in Saudi Arabia not allowed to drink any alcohol, they were also not allowed any Bibles, Saudi customs officers confiscated Bibles, the Jewish soldiers were not allowed hold any religious services on Saudi territory.

The Americans found a way around this by instead sending the Jewish soldiers via helicopter to ships in the Gulf to hold their services there instead!

Before the January 15th UN deadline date was announced for Saddam to pull his forces out of Kuwait Operation Desert Shield was expected at the time to last a long time, the large coalition military presence was indeed very costly to maintain.



* $1.2 billion a month for the American military machine
* $2.2 billion for the large amount of air power
* $4 billion for the Muslim allies sent to the Saudi Desert

All of this and the fact that the coalition forces (comprising of Western GIs) helped neutralize Saddam Hussein's Iraq and in turn ensure Saudi Arabia's safety, while despite this their way of life wasn't even tolerated!