By December of 1990, tension was brewing in the Persian Gulf but the real fight was still in Washington, D.C. Then-President George H.W. Bush was coming under fire from students on the Hilltop – not so different from the events that would transpire over a decade later.

Following Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, the United States was mobilizing a world coalition to oust him from power. On Dec. 4, 1990, THE HOYA reported on a rally at the White House in which more than 100 people and at least 30 Georgetown students gathered to protest the threat of a U.S. strike on Iraq.

Ryan McCannell (SFS ’93) expressed the views of many of the protestors that day.

“Negotiations aren’t necessarily ruled out at this point,” he said. “I don’t want to see people that I know go over there and get killed just because we didn’t try.”

Even members of Georgetown ROTC cadets joined in the protest.

Although he would not reveal his identity, one cadet spoke in support of the demonstrators.

“I think they have a lot of valid points,” he said.

But the Young Americans for Freedom, a group from GWU, staged a counter-protest supporting the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.

Chris Robinson, a GWU sophomore, told THE HOYA that the group was there to “support our troops and to say that [the presence of] U.S. troops in the Middle East is the best hope for a solution for peace right now.”

The U.S. began air strikes on Iraq on Jan. 16, 1991 and the Iraqi government accepted an unconditional ceasefire on Mar. 3 that same year.