USII.33

Analyze the course and consequences of America’s recent diplomatic initiatives. =


 * [[image:rotating gif.gif width="43" height="43"]]Go to United States Government 4.4 for background on how the government conducts foreign policy.**




 * Topics on the Page **
 * Overview of American Foreign Policy **
 * Persian Gulf War **
 * Intervention in Somalia **
 * Intervention in Haiti **
 * Response to 9/11 Attacks **
 * The Iraq War **
 * War in Afghanistan **

//** Focus Questions: **//

 * ==//** What has been the course and consequences of American diplomatic and military initiatives in the Persian Gulf, Somalia, Haiti, and Afghanistan? **//==
 * ==//** What has been **////** the American response to the September 11 Attacks? **//==

Overview of American Foreign Policy

 * [|From Wounded Knee to Libya: A Century of United States Military Interventions] [| (1890-2011)] **compiled by Zoltan Grossman from Evergreen State College.

[|Deaths in Other Nations Since WWII Due to U.S. Interventions]from Countercurrents.org (April 2007).

In the late 20th and early 21st Century, American foreign policy increasingly emphasized the role of the “World’s Policeman,” a position embraced by various presidential administrations.
 * There have been marked gaps in this role, however, (inaction to stop the genocide in Rwanda, for example) which call into question the image of the U.S. as a moral enforcer and international protector, as opposed to an economic opportunist, cultural imperialist, or comforter and rescuer.
 * The true nature of U.S. foreign policy is a combination of all of these traits, all simultaneously at work.
 * A widespread belief in "American exceptionalism," or the thinking that the US is a unique and virtuous force for good on the world stage, has defined numerous global interactions for the US.
 * Countless politicians and foreign policymakers have reinforced this belief through both their rhetoric and actions. Every US president in the late 20th and 21st century has remarked that the US is the greatest nation ever to exist and must act like it(for whatever that means) on the global scale.
 * As author[| David Sirota has succintly pointed out], "Is there a way to remain exceptional in ways that benefit us while also being a bit less exceptional in the ways that harm us and others?"
 *  [|The Project for the New American Century]was a conservative think tank that helped to manipulate public opinion to support sweeping political, economic, and ethical measures throughout US government and policy and was instrumental in convincing the American public to support both the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One especially pernicious dynamic stemming from the September 11th attacks is widespread **Islamophobia** in the United States. A 2010 controversy over the building of Park51, an Islamic Cultural Center in lower Manhattan (near Ground Zero) illustrates the presence and impact of Islamophobia.

//This American Life//, a radio show on NPR, aired an episode about a Muslim family in the U.S. whose children face discrimination at school following 9/11. The clip (Act One) is 33 minutes long, and you can stream it [|here]. Also, click here for **[|Coming Home: A History of War Veterans]** that explores how veterans were treated in the aftermath of America's wars. Also click [|here]for an overview of the conditions of veterans returning home from war.

[|Serving in Silence: Stories from the Veterans' History Project] presents the stories of gay soliders who served their country during the Korean, Vietnam and Persian Gulf Wars.

This [|link] provides specific stories of gay soldiers who served in different wars. Also, take a look [|here] at the repeal of the don't ask don't tell notion

//Why We Fight// (2005 film) is a documentary directed by Eugene Jarecki, detailing the military-industrial complex (policy and monetary connections between lawmakers, defense contractors, and the armed services) within the United States in the light of the Iraq War and the 9/11 attacks.
 * It won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary after first being screened at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.
 * To watch segments of the documentary on YouTube, click here.
 * To buy the DVD through Amazon, click here.

Crash Course: Terrorism, War, and Bush

** Persian Gulf War (1990-91) **
Click Here for a timeline of the Persian Gulf War (also known as First Gulf War)

Watch this [|video] from Khan Academy on the Persian Gulf war Ø President George H.W. Bush Ø 1990-1991 Ø **Summary:** Iraq, led by Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait, its smaller neighbor to the south, claiming it as Iraqi territory. The U.S. invaded and pushed back the Iraqis. Later politicians would say that President Bush failed to “finish the job” by deposing Saddam Hussein, instead leaving him in power. Ø **Note:** One staging area used for the Persian Gulf War was in Somalia; U.S. forces and supplies moved from Somalia to Saudi Arabia, the starting point for the U.S. action. This is despite the fact that the U.S. cut off aid to the country in 1989 because the Somali government was not replying international loans, and was committing human rights abuses in a civil war.

// Consequences // : After the U.S. ended its defense of Kuwait, thousands of Kurdish supporters living in Iraq’s northern border regions continued to be killed by Saddam Hussein (100,000 total died starting the late -1980s according to a 2003 BBC article). In the U.S., “Gulf War Syndrome” plagued veterans of the war, thought to be chemical-weapons related.

**American intervention in** **Somalia (1993-1994)**
Ø President Bill Clinton Ø 1993-1994 Ø **Summary:** Called “Operation Restore Hope,” United Nations forces, including U.S. troops, went to Somalia to restore order.
 * On October 3, 1993, 18 U.S. soldiers were killed and 78 wounded while exchanging shots with Somalia fighters. Up to 1,000 Somali fighters and civilians were killed.
 * In the incident, a Black Hawk helicopter was shot down, and U.S. soldiers who died were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu by an angry mob.
 * U.S forces left the country by 1994.

Black Hawk Down: 20 Years On: A Somalian citizen's perspective, which is all but forgotten by history:
 * "From a Somali perspective Black Hawk Down....was a black day, we call it a black Sunday...About 3,000 Somalis were reportedly killed on that particular day, and since then, the US military might have withdrawn because of that humiliation and the defeat caused by the killing of American soldiers, but America never left Somalia, and there have been CIA operatives in Somalia, special forces operating, and we became the number one enemy of the most powerful country in the world, and we were punished for that." Quoted in Inside Story: Aljazeera, October 4, 2013

**Bill Clinton Address on Somalia**, October 7, 1993


 * Go here for video excerpt of President Clinton's speech

// Consequences // : Despite the large gap in casualties on the two sides, Americans were shocked by the Oct. 3 incident, not understanding the source of Somalia anger, and seeing the mission as an effort to help the Somalis.

An article from the BBC says in part: “Analysts argue the UN’s initial policy of ‘coercive peace enforcement’ blurred the boundaries between international humanitarian and foreign aggressor.”

President Clinton was much more wary of sending troops to help resolve internal conflicts, which could be a reason why the U.S. military stood by a few years later during genocide in Rwanda.

**American intervention in** **Haiti (1994-95)**
Ø President Bill Clinton; September 19, 1994 - March 31, 1995 Ø President George W. Bush; March 2004 Ø **Summary:** The operation in 1994, called “Operation Restore Democracy” (also “Operation Uphold Democracy”) started when the democratically elected government was overthrown by a coup. President Clinton sent in troops to restore the elected government, and put President Jean-Bertrand Aristide back in power. In 1995, the troops stayed on as part of an official UN peacekeeping mission. Ø Ten years later, in March 2004, President Bush sent in U.S. Marines to join peacekeepers from other nations (2,500 total) to help quell violent clashes in Haiti after President Aristide resigned and fled the country at the U.S.’s urging. Ø In 2010, Haiti suffered a enormous earthquake, the effects of which have continue to cripple the nation's economy and society.

**[[image:rotating gif.gif width="43" height="43"]]For more information on the 9/11 Attacks, see World History standards World History II.47**
Ø President George W. Bush Ø September 11, 2001 Ø **Summary:** Members of a group called Al Qaeda, led by a Saudi Arabian man named Osama Bin Laden (who planned the attacks from afar), hijacked four planes in the U.S., and crashed the planes into three targets:
 * two buildings of the World Trade Center in New York City, and the Pentagon in northern Virginia, outside Washington, D.C.
 * The fourth plane, which the hijackers wanted to crash into the Capitol Building or the White House, crashed instead into a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers learned of the plot and overtook the hijackers.
 * Over 3,000 people died in the attacks.

// Consequences // : The consequences of the September 11 attacks are still reverberating in the U.S. and around the world. In the short term, the U.S. rallied, with widespread international support, to speak out against terrorism, Al Qaeda, and intolerance. Al Qaeda was supported by the Taliban government in Afghanistan. The U.S. invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban-led government.

Then, starting in 2002, the Bush administration launched a campaign to convince Americans and the rest of the world that Saddam Hussein and Iraq were linked to the attacks, that Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction,” and that an invasion was necessary. In the face of massive national and international protest and opposition, in March 2003 the U.S. and a limited numbers of soldiers from other nations (primarily the U.K.) invaded Iraq and overthrew Hussein, who was later tried and put to death, in part for massacring the Kurds in the early 1990s after the Persian Gulf War. No weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq.

On May 2, 2011 U.S. special forces executed a raid on Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abottabad, Pakistan, killing him along with a few other occupants.
 * For more on the search, see [|Hunting Bin Laden] including background on Al Qaeda and an video interview from the PBS series, // Frontline //.

This [|speech] was given by Osama Bin Laden just a month after the attacks on 9/11.

On December 18, 2011 the U.S. officially completed the withdrawal of armed forces in Iraq.

See [|The Osama Bin Laden File]for documents on the case, including the President's Daily Brief, August 6, 2001 warning of a possible attack.

[|The Impact of 9/11 in the Classroom] by Washington D. C. teacher Elizabeth Schaefer.

How has our lives have changed since [|9/11]. Has privacy been altered? **Click here for [|The September 11 Digital Archive], a collection of digital source materials maintained by the Center for History and New Media and the American Social History Project.**
 * zerodarkthirty.com A hollywood movie chronicling the search for and the raid on Osama Bin Laden.

Click here for the [|September 11 Television Archive] including a video summary of news coverage from the nonprofit group television archive

**The Iraq War (2003 - 2011** **)**

Click here for an overview of the Iraq War, also called the [|Second Gulf War] from Ohio History.


 * [[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Monthly_Troop_Deaths_in_Iraq.jpg width="476" height="224" align="right" caption="Monthly U.S. troop deaths in Iraq, with the decrease at the end of 2007 marked in red" link="http://www.brookings.edu/saban/iraq-index.aspx"]][| INDEX Tracking Reconstruction and Security in Post-Saddam Iraq]** from the Brookings Institution.

[|Top 10 Lessons of the Iraq War], Stephen M. Walt, Policy (March 20, 2012).

Iraq Lesson Plan: The Decision to Go to War

President Clinton signs the [|Iraq Liberation Act], 1998.   
 * US Foreign Policy
 * Debates on the War in Iraq
 * Afghanistan History and Culture
 * So Many More!

**War in Afghanistan**
For an overview of American Policy toward, see [|"The Making of U.S. Policy, 1973-1990]" from the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

Link to cnn blog on war in [|Afghanistan]

TImeline of major events in [|Afganistan]

[|Afghan War Diary, 2004-2010] from WikiLeaks is a compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010, written by soldiers and intelligence officers, and mainly describing lethal military actions involving the United States military, but also include intelligence information, reports of meetings with political figures, and related details.

[|The Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq: Teaching Resources and Essential Questions] from the //New York Times.//

Lesson Plan: Short Reading on the Gulf War and Questions to Consider

The Learning Network: Lesson Plans

How War in the Middle East has Affected the Role of Women

For more on the geography of Central Asia, see World Geography CSA.4


 * Sources: **

Armitage, Susan H.; Mari Jo Buhle; Daniel Czitrom; John Mack Faragher; //Out of Many: A History of the American People//; Fourth Edition; Prentice Hall, N.J.; 2003.

Key Dates: From the end of the First Gulf War to the beginning of the second (From Warchronicle.com)
April 3, 1991 —  The Security Council passes Resolution 687, allowing Saddam to stay in power but demanding he destroy all weapons of mass destruction. Until he does, economic sanctions are to remain in place. Iraqi officials begin hiding weapons and data.

April 14, 1993 —  As former President Bush visits Kuwait, police arrest 14 people in a plot to assassinate the ex-President. President Clinton orders a retaliatory strike against Iraqi intelligence headquarters.

January. 26, 1998 —After nearly seven years,  Iraq has not disarmed and continues to obstruct the disarmament process. On this date, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and others send an open letter to Clinton calling for him to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

August 5, 1998 —   Iraq suspends all cooperation with U.N. weapons inspectors. After four months of fruitless Security Council negotiations, Clinton orders four days of air strikes beginning December 16. Weapons inspectors do not return to Iraq. The U.S. shifts to a strategy of containing Saddam.

October 31, 1998 —   President Clinton signs the [|Iraq Liberation Act].

December 2, 1999 —In a  New Hampshire primary debate, George W. Bush is asked about Saddam. Bush responds, "If I found out he was developing weapons of mass destruction, I'd take him out." After taking office, Secretary of State Powell tries to develop "smart" U.N. sanctions.

September 15, 2001 —   President Bush signs a directive for the Afghan campaign and instructs the Pentagon to develop plans for a possible war in Iraq.

January 29, 2002 —  In his State of the Union speech, Bush calls Iraq, North Korea and Iran an "axis of evil" and says, "I will not wait on events, while dangers gather." In the next few months Bush will tell Condoleeza Rice to begin planning a strategy for Iraq, and General Tommy Franks begins giving monthly briefings to Bush on plans to topple Saddam.

June 1, 2002 —   Addressing graduates at West Point, Bush declares that America should be ready to use pre-emptive action against possible threats.

September 12, 2002 —President   Bush addresses the U.N. General Assembly and challenges it to hold Iraq to its promise to disarm. The following week the Administration discusses possible resolutions and stresses that Iraq will have "days and weeks, not months," to comply.

October 10, 2002 —   Congress authorizes Bush to use force against Iraq.

November 8, 2002 —   After two months of diplomacy and three proposals, the Security Council passes Resolution 1441 by a 15-to-0 vote. The first UNMOVIC teams arrive in Baghdad 17 days later. Iraq does not give inspectors full cooperation and refuses to acknowledge stockpiles of chemical weapons.

January 1, 2003 —  The first 25,000 U.S. troops start deploying to the Persian Gulf region.

January 19, 2003 —Hans Blix, chief weapons inspector for the UN, carries a message to Saddam Hussein warning him of the "seriousness of the situation". Blix states, "Inspection is not a prelude, it is an alternative to war, and that is what we want to achieve." But, Blix, adds, “There has not been sufficient co-operation. They need to have a sincere and genuine co-operation." Meanwhile, tens of thousands of protestors took to the streets around the world to show their support for the dictator of Iraq. This was not lost on Saddam. "They are supporting you because they know that evil-doers target Iraq to silence any dissenting voice to their evil and destructive policies," Saddam told senior military officers and his son Qusay, commander of Iraq's elite Republican Guards, Reuters reported.

January 20, 2003 —  One week before Hans Blix's first major report to the council, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin blindsides the United States at a U.N. press conference, saying France will oppose any move toward war.

February 5, 2003 —  In an address to the Security Council, Colin Powell presents the case for force against Saddam Hussein's regime. America's former allies are unmoved.

March 5, 2003 —  More than 200,000 U.S. troops, five carrier groups and 1,000 aircraft are in place or en route to the Middle East. France and Russia pledge to veto any resolution authorizing force. Two days later, the British begin a final effort at diplomacy.

March 16, 2003 —   Bush, Blair and Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar convene for a summit in the Azores. They announce the next day will be the Security Council's last chance to act. The Council does nothing.

March 17, 2003 —   President Bush issues an ultimatum to Saddam, giving him 48 hours to leave the country or face war.

March 19, 2003 —  Cruise-missile and bomb salvos hit Baghdad an hour after the deadline passes. Operation Iraqi Freedom begins.


 * __Somalia__**

Library of Congress Country Study on Somalia All country studies: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html Somalia: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/sotoc.html (Information on foreign relations with U.S. seems to end at 1992)

//Washington Post// look back at Somali intervention http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/issues/somalia1993/

Interviews and analysis of failed Somalia mission from PBS //Frontline// http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ambush/

BBC article looking back at the U.S. mission in Somalia; includes timeline of attacks on U.S. targets before and after September 11, putting that attack in context http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/4/newsid_2486000/2486909.stm


 * __Haiti__**

Information on Operation Restore/Uphold Democracy in Haiti (this website provided the three links on Haiti that follow)

http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/bibs/haiti/haiti99.htm

http://sfswww.georgetown.edu/sfs/programs/isd/files/haiti.htm Offers a nine page report made by Ambassador James F. Dobbins, Special Advisor on Haiti, U.S. Dept. of State in September 1995 at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy Conference.

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/haiti.html Offers nine maps of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, and Cap-Haitien from the Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas at Austin.

http://www.cdi.org/adm/Transcripts/802/ Provides the transcript of a program produced by the Center for Defense Information and televised on September 25, 1994. Offered commentary by Elliott Abrams (former Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs), Harriet Babbitt (U.S. Ambassador to the OAS), Jean-Claude Martineau (spokesman for President Aristide), and others.

//Miami Herald// article on more recent U.S. intervention in Haiti in March 2004 http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/haiti/intervene.htm

March 11, 2004 article on Haiti in //Washington// //Post// http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/haiti/shift.htm

Photo essay of the March 2004 U.S. operation in Haiti http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/haiti-intervention.htm