...Events in Iraq have prompted some people on the left to make comparisons to the American experience in the Vietnam War. These people argue that the United States has put itself into an in-extractable “quagmire” from which there is no feasible withdrawal. This type of reasoning by historical comparison is not wise because no two historical events are completely alike. In the case of Iraq and Vietnam, extreme caution should be exercised in comparing two wars so far apart in historical circumstances, geography, and time. It becomes pretty obvious that the differences between the two conflicts greatly outnumber the similarities. This is especially true in the strategic and military dimensions of the two wars. There is simply no comparison between the environment, the scale of military presence, losses incurred over time, the quality of enemy resistance, the role and scope of enemy allies, and the duration of open warfare style combat. There are, however, two political parts of the Iraq and Vietnam wars that are similar in nature: our attempts at nation-building in a foreign culture, and our trying to sustaining domestic popular support in a long and drawn out war against insurgents. Policymakers should have an understanding of the reasons for U.S. political failure in South Vietnam, as well as for the Johnson and Nixon administrations’ failure to sustain popular support for the accomplishment of U.S. military objectives in Vietnam. A repeat of those failures in Iraq could have...
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...Gabriella Hatzopoulos War & Society Uniting Tactics, Divisive Consequences Rape, torture and murder against innocent civilians- what could cause someone to do such a thing? The My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War was a result of a war tactic that continues to be utilized today: racism and dehumanization of the enemy. This strategy, employed by the Armed Forces and facilitated by the media back on American soil has proven to be dangerous in that it causes both soldiers and civilians to treat an entire group as subhuman and unworthy of empathy. We can see this in the My Lai Massacre and through the persistent hare crimes against Muslims during the United States’ current “war on terror.” On March 16 1968, 140 men of the American Charlie Company entered the village of My Lai and were ordered to kill whoever they saw. There was the belief that the province of Quang Ngai where My Lai was located was a stronghold for Vietcong guerillas. After increasing frustration with losing their soldiers and not progressing in the war as much as they’d like, the group took their anger out on what was thought was a village of Vietcong enemies. It was the first chance they had to meet the enemy face to face instead of through grenades and booby traps and finally get even. Lieutenant William L. Calley ordered a search and destroy mission and urged that anyone in My Lai was to be considered connected to the Vietcong in some way, and should be killed. Though no guerillas were found when...
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...CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. A brief history of oil politics 3. Oil Politics and U.S. Militarism in the Middle East 4. Wars and disputes for oil 5. Oil and the Iraq War 6. Conclusion Introduction: The modern era of oil production began on August 27, 1859, when Edwin L. Drake drilled the first successful oil well 69 feet deep near Titusville in northwestern Pennsylvania. Just five years earlier, the invention of the kerosene lamp had ignited intense demand for oil. By drilling an oil well, Drake had hoped to meet the growing demand for oil for lighting and industrial lubrication. Drake's success inspired hundreds of small companies to explore for oil. In 1860, world oil production reached 500,000 barrels; by the 1870s production soared to 20 million barrels annually. In 1879, the first oil well was drilled in California; and in 1887, in Texas. But as production boomed, prices fell and oil industry profits declined. The energy source, which made the Industrial Revolution possible in England in the 18th century, was coal. Coal powered the steam engines which drove machinery in the factories, and the steamboats and railroads of the early industrial age. It has continued to power electric generation plants throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Among the fossil fuels, coal is the most abundant in the earth, but it is also the most polluting. High sulphur and carbon content, and soot, cause coal to be the least desirable of the fossil fuels. A brief history of...
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...The Carter Doctrine and the Effects in Afghanistan POL 300 July 28, 2013 Professor Koltochnik Adreion Rice Assignment 2 As recorded, The Carter Doctrine was a policy proclaimed by the president of the United States Jimmy Carter in his State of the Union address on January 23, 1980, which stated that United States would use military force if necessary to defend its national interest in the Persian Gulf region. The doctrine was a response to the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet Union, and was intended to deter the Soviet Union-the Cold war adversary of the United States-from seeking hegemony in the Gulf. After stating that Soviet troops in Afghanistan posed “a grave threat to the free movement of middle east oil,” Carter proclaimed: The region which is now threatened by Soviet troops in Afghanistan is of great strategic importance: It contains more than two-thirds of the world's exportable oil. The Soviet effort to dominate Afghanistan has brought Soviet military forces to within 300 miles of the Indian Ocean and close to the Straits of Hormuz, a waterway through which most of the world's oil must flow. The Soviet Union is now attempting to consolidate a strategic position, therefore, that poses a grave threat to the free movement of Middle East oil. When Carter assumed office in 1977, he was a tabula rasa, the perfect American innocent in a world set in its ways. Predictions of how he would behave were few, and those that were attempted were based on Carter’s...
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...be very different from what it has been in the past. Less Developing Countries are often unindustrialized, economically instable, have an underdeveloped political system and have high levels of human health. LDCs have changed and evolved over the years as we move into the modern age. The purpose of this paper is to examine two developing countries (Vietnam and Iraq). I will focus on the three major problems that the two countries are experiencing in today's world that include political, economic and human rights. Despite the country’s political differences, they share some similarities; though much of the philosophy has been debated, there are points of value to both countries. This essay intends to study some of their most painful discover in their political philosophy. Vietnam Political The North and the South were divided politically in 1954 because of different economic ideologies. Communist was in the North and capitalist in the South. Ho Chi Minh was a Vietnamese revolutionary leader, who established the communist governed Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945. Ho Chi Minh became president of Democratic Republic of Vietnam from 1945 to 1969. He died in 1969. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, the Communist Party renamed Ho Chi Minh City in his honor. In 1975, the Communist Party unified the North and South as one. The country’s communist leaders had adopted Marxist – and Leninist theories. The Communist Party then reestablished national sovereignty, initiated agrarian...
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...other countries, Iraqis will create a new era: the era of democracy. It all started on January 30, 2005 when an Iraq election promoted and built democracy. The world was speechless by the results of the significant amount of numbers to vote for Iraq’s Transitional National Assembly. The Iraqi government took a huge risk by publically announcing that voting was a human right in practicing Democracy. The United States played a huge role in helping Iraq promote and build democracy, with the final goal of ending dictatorship. For the past twenty five years the U.S. has provided crucial support for democracy as well as a basic principle of the U.S. foreign policy. Not only has America helped Iraq turn away from dictatorship, but it has also helped other countries such as Philippines, Nicaragua, Indonesia, and Ukraine toward democracy. The U.S. has grown to have the label of “leadership” stamped on them when it comes to helping other countries towards Democracy. Today electoral democracies now exist in 120 out of 192 countries that are about 63 percent of the world’s population! (Soudriette, 2005) One author however disagrees with the outcome of the elections and believes they did not create a democracy but rather it was replaced by a sovereign Shiite government. Mortimer B. Zuckerman argues that removing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, only placed more danger in Iraq because it is replace by the Shiite government. He argues furthermore to make a case that even the Special Forces...
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...and is soon to be reviewed again. Support for a United States invasion of Iraq may bring the Turks billions in aid, but it may also give them the much costlier choice between losing any chance for membership in the European Union and tolerating a secessionist movement in the Turkish parts of Kurdistan, which could endanger the very existence of Turkey in its present form. Kurdish lands, rich in natural resources, have always sustained and promoted a large population. While registering modest gains since the late 19th century, but particularly in the first decade of the 20th, Kurds lost demographic ground relative to neighboring ethnic groups. This was due as much to their less developed economy and health care system as it was to direct massacres, deportations, famines, etc. The total number of Kurds actually decreased in this period, while every other major ethnic group in the area boomed. Since the middle of the 1960s this negative demographic trend has reversed, and Kurds are steadily regaining the demographic position of importance that they traditionally held, representing 15% of the over-all population of the Middle East in Asia-a phenomenon common since at least the 4th millennium BC. Today Kurds are the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East, after the Arabs, Persians and Turks. Their largest concentrations are now respectively in Turkey (approx. 52% of all Kurds), Iran(25.5%), Iraq (16%), Syria (5%) and the CIS (1.5%). Barring a catastrophe, Kurds will become...
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...known today as Iraq has been the scene of conflict. Iraq has been, not only a strategic highway linking the Eastern Mediterranean lands with those of the Orient, but also the scene of frequent clashes between empires and great powers. It has seldom been the master of its own destiny, and in the numerous conflicts that stud its history, it has more often than not, been a pawn or the prize of other powers seeking regional hegemony. Until the beginning of twentieth century, most conflicts in the region were imperialistic in nature and involved Iraq because of its strategic important position. However, the discovery of vast oil deposits in the region in 1907 added another element to the equation, and conflicts, since have sprung from imperialistic motives as well as from a desire to protect or control sources of much of the world’s most important strategic resource. 2. Iran-Iraq war and the misadventure in Kuwait bear testimony to the misuse of power by Saddam Hussein. Saddam had always been labeled by the West as a producer of weapons of mass destruction. Ultimately a stage had reached where US and UK convinced themselves that Saddam was stockpiling these weapons. They demanded a change of regime and when threats were not taken seriously by Saddam, they launched Operation Iraqi Freedom or Gulf War II, despite all the opposition the world over, to attack and liberate Iraq. 3. Operation Iraqi Freedom consisted of the largest special operations forces since the Vietnam War. Just...
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...Baghdad city was one of the wonders of the world. ... It is [our] hope that the aspirations of your philosophers and writers shall be realized and that once again the people of Baghdad shall flourish, enjoying their wealth and substance under institutions which are in consonance with their sacred laws and their racial ideals.[1] The government of Iraq, and the future of your country, will soon belong to you. ... We will end a brutal regime ... so that Iraqis can live in security. We will respect your great religious traditions, whose principles of equality and compassion are essential to Iraq's future. We will help you build a peaceful and representative government that protects the rights of all citizens. And then our military forces will leave. Iraq will go forward as a unified, independent, and sovereign nation that has regained a respected place in the world. You are a good and gifted people -- the heirs of a great civilization that contributes to all humanity.[2] Britain's 1917 occupation of Iraq holds worrying parallels with today.[3] After the euphoric 1917 capture of Baghdad and expulsion of the Ottoman Empire, Iraq soon became an ever deepening financial drain and graveyard for Britain. The same situation faces the US and to some degree...
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...UNCORRECTED PROOF | NOT FOR SALE Please do not quote for publication without checking against the final book On-sale: July 19, 2011 Publicity Contact: Dennelle Catlett, 212-782-9486 dcatlett@randomhouse.com Rume_9780307886231_2p_all_r1.indd v GO BA O D D S ST TR RAT ATE EG GY Y THE DIFFERENCE AND WHY IT MATTERS Richard P. Rumelt 3/17/11 11:46 AM Copyright © 2011 by Richard Rumelt All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Crown Business, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. www.crownpublishing.com CROWN BUSINESS is a trademark and CROWN and the Rising Sun colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. Crown Business books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotions or corporate use. Special editions, including personalized covers, excerpts of existing books, or books with corporate logos, can be created in large quantities for special needs. For more information, contact Premium Sales at (212) 572-2232 or e-mail specialmarkets@randomhouse.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request. ISBN 978-0-307-88623-1 eISBN 978-0-307-88625-5 Printed in the United States of America Book design by Robert Bull Jacket design: TK Author photograph: TK 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 First Edition Rume_9780307886231_2p_all_r1.indd vi 3/17/11 11:46 AM CONTENTS ■ INTRODUCTION OVERWHELMING OBSTACLES 1 PART I GOOD AND BAD STRATEGY ...
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...Civil War of 1967-1970. Few nations around the world knew about the conditions of civilians in that war, therefore France set a team of French Doctors who collaborated with the French Red Cross to work in hospitals in Nigeria. The doctors then witnessed all the atrocities in that war and therefore decided that a new organization must be formed which that would ignore political/religious boundaries and prioritize the welfare of victims. Doctors without borders has operated humanitarian missions the following countries: Nicaragua – The organization provided relief work and medical support to earthquake victims in the year 1972. Honduras – Deployed in 1974 to provide humanitarian aid in the aftermath of Hurricane Fifi Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia during the Vietnam War when millions of Cambodians migrated to Thailand to avoid mass killings between 1975 and 1979. Lebanon – During the Lebanese Civil War (1976-1984) Doctors without borders treated Christians and Muslims soldiers alike and helping whichever...
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...Conflict and war are inevitable and sometime necessary Of the many wondrous and beneficial qualities we as a society possess, our inclination toward war and conflict is not one of them. In fact it is one of our most destructive and damaging activities humans do. As horrifying, catastrophic and fatal as war may be, it is a necessary element for the survival for humans as a species. Before we talk about why war might be necessary, let us first discuss some of the major causes of war. The most dominant reason for war in human history is ideology, or most specifically religious ideology. From the crusades that begun with Pope Urban II speech at the Church Council at Clermont in 1095 and ended with the expulsion of the Hospital of St John from Malta by Napoleon in 1798 to the current conflict in Israel religion has been a cause for conflict. “…Hubristic identities are a possible cause of war …He defines the term ‘hubristic identities’ as ‘the aspiration for recognition’ of one’s superiority, which is not recognized by other major international actors’… Fascist and communist regime from this hypothesis, and further integrate the notion of ‘image’ – for example, monumental works in the capital city – emphasised by the leaders of such regime. Logically, such ‘hubristic identities’ require some kind of proof for both the domestic and foreign audience to strengthen their claim of their superiority. In such a scenario, winning the war is perhaps the most viable and most credible...
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...Carter and the Doctrine The Cold War and US Diplomacy Dr. Igor Barsegian Pol 300 Contemporary International Problems February 7, 2015 Abstract This paper is about the Carter Doctrine and the Cold War. I will address the wars that are affected by the speech to protect the interest of the Persian Gulf. The wars started in 1991 and they continue on today. The name has changed but the message hasn’t. The last item to address is the final chapter before Jimmy Carter left office. Jimmy Carter was the 39th President of the US narrowly beating Gerald Ford for the most coveted office in the US. The margin was 297 to 240 Electoral votes (American Experience, 2006). Carter’s State of the Union was focused on oil since we were coming out of an oil shortage in the early 70’s. His speech sent a strong message to the Soviet’s the US was going to protect the Persian Gulf region by any means necessary (2006). In 1947 President Truman made a similar declaration to protect Greece and Turkey from being controlled by outside forces such as Russia, this is why the Cold War has been in existence. The Soviet started taking over smaller vulnerable countries after WWII. The Carter Doctrine provided in some ways many foreign diplomatic affair episodes involving the use of force by the United States. The first Afghanistan War was a result of protecting the interest of the Persian Gulf region. The US had to use military force to prevent the Soviets from taking over the smaller area in and around...
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...Introduction As the strongest country in the world, America can done all kinds of oppressions onto any country that US like either through strong military force, from economic way and also social of that country. American corporations and popular culture has actually affects the lives and infect the indigenous cultures of millions around the world. Due to the foreign policy of the US government, backed by its military strength, has unprecedented global influence now that the America is the world’s only superpower-its first ‘hyperpower’. America lead all the ways whereby it exports its value systems, defining what it means to be civilized, rational-indeed, what actually it is to be human. Apart from that, America itself is impervious to outside influence, and if most Americans think of the rest of the world at all, it is in terms of deeply ingrained cultural stereotypes. Many people do hate America from Middle East to the developing countries as well as in Europe. Along with the happening of tragedy 9-11, public has focused on the question-‘Why do people hate America?’ This is a loaded question and not simply a statement. However, it would not be weird if people hate America as they often oppressed many other weaker countries especially countries from the Third World. The oppressions done by America can be grouped into three major ways that are politically, economically, and from the social aspect too. Politics The brand of external interventionism adopted by...
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...Summative Essay Is human intervention an ideological cover for the pursuit of other objectives? We all know what genocide is. We also heard of Holocaust and its Anne Frank diary. Such inhumane killings should not repeat in the modern history due to its immorality, and that is why we saw humanitarian interventions in Rwanda and Somalia in 1990s. However, it is questionable of what was the real purpose. I believe that humanitarian cause is necessary but not an adequate condition for any act of intervention, which can be shown by case studies. In order, I will discuss the meaning of intervention and its presumed ideologies. I will also list out the possible diplomatic objectives hid behind these actions and their significance compared to the original motives. Intervention and its ideologies: Failure from core objectives Interventions are defined as a use of threats or forces upon another nation to prevent or end violations of human rights occurred within its territory, ‘without the permission of the state within whose territory force is applied’ (Holzgrefe and Keohane, 2003: 18), implying an inevitable breach of sovereignty. We also have the non-violent resolutions such as humanitarian aids and economic sanctions, but the main focus here is on intervention involving armaments. Interventions are rooted from its core ideology: to save people. It is a ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) individuals from being deprived from basic needs, including food, shelter...
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