somebody argue this with me
I'm writting a paper on U.S. foreign policy and we have to write it in the clasical sense of argument whic means i have to look at my opponents points of view and I'm having a hard time putting my self on the other side of the fence so help me out. This paper is by no means perfect and i havent added my citations and stuff but here it is.
September 11th, 2001 is a day that will probably be remembered by everyone around the world even after my generation is gone. It was a day that people around the world sat crowded around televisions, in their homes, restaurants, bars, and offices and watched as the symbol for American economic prosperity came crashing down as the result of radical Islamic militants hijacking four planes crashing two of them into the world trade center, one into the pentagon, and one in a field in Pennsylvania after citizens of this great nation gave the ultimate sacrifice to protect whatever was the next target. It seemed as if the world was waiting on edge for what the U.S. The U.S. government had to come together and form a plan to combat these radicals in order to protect our national security. To President Bush that plan seemed clear. In a Press Conference he said “You are either with us or against us in the war on terror”. This statement forced many countries to take a side whether they wanted to or not for fear of what would happen if they didn’t. Almost simultaneously the largest reconfiguration with in the government took place resulting in the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. At this point in time the President’s approval rating was at 82% with only 7% of the country disapproving of the course of action the president had chosen to take.
Foreign Policy in the general sense of the phrase is a set of guidelines as to how one country will interact with others. Around the world most foreign policy guidelines and decisions are made by the heads of state much in the same way as it is here in the U.S. The Constitution of this country states in Article 2 Section 2 “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, He shall have Power…to make Treaties, and he shall nominate…Ambassadors”. Section 3 of Article 2 also states that the President “shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers”.
In response to the attacks on September 11th, on October 7th, 2001 Operation Enduring Freedom commenced which began with airstrikes on key fortifications and strongholds known to be occupied by Al Qaeda which was then supplemented by ground forces supplied by Afghanistan. After the first few cooperative campaigns between the U.K., the U.S. and Afghanistan, NATO began supplying troops. The ultimate goal of the early attacks was to liberate Afghanistan from the control of Al Qaeda and to find and capture as many high level operatives including Osama Bin Laden himself. It took approximately one month to reach Kabul and force out Al Qaeda. From this point on Coalition forces had the Taliban on the run and in hiding. The Taliban did try to make one last ditch effort in 2002 under the leadership of Mullah Saifur Rehman. He gathered a few thousand men and began using guerilla warfare tactics to attack Coalition troops but the attacks failed forcing them to find refuge in Pakistan.During the two years between Operation Enduring Freedom and the invasion of Iraq only 21 military members were lost to hostile action. Over the past few years members of the Taliban have begun to come back over the border to make small attacks on coalition forces.
In 2002 during President’s Bush’s State of the Union Speech, he names “North Korea, Iraq and Iran” as the “Axis of Evil”. Over the course of the next year both the U.S. and U.K. work with the U.N. to increase sanctions and inspections of Iraq’s Nuclear and Biological development suspecting that they are creating Weapons of Mass Destruction. During the course of the year, the United Nations sends in inspectors and Iraq submits a 12,000 page document detailing their inventory and research of biological and nuclear materials stating that they in fact do not have Weapons of Mass Destruction. However at the beginning of 2003 U.N. inspectors find 11 undeclared war heads thus fueling the fire that the U.S. and U.K. had started. On March 17th, 2003 President Bush issues a statement to Saddam Hussein giving him 48 hours to leave Iraq. Hussein refuses leaving the President with no choice but to declare war on the 19th thus starting Operation Iraqi Freedom. In just under a month Baghdad is seized by U.S. troops. Since that time, Coalition forces have been working with Iraq to establish a government and army capable of supporting the country without any help from the U.S. while also trying to put down rebel attacks inside the country.
The U.S. needs to change its foreign policy for many reason one of which being that we have a tendency to make enemies as we “fight for the greater good”. Case in point, Osama Bin Laden and the Attacks on 9/11. Osama Bin Laden’s hatred for the U.S. did not come overnight however; it did begin over 20 years ago during the Invasion of Afghanistan by Russia during the Cold War. On July 3rd, 1979 President Carter signed an order to secretly aid the Afghanistan Rebel’s to push out the Russian’s. In an interview ten years ago the then head of the CIA was asked if he regretted supporting Islamic Radicalists to which he responded “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?” It is during this time that he founded Al Qaeda and began setting up training camps in Afghanistan which resulted in the recruitment and training of 5,000 members creating cells in 50 countries across the globe. At the end of the Soviet invasion he moved back to Saudi Arabia to join his family and their construction company. His stay there however did not last long due largely in part of the fact that the 1993 bombings of the World Trade Center buildings were linked to Al Qaeda. The link resulted in the loss of his citizenship in that country and being disowned by his own family. Al Qaeda over this time grew in numbers and strength and the attacks became worse. His new strength came from new relationships with a Lebanese terrorist who was wanted for kidnappings named Imad Mugniyah, and an Egyptian named Ayman Zawahiri. By 1998 he had been linked to several embassy bombings in Africa and finally the precursor to 9/11 the attacks on the U.S.S. Cole.
Another reason for the changing of our foreign policy is the financial results and the loss of life in the wars that we get ourselves involved in. The War on Terror, Operation Enduring Freedom and other global anti-terrorist efforts being led and paid for by the U.S. Government have so far cost a total of $804.2 billion dollars according to a research conducted by Amy Belasco of the Congressional Research Service. In addition to this figure current estimate based on two scenarios of troop numbers in Iraq. The first scenario is based on having the number of troops cut to 30,000 by 2010. Based on this scenario, the global war on terror will cost an additional $570 billion dollars. The second scenario is based on a much larger 75,000 troops in Iraq. This scenario predicts an estimated $1.05 trillion dollars. Secondly the loss of life during the course of the war while not nearly as comparable to that of the Cold War is still considerable. From 2002-2006 a total of 2,539 American troops were lost to hostile action.
The final reason for not getting ourselves involved in wars like this is the shear amount of time it takes for us to be able to have complete troop withdrawals. In 2005 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made a prediction that we would be in Iraq until 2017. According to wagingpeace.org this was an optimistic estimate not only due to trying to control the oil in the region but also the water. Water in the Middle East is a large issue. Additionally the Iraq Defense minister in a statement made public by the New York Times said that the country would not be able to completely take over to defend its self domestically or internationally until at least 2018 and even that according to officials in Washington and Baghdad say that it will probably be longer than that. In addition to that the defense minister believes it will take another three years before they can take control of their own internal affairs. The article did seem to offer hope as the press secretary for the pentagon said “we are transitioning from crisis mode, from dealing with day to day battlefield decisions, to a long term strategic relationship.
Originally Posted by Alan®
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lol let me know when you decide you can part that intercooler out man
its all good man. I haven't raced anyone with this car nor do I plan to. Till I get my headers,IM,TB,drs,and a tune
