The Persian Gulf War

“America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people”’
-G.W.B. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/g/george_w_bush.html

By May 28-30 1990 Saddam Hussein demanded an overproduction of oil by Kuwait. July 15-17 Iraq assumes that Kuwait stole their oil. This obviously initiated conflict between the two countries. In response to that, Iraq started their military build-up in July on the 22nd. Knowing these dates you are probably wondering, what about the United States? That’s exactly what I am going to be arguing in this web log. Was it righteous of the U.S.A. to step in or not? How did it turn out? And, would it have been better for us not to?
In my opinion, August 2nd 1990 was the beginning of the Persian Gulf War, because this was the exact date Iraq invaded Kuwait. Soon after, Saudi Arabia requested U.S.A. soldiers to help defend them. On August 8th Saddam Hussein annexed Kuwait. The following day the first U.S. soldiers were deployed. I think it was the right thing to do to send our soldiers to Saudi Arabia. Without us, Saudi Arabia would be reduced to kibbles and bits. The coalition between the U.S. and thirty-four more countries was unbearable for Iraq. On August 10th Saddam Hussein announced a “Jihad” or Holy War against the U.S. and Israel. In response to this the United Nations passed a resolution known as “678”. This gave Iraq a deadline to step out of the war. The deadline was January 15, 1991. As I stated earlier, the U.S. made coalitions with thirty-four countries. Three of them were France, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. On January 12th, 1991 the United States Congress gave military forces the objective to force Iraq out of Kuwait. Our strategy for attacking Iraq was somewhat similar to Blitzkrieg. We started with Aerial attacks which were then followed up with ground assaults. President George W. Bush deployed 430,000 soldiers into Saudi Arabia. The war being fought on the ground was huge. But our military was one of, if not, the best military ever. This war or battle was commonly known as “Desert Storm”. You have probably heard of this war because it was the final conflict that the U.N. and all the other nations agreed upon. This treacherous, awful, and sad war ended on November 30, 1995. As a result, Iraqi territory was being occupied by the coalition. Also a peace conference was held and both sides did end up signing the agreement known as the “Cease Fire” agreement. March 10, 1991 was the date when 450,000 U.S. soldiers exited the Persian Gulf. I think that if we would not have stepped into this war then the conflict would still be proceeding and America would be just as safe as we are now. So to answer the question I think it was superbly righteous of us to step in because we were protecting an innocent country, and we were also protecting our oil systems. Now what do you think other countries are thinking? Maybe they are thinking wow! I support America because they are doing the right thing by protecting innocent countries and standing up for what is right. This was exactly what we did.
Links: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0838511.html
http://www.watchblog.com/democrats/archives/005892.html

Word count: 542

The Cuban Revolution

Cuba, the first name that comes to mind when I say that word is Fidel Castro. Who is the man I will be blogging about? Why does he spring to mind? Argument being, how did Fidel Castro gain power in Cuba? Was this better or worse for the Revolution?
The Revolution occurred from 1956 to mid 1958. The Revolution started from rebels attacking the Moncada Barracks in the capital of Cuba which is Santiago, and in Bayamon on July 26, 1953. This attack was lead by Fidel Castro and his brother Raul Castro. The number of people killed is highly debatable. The Castro brothers were captured and sent to a Political trial. Fidel Castro spoke for four hours. He soon ended with the words, “Condemn me, it does not matter. History will absolve me.” Fidel Castro was sentenced to 15 years and Raul was sentenced to 13 years in the Presidio Modelo prison. However Batista (Batista was the president, dictator, and military leader at the time) regime freed all the Cuban prisoners. The Castro brothers allied with exiles in Mexico and a Marxist Revolutionary by the name of Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Their goal was to overthrow Batista. Fidel Castro and eighty-two other exiled men took a yacht named “Granma”, destination, the Sierra Maestra Mountains in Cuba. They arrived on December 2, 1956. The exiles got attacked by Batista’s men, about twenty of the eighty-two survived including the Castro brothers. After that Batista sent an additional 12,000 men into the mountains. However half of the men were untrained recruits. Castro’s men won this Battle. The Battle was known as the “Battle of La Plata”. It lasted from July 11 to July 21. Castro captured two hundred and forty of Batista’s men while losing only three of his own. On August 21, 1958 Castro started to run his own offensive. The objective was to descend from the mountains. They also had an abundance of new weapons that they stole from all the dead soldiers. Castro soon had Che Guevara and other leaders spread west. The Battle of Santa Clara was conquered by the Revolutionary Directorate Rebels which was led by Che Guevara. Once Fulgencio Batista heard this he panicked and fled to Portugal on January 1, 1959. On January 2nd the commander of Santiago, Colonel Rubido, ordered his soldiers not to fight Castro’s soldiers. Castro’s soldiers, under the command of Raul Castro, took over Santiago. Fidel Castro entered Havana on January 7th 1959. Havana was the last stop for Fidel Castro. Fidel Castro’s president of choice was Manuel Urrutia Lleo. After the revolution Fidel Castro went to the U.S. Castro explained, “I know what the world thinks of us, we are Communists, and of course I have said very clearly that we are not Communists; very clearly.” Many suspected Batista agents were sent to trial for war crimes and human rights atrocities. Prior to the revolution, there was a strong Catholic following in Cuba. The new Cuban government was atheist; consequently, all Bishop’s were expelled from not only the church but the entire nation. I think Fidel Castro helped the Revolution in a huge way because even though he failed the first time he wanted to attempt to revolutionize Cuba again except he went to the main source, Batista. Castro then raised an army that got defeated quite a bit but they didn’t give up, they prevailed. It seems as though Fidel Castro saved Cuba from Batista’s reign. So once again you cannot say Cuba and not think of Fidel Castro. The Castro brothers started with nothing, now they have everything.

http://library.thinkquest.org/20176/crevolution.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/cuban_Revolution
http://www.regfrfi.easynet.co.uk/ratb/cuba/cuban_rev.htm
Word Count:603

The Nerumberg Trials

In 1943 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill met at the “Tripartite” dinner in Tehran to discuss the punishments of war criminals and war organizations during World War II. Both Roosevelt and Stalin believed that execution should be one of the punishments for those convicted of war crimes, whereas Churchill was vehemently opposed to the execution of soldiers fighting for their country. In this blog, I will discuss whether Roosevelt and Stalin acted appropriately or if Churchill’s position was correct with regards to what would become “The Nuremberg Trials”.

In Tehran, Stalin provoked the thought of simply killing 50,000-100,000 German Staff Officers and Roosevelt jokingly said, “49,000 will do”. Now that the “Big Three” were all in on what would become the Nuremberg Trials they had to establish a drafted plan. Churchill soon wrote the “Moscow Document” which was written on November 1, 1943 that stated they should be tried at the places where the crimes were committed. Prior to this, on January 14, 1942, the creation of the “Tribunal Courts” happened. The “Inter-Allied Draft” was developed when representatives from the nine occupied countries met in London. The “Big three” presided. This allowed there to be an authoritative judge in the courtroom when trials would begin.
The main judge, (Soviet Main) that presided over the initial trials, was General Iona Nikitchenko who was President of the Trial. The trials began on October 18, 1945 in Nuremberg Germany at the Palace of Justice. The trials began by deciding upon punishments towards the original twenty-four indicted major war criminals and the six criminal war organizations, such as, Leadership of Nazis, (SS) Schutzstaffel, (SD) Sicherheitsdienst, Gestapo, General Staff and High Command, and the Sturmabteilung (SA).
The main defendant of this trial was Hermann Goering. Goering was the chief of the four year plan, (which was the redemption of economic problems created by the Nazis) and head of the Gestapo. He was also the second highest ranking Nazi official. Goering committed suicide the previous night of the Trials. There were a total of twenty-four war criminals being tried. Thirteen were tried and all sent to the death penalty to be hung. Three were acquitted, three were in for life imprisonment, one got ten years, one got fifteen years, another was medically unfit for the trial so he escaped possible death, and two got twenty years.
Stalin and Roosevelt had both wanted the defendants all dead, however Churchill thought otherwise. Churchill tried to see things through the defendant’s and a military perspective. He knew that crimes against humanity were obviously terrible, cruel and appalling, but he also said, “The cold blooded execution of soldiers who fought for their country” was un-just. Churchill was also against execution for “political purposes”.
In my opinion, I believe that Stalin and Roosevelt’s ideals were correct and the right choice was executed because there should be absolutely no sympathy or remorse for crimes against humanity. I am happy that they got their way. For those that were put into jail, they should have been executed. It doesn’t matter how little they were involved in it, what matters is that they were involved.

Good and Bad times of Haile Selassie

My topic for this Blog is the great Ethiopian Emperor "Haile Selassie". There are a lot of questions and arguments that can be be made about this topic. Mine will be, was it a good or bad thing that he came back after their governments' independence was destroyed? Was this a good thing or a bad thing?

This was a short and colonial war. The Ethiopians had about 500,000 men and were extremely unequipped. Their weapons consisted of spears and bows while the Italians contained more modernized weapons. This war started in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. Haile Selassie was a great emperor; he directed his thoughts and ideas towards modernizing Ethiopia. He also succeeded in securing Ethiopia's entrance in the League of Nations in 1923. After Mussolini attacked Ethiopia, Haile Selassie soon fled into exile in England. Now, one of my questions was, "if it were a good or bad thing that he came back after the governments' independence was destroyed?" "Was his return for good reason"? I think that one of the biggest reasons that they were defeated was the fact that militaristically they were poorly equiped with weapons and had no Air Force. The Ethiopians were given spears and bows while the Italians obtained rifles and more advanced weapons. Also, the Italians were using chemical warfare such as "mustard gas" which the Ethiopians did not have. Plus, the Italians had 680,000 soldiers that were split up into four infantry divisions. In total, the numbers were that the Italians had up to 3,300 guns, and 200 tanks that were given from the Royal Navy. So the Ethiopians got so tired of defeat that they withdrew from the war. Soon after, Haile Selassie was exiled to England. Once he came back he confronted italy once again. I would say that the good he did was to obtain help from British Forces and freed Ethiopia from Italian control, allowing him to re-enter his capital in May. But once he returned to his capital, he found that his governements' independence was abolished. However, this was an advantage to Haile Selassie. Throughout the years he rebuilt his administration and strengthened his army. Now that Selassie was back in power he had become aware of more cautions. This meant that he allowed barely a handful of men into his government. He then worked on engendering trust with several of the major politicians so that he could keep political balance within his reign. Now, a lot of people (including myself) think Selassie did more good than bad, however this is the same man that made 500,000 of his soldiers contend with 680,000 plus Italian soldiers. Even if Mussolini had attacked again I wouldn't of sent my men out there with just bows and spears. I would try to negotiate a plan with mussolini in the League of Nations. Although Selassie had been sent to exile in England, If I were a citizen of Ethiopia I would have been proud of his accomplishments. Haile Selassie was also the basis for Rastafarianism, which has dramatically influenced the world, even to this time.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAfy0fhTp-c