The Watergate Scandal all started when people broke into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters. The Scandal gets its name because the headquarters were located at the Watergate Office Complex. The Watergate Office Complex is in Washington D.C. The whole thing started when five people were arrested for breaking into the Watergate Office Complex. The date that they broke in was June 17, 1972. Frank Willis was working at the Complex and discovered that someone had taped the locks on all the doors, which would keep the doors unlocked, so he did the smart thing and removed the tape. However, when he went back to later he saw that someone had re-taped the locks.
An investigation was started to look into the Watergate break-in. The FBI found proof that the men were connected with a committee that was trying to re-elect President Nixon. The committee was called the Committee to Re-elect the President. A lot of evidence was found that connected the break-in with people near the President, so people started to testify. During the investigation, the FBI found out that Nixon had tape recorded discussions with people. These recordings showed Nixon tried to cover-up the Watergate break-in. Nixon knew that he was going to be impeached for this scandal so he resigned on August 9, 1974. Gerald Ford became president after Nixon.
I think that this scandal was very ridiculous. Nixon was probably going to be re-elected until this scandal came about. I wonder why Nixon wanted people he knew to break into the Watergate Office Complex. I think that Nixon was not very smart when he recorded conversations that talked about the break-in and trying to cover it up. The Watergate Scandal will go down in America’s history for sure. All in all Nixon should have not been associated with these men.
2. Persian Gulf War (1990-91)
The Persian Gulf War was fought between Middle East and Western countries fighting against Iraq. The whole conflict started when Iraq annexed Kuwait. The countries that took part in the fighting thought that Iraq should not be in Kuwait so they wanted to force them out of the country. Iraq had taken control of Kuwait in 1990. 37 different countries took part in the conflict, but only a few countries were completely involved in fighting against Iraq. These countries were the United States, Great Britain, Saudi Arabia, France, Egypt, France Syria, and Kuwait. Saddam Hussein was the primary leader for Iraq that was involved in the Persian Gulf Conflict.
The fighting of the Persian Gulf War began on January 16, 1991. The first thing that happened on this day was the countries against Iraq started an air assault on Iraq. The air attack also was focused on destroying the places where military weapons were being built. The air attack lasted for around 38 days. After the air assault was over, troops started an attack on the ground on the 24th of February. Once this attack started Iraq knew they were in trouble and gave up 3 days later on the 27th. Iraq signed a cease-fire on April 6th. This was the first time in history that an air assault played such a major part in a conflict.
I think that the Persian Gulf War gave Saddam Hussein a reason to start making nuclear weapons. He probably felt like it was him against the whole world. I mean it was one country fighting 37 other countries. It was really unfair, but they were doing it for the right reason because Iraq had no reason to invade Kuwait. I thought it was interesting that air attacks played such a big part of this conflict. I think this led to Hussein consider making nuclear weapons.
3. 9-11 and the War on Terror- invasion of Afghanistan
On the morning of September 11, 2001, I went to school not expecting the day to be very exciting, but only an hour later the whole country was in shock. On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial jets that were carrying full loads of passengers. Two of the hijacked jets were crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City. After the Twin Towers were hit they remained standing initially but collapsed nearly two hours after the first strike. The collapse destroyed and damaged many buildings near the World Trade Center. The third of the hijacked jets was crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. On the final plane that was hijacked, the passengers of the jet found out what was happening and attempted to take control of the jet. Unfortunately even though they fought to take back control, they were unable to land the jet safely, and it crashed in a field Shanksville, Pennsylvania. All of the passengers from the hijacked jets died in this huge tragedy.
All in all, these attacks led to the deaths of 2993 people, which included the hijackers. Most of the deaths were people working in the Twin Towers, or people that were on the jets. These were innocent people that died in a terrible attack on our country. The men and women on the jet that crashed in Pennsylvania were true heroes because they tried to take back control of the jet and find a way to get it safely back down. Unfortunately they were not able to land it, but they probably saved many more lives by stopping whatever attack the hijackers had planned.
After 9-11 President George Bush started the War on Terrorism, the goal of the War on Terror was to get rid of the Taliban and prevent any other attack on the United States. Bush had several objectives for the War on Terror. Here are some of the goals; he wanted to get rid of terrorists like Bin Laden, another one of Bush’s goals was to not support any government that had any connection to terrorists, and probably the most important goal was to make sure that United States citizens were safe.
The 9-11 attacks changed our country drastically. I will never forget the fateful day that terrorists tried to kill innocent people. In the end the attacks made our country a lot stronger than it was before even when the terrorists tried to tear us apart. I think that the War on Terror had good objectives that it wanted to accomplish, All in all the September 11th attacks were a huge tragedy.
4. Invasion of Iraq-2003
In 2003 the Invasion of Iraq was started by the by the United States and Great Britain. Australia and Poland also took part in the first invasion of Iraq. The first invasion took place from March 20 to May 1st. The United States had by far the most troops that were involved in the invasion. Before the invasion took place the United State had a 100000 troops in Kuwait preparing for the invasion. President Bush and Tony Blair, from England, said that they wanted to invade Iraq to, “to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. They also wanted to take Saddam Hussein from out of power, which would in turn free the people of Iraq. Some people think that the whole reason for the invasion was that the US and Great Britain wanted to take oil from Iraq.
In 2003 63% of the people in the United States wanted to find an alternative way, other than war , of handling the situation with Iraq. Even some of the United State’s closest allies did not agree with what we did. These countries included; France, Germany, and Canada. After the initial invasion 36 countries became involved in the war.
I think that the Invasion of Iraq could have been handled differently. I think that the US had a reason to invade, but should have resolved the conflict that they were currently having with Afghanistan before they became involved with something else. I believe that the fact that Iraq had oil may have been a motivating factor. All in all I think that the United States should have handled Afghanistan before starting a new war.
Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Iraq
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal
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