- Watergate-- This was a political scandal in the US in the 1970’s. This was a result of the break-in into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in D.C. Because of this scandal the U.S. president Richard Nixon resigned on August, 1974. This began when 5 men were arrested on account of breaking and entering. They broke into the Democratic Nation Committee headquarters. The Senate Watergate Committee conducted their own investigation and found that Nixon had a tape recording system in his offices that had captured multiple conversations. Some of these recordings showed that Nixon initially tried to cover this up. The president was forced to hand over the tapes after multiple court battles in the Supreme Court. Nixon resigned because he was facing strong chances of impeachment and conviction in the Senate. Gerald Ford took over after he resigned. June 17, 1972 is the night that the five men supposedly attempted to break and enter and intercept phone calls. A security guard on duty during this night noticed tape on the latches on locks on several doors throughout the building. The security man took that tape off and didn’t think to much about it but later he noticed that they were all re-taped so he called the police and not to much later five men were arrested in an office in the building. Their names were Virgilio Gonzalez, Bernard Barker, James W. McCord, Jr. Eugenio Martinez, and Frank Sturgis. They began picking apart the coverup began after the arrests were made. They searched for their hotel rooms and looked up other background information. At the time the men were arrested they had thousands of dollars in cash on them. It is a complex web of political scandals between 1972 and 1974. Watergate refers to Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C.
I think it is pretty bad that we trusted this president and he was covering crimes up like this. Who knows what else hhe may have covered up.
Sources-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal
http://www.watergate.info/background/
2. Persian Gulf War(1990-91)---
This war was mostly referred to as the Gulf War. It began in August of 1990 when Iraqi troops invade Kuwait. This was met with condemnation and was brought to economic sanctions against iraq by the UN Security Council. Because of this President Bush sent US forces to Saudi Arabia and strongly pushed other countries to doo the same with their forces. Multiple nations joined the Gulf War. Most of the military forces is this coalition consisted of the U.S., Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, and Egypt. In that order as leading contributors. The beginning issue to expel the Iraqi troops from Kuwait started on January 1991 with and aerial attack. Right after this there was a ground assault in February. This was a big victory for these coalition forces. Who also liberated Kuwait. After liberating they moved into Iraqi territory. Around 100 hours after the ground campaign started they declared a cease fire. They named the ground portion of this Operation Desert Sabre. The first forces to move into Iraq were three British patrols from the B Squadron from their Special Air service. Late in January is when these eight men landed behind Iraqi lines so they could gather information on the movements of missile launchers. They couldn’t detect these from the air so they had to drop in.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War
3. 9-11 and the War on Terror- invasion of Afghanistan—
9-11 were Terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington D.C. Tuesday September 11. Hundreds of people would jump to their deaths as the buildings began to fall after they were hit by the planes. Over 300 firefighters and 85 police officers lost their lives as they were trying to help all the people and need. There were also many families on planes that were hijacked and these families as you know were flown to their deaths. Body parts from these planes would fall on people on the ground below. There were people on planes and people trapped beneath piles of rock that would make last minute phone calls to say their last goodbyes to their loved ones.
The war on terror was a campaign started by the U.S. under President Bush. They were supported by the UK and the rest of the NATO members. President Bush used the phrase war on terror often as well as other high ranked US officials. Their goal was to denote a global military, political, legal and ideological struggle against organizations that were considered terrorist.
The war in Afghanistan is a coalition conflict. This conflict officially began on October 7, 2001 when the US military’s Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). This Operation was launched in response to the vicious terrorist attack that took place on September 11, 2001. Since 2002 the UK has led its own operation. This operation was called Operation Herrick. It was part of the war in Afghanistan.
Sources:
http://www.socialistalternative.org/literature/911/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Terror
4. Invasion of Iraq-2003—
This is invasion was led by the US with the UK as well. The initial invasion went from March 20 all the ay to may 1st. There was 38 countries in the aftermath. This includes the US 248,000, UK 45,000, Australia 2,000, and Poland 194. This invasion sparked the beginning of the current Iraq war. When preparing for this invasion the US prepared 100,000 troop in Kuwait by February 18th. The US provided most of the troops during this invasion but at the same time had support from Kurdish irregulars from Iraqi Kurdistan. President Bush said the reason for the invasion were to disarm Iraq of all weapons of mass destruction. They wanted to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism. They also wanted to free the Iraqi people. The trigger to these invasions and the war was Iraq’s failure to disarm itself of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons that US as well as British officials declared intolerable threat to world peace.
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