political sciencePaper details:
Introduction
Topic 5 presents (1) the basic geography of Iraq in the middle of the Middle East and the background to the Iraq war (the Palestine-Israel Conflict, the American-Soviet Cold War, the American-Vietnam War, the Soviet-Afghan War, the 1991 Gulf war, and the 9\/11 terrorist attacks), (2) the \u201cwhat\u201d of the Iraq war (human\/economic\/moral cost of the war), (3) the \u201cwho\/why\u201d of the Iraq war (weapons of mass destruction\/al-Qaida\/democracy\/oil\/Israel\/Gulf states), and (4) the ramifications of the Iraq war, especially the continuing war in Iraq itself, the NATO-led war in Libya, the war in Syria, the war in Yemen, sectarian tension in Lebanon and Bahrain, and the tightening of sanctions against Iran since 1979 when Iran turned over the Israeli embassy in Tehran to the Palestine Liberation Organization (the sanctions are expected to be lifted pending an agreement between six world powers and Iran on its nuclear program by June 30, 2015). Topic 5 also involves a closer look at what divides the two geopolitical axes and what unites each axis at the local, regional, and international levels. Topic documents include: (1) textbook and online short readings, (2) PowerPoint slides, (3) videos and video synopses, (4) current issues in the news, (5) study guide, and (6) short assignments. Review them carefuly in order to complete the critical thinking paper (10 points) and exam 5 (10 points) by the specified deadlines.
Readings
BACKGROUND TO THE U.S.-LED WAR IN IRAQ:<\/p>\n
1. The Palestine-Israel conflict (1948-present) is one of the world\u2019s major sources of war, violence, and oppression. For example, between 2000 and 2014 at least 9,121 Palestinians (including 2,060 children) and 1,187 Israelis (including 133 children) have been killed. It is a head-on struggle over Palestine between the continuously arriving Jewish settlers (who want to make Palestine a \u201cJewish state\u201d or a \u201cstate for the Jews\u201d whenever and wherever they live) and the native Muslim\/Christian\/Arab Palestinians who continue to resist dispossession and expulsion. The United States government is a pro-Israel partisan in this conflict, a position which continues to drive a wedge between the United States and the Arab\/Muslim world.<\/p>\n
2. The Cold War (1946-1991) refers to a period of political\/economic\/military rivalry between two superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. The word \u201cCold\u201d in the phrase \u201d Cold War\u201d indicates that there was no direct military engagement between U.S. and Soviet forces. The American-Soviet Cold War was actually a series of bloody proxy wars, waged by superpower surrogates in the developing countries of the Global South. The two major Cold War wars were the American-Vietnam War 1959-1975 (where U.S. forces were \u2018on the ground\u2019 while Soviet forces were \u2018in the background\u2019) and the Soviet-Afghan War 1979-1989 (where Soviet forces were \u2018on the ground\u2019 while U.S. forces were \u2018in the background\u2019). The United States and the Soviet Union were defeated in Vietnam and Afghanistan, respectively. Much of the war-related human devastation, political turmoil, economic hardship, and ideological argument took place in the developing countries of the Global South, not in the developed countries of the Global North. For example, the American-Vietnam War killed an estimated 3 to 4 million Vietnamese and 1.5 to 2 million Laos and Cambodians and displaced millions more into refugees, compared to some 58,000 U.S. troops killed and 300,000 wounded. The Soviet-Afghan War killed between 700,000 and 1.3 million Afghans and threw another 4.5 million into refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran, compared to some 15,000 Soviet troops killed and 37,000 wounded in Afghanistan. One Israeli strategic goal during the Cold War was to have Western powers force the Soviet Union to let Soviet Jewry migrate to Palestine-Israel and have the United States pay for their resettlement. Anatoly Shcharansky, one of the Zionist leaders of the Jewish Movement in the Soviet Union, has suggested that \u201cthe Jewish emigration movement was a significant factor in the Soviet Union\u2019s final distintegration.\u201d The KGB considered Soviet Jewish Zionists \u201ca band of criminals in the service of Israel\u201d \u201cdetermined to bring damage to the Soviet Union.\u201d At the core of the \u201cWestern\u201d campaign for Soviet Jews was a clandestine Israeli agency, Nativ, whose representatives used to operate from inside the Israeli Embassy in Mosco before the Soviet Union severed diplomatic relations with Israel in June 1967. The \u201cWestern\u201d campaign for Soviet Jews \u201cbegan in 1952-53 with the creation of the Israeli \u2018Liaison Bureau,\u2019 better known under its code name \u2018Nativ,\u2019 and continued until 1989-91\u201d (see \u201cThe Jewish Movement in the Soviet Union,\u201d edited by Yaacov Ro\u2019i, 2012, pages 11, 57, 59, 392). Read carefully the New York Times story about President George Bush complaining on television (September 12, 1991) about the \u201cpowerful political forces\u201d of the Israel lobby lined up against \u201cthe lonely little guy\u201d in the White House who wanted no more than a four-month delay of $10 billion loan guarantees requested by Israel to resettle Soviet Jews in Israel following the disintegration of the Soviet Union (Adam Clymer, \u201d Pro-Israel Lobby Readies for Fight,\u201d New York Times, Sep 15, 1991. pg. A.9.).<\/p>\n
3. During the Soviet-Afghan War, the United States worked with other states (especially Saudi Arabia and Pakistan) to organize and train a mujahidin guerilla of Afghani, Arab, Pakistani, and other Muslims to fight and defeat the [\u201catheist\u201d] Soviets in Afghanistan. President Jimmy Carter\u2019s National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski admitted on CNN that the U.S. organized and supported Bin Laden and the other originators of Al Qaeda in the 1970s to fight the Soviets. US President Ronald Reagan invited Afghan mujahedeen leaders to the White House and consider them freedom fighters and brothers. \u201cA specially equipped C-141 Starlifter transport carrying William Casey touched down at a military air base south of Islamabad in October 1984 for a secret visit by the CIA director to plan strategy for the war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. Helicopters lifted Casey to three secret training camps near the Afghan border, where he watched mujaheddin rebels fire heavy weapons and learn to make bombs with CIA-supplied plastic explosives and detonators\u2026 Casey wanted to ship subversive propaganda through Afghanistan to the Soviet Union\u2019s predominantly Muslim southern republics. The Pakistanis agreed, and the CIA soon supplied thousands of Korans,\u201d The Washington Post, 7\/19\/1992, http:\/\/www.globalissues.org\/article\/258\/anatomy-of-a-victory-cias-covert-afghan-war . Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, Saudi ambassador to US was quoted: \u201cBin Laden used to come to us when America\u2014underline, America\u2014through the CIA and Saudi Arabia, were helping our brother mujahideen in Afghanistan, to get rid of the communist secularist Soviet Union forces. Osama bin Laden came and said \u2018Thank you. Thank you for bringing the Americans to help us. At that time, I thought he couldn\u2019t lead eight ducks across the street.\u201d (watch also http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=dqtSaIikQ-o). Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged that the US government created the Islamic jihad in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s but she did not explain that the main reason was to force the Soviet Union to lift a ban on the emigration of Soviet Jews to Palestine: http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kzQ2KZWfjgs . The defeat and withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989 led to a \u201cfailed state\u201d in Afghanistan and opened the door to a power struggle between the \u201cvictorious\u201d mujahedeen factions. The Afghan Taliban movement emerged out of the ruins of this power struggle and spread its control over most of the country between 1996 and 2001 before it was overthrown by the United States invasion of Afghanistan following the 9\/11 terrorist attacks which ex-Saudi Osama Bin Laden (an ally of the Afghan Taliban movement) and his al-Qaida followers planned, executed, and took credit for. Most countries around the world expressed sympathy and support for the United States under attack. But when the U.S. invaded Iraq (which did not attack the US, had no weapons of mass destruction, and had no link to 9\/11), the world\u2019s view of the United States began to change as many people worldwide began to realize that the Iraq war was not about what it was said to be about.<\/p>\n
SELECTED READINGS AND VIDEOS FOR UNDERSTANDING THE BASIC GEOGRAPHY OF IRAQ AS WELL AS THE \u201cWHAT,\u201d \u201cWHY,\u201d \u201cWHO,\u201d AND \u201d AFTERMATH\u201d OF THE U.S.-LED WAR IN IRAQ:<\/p>\n
1. Learn the basic geography of Iraq (the strategic location of Iraq in the MIDDLE of the Middle East):<\/p>\n
(a) Learn the basic geography of Iraq: size of population, area, languages, religions, ethnic groups, major rivers, significance of the oil sector, total GDP (official exchange rate), and GDP per capita (ppp, purchasing power parity)<\/p>\n
(b) Learn the name, location, major language, dominant ethnic group, and government type of each country bordering Iraq<\/p>\n
(c) Compare and contrast Iraq\u2019s population size, ethnic groups, and GDP per capita with those of the United States.<\/p>\n
The information you need for the above (a), (b), and (c) is available from the online CIA World Factbook at:
https:\/\/www.cia.gov\/library\/publications\/the-world-factbook\/<\/p>\n
2. Learn the \u201cwhat\u201d of the U.S.-led war in Iraq (Human\/financial\/moral cost of the war):
(a) Find out the estimates of US and Indiana casualties (deaths and wounded) in the Iraq war:
http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/SPECIALS\/2003\/iraq\/forces\/casualties
http:\/\/icasualties.org\/Iraq\/USCasualtiesByState.aspx<\/p>\n
(b) Find out \u201cWhat is the real death toll in Iraq?\u201d
http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/2008\/mar\/19\/iraq<\/p>\n
(c) Find out the estimates of Iraqi refugees living inside and outside Iraq:
http:\/\/www.un.org\/apps\/news\/story.asp?NewsID=24378&Cr=Iraq&Cr1=<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are as many as 2 million Iraqi refugees in Jordan and Syria, the vast majority of whom have been displaced from their homes since the war in Iraq began in 2003. Another 2 million refugees are displaced inside Iraq\u2026 As of March 2008, approximately 4,900 Iraqi refugees had been resettled in the United States since the war began in 2003. By contrast, Sweden, a country with about 3 percent of the population of the United States, admitted nearly twice that number of asylum seekers in 2006 alone and received 18,500 asylum applications in 2007.2\u2026 Skillful diplomacy must allow for continued pressure on Syria for its violations of Lebanese sovereignty and support for terrorism, while simultaneously allowing for a more robust engagement on the issue of Iraqi refugees\u2026. Under no circumstances should Iraqi refugees feel pressured\u2014legally or economically\u2014by the Syrian, Jordanian, or Iraqi Governments to return home prematurely.. The hasty return of large numbers of returnees\u2014without security, housing or employment\u2014could have serious negative consequences. The administration must work vigorously against any such effort.\u201d MANAGING CHAOS\u2014THE IRAQI REFUGEES OF JORDAN AND SYRIA AND INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS IN IRAQ, STAFF TRIP REPORT TO THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION, APRIL 2008 (Committee Chairman: JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR.,Delaware; Committee members include BARACK OBAMA, Illinois), http:\/\/www.gpo.gov\/fdsys\/pkg\/CPRT-110SPRT41773\/pdf\/CPRT-110SPRT41773.pdf<\/p>\n
(d) Find out the estimates of Iraqi children believed to have died as a result of the sanctions imposed by the UN and enforced by the US and Britain on Iraq. Watch how former Secretary of State Albright \u201cjustifies\u201d those sanctions (which killed hundred of thousands of children) in the following video clip: