In 1986, Reagan took violent action on his war against terrorism. Reagan started his presidency in 1981 beginning his war on terrorism. The United States has been struggling with having good relations with Libya, specifically relations with Muammar Gaddafi (El-Gadhafi, Quadaffi, Qadhafi). Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator first came to power in 1969. Over the past few decades, the United States tried to solve conflicts with Libya diplomatically (SOURCE). Once Reagan was elected president, he tried to continue the tradition of solving issues using diplomatic ways, however Gaddafi refused to take Reagan’s threats seriously. The conflict with Libya and the United States escalated when it was discovered that Gaddafi was behind the discotheque bombings in West Berlin on April 5th 1986. Gaddafi has violently attacked not only innocent civilians, but had planned assassination attempts on United States officials that were abroad (SOURCE). Gaddafi’s previous actions, led to the bombings in Libya on April 14th 1986, when Operation El Dorado Canyon took place. President Reagan later justified these bombings in his address to the nation the evening the bombings took place (SOURCE?). Ronald Reagan served two terms as the President of the United …show more content…
This was not only retaliation for the La Belle Bombings nine days earlier, but other planned assassination attempts on US officials (SOURCE). These bombings on Libya was known as Operation El Dorado Canyon. Operation El Dorado Canyon started on April 14th 1986, and began with air strikes against Tripoli and Benghazi. The attack included fourteen A-6E Navy Attack Jets in the Mediterranean and eighteen FB-111 from the United States England base (SOURCE). Since France closed off their airspace, they had to fly around the France airspace adding an extra 2600 miles onto the trip, forcing planes to refuel while in the air
Hoover, Judith D. "Ronald Reagan's Failure to Secure Contra-Aid: A Post-Vietnam Shift in Foreign Policy Rhetoric." Presidential Studies Quarterly 24, no. 3 (Summer, 1994): 531. http://search.proquest.com/docview/215684406?accountid=8289.
Robespierre is known as possibly the greatest leader of the French Revolution. Stalin is known as one of Russia’s greatest leaders. There are many differences and similarities in each of their reigns as leaders. Both used economic plans and total war effort as a campaign to further there revolution. Stalin and Robespierre used their revolutions, however, through terror Stalin remained true to his revolution but Robespierre betrayed his.
His extreme effectiveness feeds from decision-making ability that turned the country away from the negative and instable foreign policy of Carter and back to support winning the Cold War and promoting the strength of the US. In the 1970s, because Carter allowed Communism to gain military and territorial advantages, and failed to impose American hegemon and his own power as President. Reagan took office in 1981, “he was determined to rebuild that power, regain for the United States the capability to wage war successfully against the Soviets, to act with impunity against Soviet Third World clients, and to regain its status as the world’s dominant military force.” Reagan handled the Iran hostage Crisis within the hour of assuming the Presidency. Simultaneously, doing what was necessary to free Americans, and to use his power as President to go outside the constitution and congress and secure funding for the Contras to overthrown the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and restore the nation to a pro-American government. Unlike Carter Reagan wanted to make it clear he only cared about protecting American security, and that human rights could be an after
The American public expects this and has a right to it. Ultimately, President Reagan did take full responsibility for his actions and those of his administration (Speech about Iran Arms and Contra Aid Controversy, 1987).
Mohandas Gandhi and Mao Zedong were two great leaders who succeeded in many ways by their actions and decisions. Gandhi was an Indian leader and Mao a Chinese leader. However, their approach to success, peace, and ultimately, a revolution, was very different. Mao favored peace through violence, and Gandhi favored peace through non-cooperation and standing up for what is right. He also believed that these changes will be accomplished by “conscious suffering”, was the way he put it. However, despite their differences, these two leaders were similar too. They were both very charismatic leaders who successfully made it through their revolutions. Mao’s revolution led to change in class structure while Gandhi’s revolution involved India as a country, and he wanted people to realize that working together is a great way to gain independence. While Mao and Gandhi both believed that each of their countries have the need of independence, their views differed when it came to the use of violence, development towards the revolution, and their thoughts on a caste system.
The worst case scenario for the United States in the late 70s and early 80s was the threat of the Soviet invasion of Iran and subsequent control of the Saudi Oil fields. The best that could be done to counter a possible Soviet invasion would have been the deployment of parts of the 82nd Airborne Division to the Zagros Mountains of Iran, which would take at least a week with reinforcements arriving much later. This was not acceptable to the Carter Administration, which decided on another course of action - to actively support the anti-Soviet Mujahideen “freedom - fighters” in Afghanistan and help protect the Middle Eastern oil fields. This American involvement in the Soviet Afghan war has led to the emergence of Al-Qaeda and the September 11th attacks.
...ssets between the United States and Libya. On April 14th the United States decided to retaliate in a big way with air strikes against Tripoli and Benghazi. The attacks were led by navy attack jets based in the Mediterranean and the bombers were from bases in England. The targets were chosen based on their connections with terrorist activities. Even before the raid was over Reagan went on national television to discuss the air
There were many problems in which Carter had been blamed for, especially the Iran hostage crisis which proved to be very humiliating. He failed to deal with any of these situations. Either as hesitant or ineffective is how many Americans viewed Carter. He also had attacked Reagan as a dangerous radical after he defeated Tom Kennedy for the nomination. For his part Reagan, the charismatic ex-Governor of California, repeatedly made fun of Carter's powerlessness , and won a landside victory that carried the United States Senate for the first time in 28 years. Reagan's victory marked the beginning of the "Reagan Revolution."
The Iran-Contra Affair took place in 1986 during the Reagan Administration. It started with a clash between 2 different belief systems and Countries that refused to work together and with The U.S being a Capitalism Giant, attempted to prohibit the spread of communism. The CIA’s backing of the Mujahideen war in Afghanistan would become its largest covert operation in history, funded by an intricate series of clandestine and illegal activities, known as the Iran-Contra Affair, which involved the complicity of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Saudi regime as well. Essentially, the tremendous wealth created in Saudi Arabia through the orchestration of the Oil Crisis, would act as a slush fund to fund the CIA’s covert operations. When Reagan became
Reagan’s foreign policy intention was to eliminate the efforts of the Soviet Union to prolong its domination and from this time, he opted for the formulation of his doctrine to aid the rebels who in various countries of the world who were attempting to overthrown the Soviet regimes (Carpenter, 1986). Relative to this point, it must be mentioned that in distinction to the earlier Cold War doctrine of “inclosing”, Reagan’s Doctrine projected “American moral and material backing for rebellious actions trying to oust Soviet-backed regimes in various Third World nations” (Carpenter, 1986). Additionally, it must be stated that the Reagan Doctrine came into being as the outcome of the thwarting of the U.S. administration over the Soviet progresses in Africa, Central America, and Central Asia. “Just as the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and Chinese leader Mao reinforced armed revolutions against colonial or U.S.-aligned states, American power would now reassure and upkeep rebels against communist states” (“The Reagan Doctrine”,
Certain revolutions in Afghanistan occurred between 1978 and 2001 which caused the US War with Afghanistan. The United States helped Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel by giving them military weapons and, as a result, the Soviet Union viewed this as if the United States was trying to have power over the Middle East. After the collapse of the Soviet regime in Afghanistan, Afghan socialists fought over power, which led to the creation of Taliban by Mullah Omar, a religious preacher who taught in Pakistan. During Mullah Omar’s time, Osama Bin-Laden came to Afghanistan and he ...
The late 20th century was a very turbulent time in American history. In 1976, Jimmy Carter was elected to the presidency, and he had many goals to help better America. However, on November 4th, 1979, a group of radical students seized the United States’ embassy in Tehran, Iran. This completely altered the course of American history and relations with the Middle East. This crisis had many impacts on the United States. It caused the Energy Crisis which in turn caused the Recession of 1979. The Iran Hostage Crisis also had political consequences for President Carter. It was a major factor that contributed to him losing the election of 1980 to Ronald Reagan. Additionally, this crisis led to many instances of racial discrimination toward Iranian-Americans and Iranian immigrants. Even after the Hostage Crisis was resolved, the bad blood between the two countries continued; the United States helped Iraq in the war against Iran, and the Iranians backed a second hostage situation in Lebanon. The Iran Hostage Crisis was a very important event that impacted America in many ways and destroyed our relationship with Iran. The consequences of this event are still felt today and continue to our foreign policies toward Iran.
Upon taking office in 1981, Ronald Reagan began to implement a simple strategy to win the war against the Soviets: he would outspend them in an arms race and force them to the negotiating table. Over the course of this erratic arms build-up the president spent a total of $2 trillion on the military alone. The most notorious of these programs was the Strategic Defense Initiative; also know as Star Wars, in which the president authorized billions to be spent to research a program that could defend America against a possible nuclear attack by blowing in an incoming nuke out of the sky. A vast majority of the scientific community thought such a program to be absurd and implausible, but Reagan pushed on. His belligerence in this arms race only provoked the Kremlin, and increased tensions. This massive military funding only led Russia to assume that the United States was planning to attack, and undercut efforts of peace. Also, in order to maintain such large military growth hundreds of ...
Both John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon were elected to Congress in 46, a year in which the New Deal took a serious beating as the Republicans regained control of Congress on the slogan Had Enough? Nixon of course, had campaigned against incumbent Jerry Voorhis on an anti-New Deal platform, but it's often forgotten that when JFK first ran for the House in 1946, he differentiated himself from his Democratic primary opposition by describing himself as a fighting conservative. In private, Kennedy's antipathy to the traditional FDR New Deal was even more extensive. When Kennedy and Nixon were sworn in on the same day, both were already outspoken on the subject of the emerging Cold War. While running for office in 1946, Kennedy proudly told a radio audience of how he had lashed out against a left-wing group of Young Democrats for being naive on the subject of the Soviet Union, and how he had also attacked the emerging radical faction headed by Henry Wallace. Thus, when Kennedy entered the House, he was anything but progressive in his views of either domestic or foreign policy. It didn't take long for these two to form a friendship. Both were Navy men who had served in the South Pacific, and both saw themselves as occupying the vital center of their parties. Just as JFK lashed out against the New Deal and the radical wing of the Democratic party, so too did Richard Nixon distance himself from the right-wing of the Republican party. Nixon's support of Harry Truman's creation of NATO and the aid packages to Greece and Turkey meant rejecting the old guard isolationist bent of the conservative wing that had been embodied in Mr. Republican Senator Robert Taft. Indeed, when it came time for Nixon to back a nominee in 1948, his support went to the more centrist Thomas E. Dewey, and not to the conservative Taft. Kennedy decided to go into politics mainly because of the influence of his father. Joe Kennedy, Jr. had been killed in the European arena of World War II and so the political ambitions of the family got placed on the shoulders of John. Nixon, however, got involved in politics by chance. While celebrating the end of the war in New York, he received a telegram from an old family friend indicating that they needed someone to run against the Democrat Jerry Voorhis.
Background. In 1979, a political coalition called the Sandinistas led a revolution in Nicaragua and took control of the government. After United States President Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, he claimed the Sandinistas had set up a Communist dictatorship. He directed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to begin aiding the contras, Nicaraguan rebels who were fighting to overthrow the Sandinistas. In 1983, however, Congress voted to limit the CIA support. In October 1984, Congress voted to cut off all aid to the contras.