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Period: to
Afghanistan and Iraq
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Mesopotamia (located in modern Iraq)
(9,000 B.C.E.)
After WW1, the League of Nations put Mespotamia under Bristish control. Britain was to establish an Arab government, but that never happened and Iraq became independant. -
Us relies heavily on Middle Eastern oil
This industry made the rich, richer and only upset the poor. Led to our spread of influence in Middle East. Musims resented this and began using terrorism to try to get rid of US influence. -
Soviet Union invades Afghanistan
In response, Muslims from across the world head over to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. One of the muslims came from Saudi Arabia. He was named Osama Bin Laden (22 years old) and he came from wealth. He strongly disliked westernization and the US. Even though we were sending aid to Afghanistan, Bin Laden disliked us because we were "watering down" the Muslims culture. -
Saddam Hussein becomes President of Iraq
He rises to presidency of Iraq after President al-Bakr resigned .He is responsible for the best public health system in the Middle East. He once served in Iraqi armed forces and worked his way up to General. -
Al Qaeda is created
Osama Bin Laden started it, originally in Sadan. Bin Laden used his wealth to help fund this and the Afghanistan resistance. -
George Bush becomes President of US
He served as Reagan's vice president and he served as our president until 1993. He was born in Milton, Massachusetts as George Herbert Walker Bush. -
Saddam Hussein sent army to invade Kuwait (Persian Gulf War)
He invaded Kuwait because it was very rich in oil. US believed that their main goal was to capture Saudi Arabia and it's oil. Since US relied greatly on Middle Eastern oil, we sent troops to Saudi Arabia and teamed up with Un countries and set up a coalition to stop Iraq. They gave Iraq a dealine to leave. -
President Bush meets with officials
General Colin Powell Joint Cheif of Staff, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and other officials met with Bush. They planned for attack on Iraq because they knew Iraq wouldn't make the deadline they imposed. They plan to use blitzkreig. -
Desert Storm
Coalition launches it. Cruise missles and bombs fell on Iraq. This lasted for 6 weeks until the coalition launched a massive ground attack. Tanks and troops surrounded the Iraqi troops defending Kuwait. Many Iraqi troops killed and the others surrended. Bush declares Kuwait to be liberated. Iraq accepts cease fire terms and US troops rreturn home. -
Al Qaeda moves to Afghanistan.
Al Qaeda moves to Afghanistan becuase the Taliban took over. Al Qaeda was an Islamic Militant group, that fights for Global Jihand (the struggle). Their goal was to fight people who didn't believe in the Islamic faith. They also believed in killing people in the name of Allah. This group targeted Americans. -
Taliban comes to power
Taliban captured the capital, Kabul. Then, they took control of the country. The Taliban beliefs are very strict to the Islamic laws. They believe that they can interprete the meaning of the Koran and they follow the very strict version; the Sharia. Their main goals and beliefs are to get rid of other religions and modern beliefs. They enforced these rules by getting rid of most media and those who didn't follow were executed. Some methods they use are suicide bombings and guerilla attacks. -
US starts looking for WMD's in Iraq
WMD's are "weapons of mass destruction" -
Al Qaeda and Taliban work together
They bomb US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The bombs were placed in cars and it killed 224 people- including 12 Americans. 5,000 people were injured. -
Al Qaeda caught smuggling
Al Qaeda was caught trying to smuggle explosives in to the US. They were planning on bombing Seattle. -
Al Qaeda crashes into USS Cole
Crashed into USS Cole ( US warship) with a boat loaded with explosives. -
US Security Council announces Al Qaeda members in Afghanistan
They announced that 100 members were still there. -
Planes crash into Twin Towers
The North Tower is attacked when a hijacked plane crashes into it, the South Tower was crashed into by another hijacked plane. A third plane crashed into the Pentagon. Also, a fourth plane was hijacked (Flight 93) and was planning on crashing into the White House or Capitol, but some brave passengers took control and crashed into a feild. -
President Bush declares National Emergency
Bush was authorized the use of force to flight whoever attacked. Later, we learned that Bin Laden and Al Qaeda was behind it all. This relates to Afghanistan because Al Qaeda was located there and they were responsible for the 9/11 terrorism attack. In response, we attacked Afghan (Al Qaeda's camps and the Taliban). We aided the North Alliance (Afghan groups fighting the Taliban). -
Taliban flees to mountains
After this, we helped Afghanistan set up a Democracy and our troops along with allied troops went there as "peacekeepers". The Taliban infiltrate US training (join the Afghanistan military and get trainined by US troops). -
President Bush Sr. gives speech to UN
He asked to make Iraq give up WMD's, let the UN inspectors in, stop supporting terrorism, and stop oppressing people. They ended up agreeing on new dealines for inspectors, Iraq has to tell what weapons they have, stop supporting terrorism, and stop oppressing their people. If they didn't follow these rules, they would face serious consequences. -
We invade Iraq (2nd Gulf War)
Although Iraq was supposed to tell the UN what weapons they had, they declared that they had no WMD's. We did'nt believe this so we invaded. This divided the nation- only half supported the war. This was the second time we invaded Iraq (the first Gulf War). -
President Bush declares victory over Iraq
He claimed that Iraqi WMD's were no longer a threat. -
NATO takes over peacekeeping role in Afghanistan
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Hussien is captured
He is found in Pakistan. We gave him back to his people to let them decide what to do with him. -
Karzai becomes president of Afghanistan
This president was the winner of the first Afghanistan election. -
Iraq has 1st free democratic elections
The winner was Talibani (Kind of ironic!). -
Hussein is executed
After we let the people decide what to do with him, they killed him... in a very disturbing way. -
Obama states "Justice has been done"
The Joint Special Ops and CIA capture Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. We buried him at sea, not in the ground... this way he gone forever. -
Obama pulls fighting troops out of Iraq
He keeps some troops there to train Iraqis to fight Al Qaeda (Peace keepers). 4,488 US dead so far. People don't really support this war so much (they like Obama taking troops out), they support the Afghanistan war a little more. -
Cost of war
Iraq War : $810,855,730,000
Afghanistan War: $632,862,670,000 -
Troops predicted to withdrawl from Afghanistan
Obama plans to have US trrops out of Afghanistan by this year, but do training of Afghanistan people in order to fight for themselves. 68,000 US troops are there currently. The recommended number of troops after 2013 is 13,600. Last week Obama asked to have a 10% decrease in war funding (brings the number down to$79.4 billion). The current death toll is 2,000 US troops.
