I–Intro

Opening—statements from US presidents as opening:
Trump—“America First”    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIaoZqMrbCo

Obama—“American Exceptionalism”    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWpQ_8Ltl3s

Bush on 9/11 and Terrorism    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpZVeHBylco

Bill Clinton on Globalization—

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqvGoUo8jAw&feature=youtu.be

Background—Key themes in American foreign policy—

Growth of Power

National Security

Mission/Democracy

Expansion

Economics/Trade/Investment

Origins of U.S. Expansion

US a  colony of Britain along the Atlantic Coast.  Gains Independence.

Develops Financial and Commercial Interests.

Splendid Isolation?

“Manifest Destiny”

Map of Original Colonies

Map of Louisiana Purchase

Monroe Doctrine: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/monroe.asp

Monroe’s Warning? https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/jqadams.htm

Map of Texas/Southwest/California (1848)

North vs. South–industry, banking, production….

Civil War/Removal of Natives/Industrialization

U.S. Coal Production
1870–20K tons/yr
1900–212K
1910–417K

Rolled Steel Production
1870–14K tons/yr
1900–303K
1910–544K

Industrial Machinery
1870–$117 million
1910–$512 billion

U.S. Cotton Production and Prices
1870–4.3 million bales           1871–18¢/lb
1882–6.9 m                               1880–10¢/lb
1891–9.0 m                               1891–7¢/lb18

Wheat
1873–368 m bushels/40 m exported       1866–$1.52/bu
1882–555 m bushels/150 m exported

1866–$1.52/bu; 1878–77¢; 1881–$1.19; 1887–68¢; 1893–54¢

America goes abroad, 1898: Cuba, Philippines, Hawai’i

The Pacific, 1898

Class 2

Debord, The Society of the Spectacle  

American Imperialism 1898: Cuba, Philippines, Hawai’I (Puerto Rico, Guam)

Real Goal is Pacific Power—China

Ultimate Goal is the Open Door  http://www.pinzler.com/ushistory/opendoorsupp.html

Unlike European Imperialism—“Free Trade Imperialism”

Looking for the elusive China Market (Who “owns” China, c. 1900?)

Crisis of Globalization and Omens of War

Inter-Imperial Rivalries: Germany-Britain-France-Russia-Hapsburgs

Anti-Colonialism:  Lenin and Wilson (Revolutionary Bolshevism vs. Open Door/Free Trade )

Balkans Crisis

Outbreak of War, August 1914 

American Response: “Neutrality” and Economic Aid to the Allies/International Law

From 1914 to 1916, American trade with them amounted to $754 million, $1.28 billion, and $2.75 billion; trade with Germany, however, was only $345 million, $29 million, and $2 million. The Wall Street banking house of J.P. Morgan also served as an agent for the Allies, negotiating about $3 billion in loans and trade. American companies also sold vital war supplies to the British and French, including copper, steel, wheat, oil, and, most importantly, weapons and ammunition.

Submarine Warfare:

War in Europe in the Trenches:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPtVNDvwGMo

American Intervention:  War to Make the World “Safe for Democracy”  (War at Sea/Gold)

American role in War/Democracy at Home (Alien and Sedition Acts, Race and ethnicity, Debs)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuGp-0G1p4M

U.S. as Global Power

By war’s end, over 25 percent of the country’s economy came from war production, and Congress eventually appropriated $32 billion [about a half billion dollars today] for the war, which caused the Gross Domestic Product [GDP]—the value of all the finished goods and services produced in the U.S. in one year—to double, from $39 billion in 1913 to $78 billion by 1918. Federal spending spiked too, from $2.3 billion in 1917 to $13.1 billion in 1918 and then to $18.9 billion in 1919.

Debtor to Creditor: – $10 billion to + $10 Billion

Versailles: Bolsheviks and the German Question—Setting the Stage for World War II

Containment of Russia

Reparations vs. Reintegration

Class 3

The Great War—US emerges as global power.  Europe in turmoil

Versailles: Bolsheviks and the German Question—Setting the Stage for World War II

Containment of Russia

Reparations vs. Reintegration

Great War is Prelude to WW II

Financial Crisis, Trade declines

Debts/Reparations Crisis—Dawes and Young Plan

APPEASEMENT, ISOLATIONISM, AND THE OUTBREAK OF WAR

 

Mussolini, Hitler, and Corporatism

Corporatism—new phase of Capitalism, leads to Fasicm in Europe, New Deal Liberalism in the U.S.  (see below)*

Italian Conquests

German Expansion

 

British and French (Non)-Response

Rhineland Reoccupation–1936

Munich–appeasement

Sudetenland/Czechoslovakia, 1938

Poland, 1 September 1939, blitzkrieg

Spanish Civil War, Falangista vs. Republic

(Germans support Franco; U.S. and Europe don’t get involved)

Asia: America, Tokyo, and the “Greater East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”

 

Manchukuo, Japan’s Puppet State

The Invasion of China 1937

 

The U.S.
Isolationism

“Undeclared War”

Reuben James

    Conflict in the Pacific 

“The Arsenal of Democracy”

“Cash and Carry”
Destroyers for Bases
Lend-Lease

Pearl Harbor

*Europe in the 1920s was still recovering from the Great War, with vast economic problems and political controversies regarding Germany and the Soviet Union. By the latter part of the decade, there seemed to be some stability on the way. In Italy, a new political idea took hold, seemed to stabilize its economy, and would be a huge factor in the conflicts of the next generation. After the war, the Italian labor movement was strong and conducted strikes and factory takeovers. At the same time, a political movement led by Benito Mussolini gained the support of the industrialists and large landholders and they linked together in ways similar to that envisioned in Herbert Hoover’s political program in the U.S., but with far more ominous consequences. Mussolini promoted a form of corporatism that would be known as fascism, in which various branches of industry and agriculture would form committees of government officials, the bosses, and, to a slight degree, workers to decide working conditions, productions, wages, and business codes— much like Hoover’s trade associations.

Italian fascism, however, rejected democracy and liberty and Mussolini created paramilitary units to attack the unions, Socialists, and anyone else who went on strike, took over factories, or in any way rejected the corporate leadership of Italy’s economy. The bankers gave loans to fascist groups to stimulate the economy and crush labor and the left, and the Vatican even gave Mussolini its blessing, with Pope Pius XI calling him “a man sent by Providence.”

*****

Perhaps Hoover’s most important, and prophetic, insight was, as he said, “the trouble with capitalism is capitalists; they’re too damn greedy.” To try to keep those “greedy” capitalists from creating an unstable economy, Hoover wanted them to be regulated, but mostly to regulate themselves. His key creation toward that goal would be the trade association. In order to organize the economy along rational lines, Hoover believed that these trade associations could work together to make decisions collectively for the benefit of the entire economy, not just their individual business.

Though most Americans might not be familiar with the term “trade association,” it is likely that they are well-aware of them. A trade association is a cooperative group of businessmen who operate in the same industry [as noted above, it could be automakers, steel mill owners, railroad operators, cotton farmers, lawyers, doctors . . . whatever] who would get together, along with government representatives, to exchange information and establish programs for production, prices, and markets.

Unlike, say, the modern Tea Party that wants to get the government “out of the economy,” corporate leaders wanted the government to work with them to “rationalize” the economy and eliminate destructive competition. Capitalism, they understood, needed state involvement.  (Corporatism—which came to be known as fascism in Europe—was an economic system, much like the trade association idea that brought together firms in the same industry to create codes to regulate themselves, with government cooperation. Indeed, Herbert Hoover himself deemed the NRA “fascist” [without, of course, the oppressive attacks on certain groups or the restrictions on liberty and freedom that defined Mussolini’s and Hitler’s political views].)

Participation was voluntary, but the biggest companies in each industry made up the heart of the trade association concept. By sitting down together with their competitors and the government [and occasionally discussing issues with labor], Capitalists could make economic plans for the entire industry, not just their own firm. So, to take a well-known group as an example, the Chamber of Commerce, begun in 1920, spoke for the entire business community, eventually internationally, and presented the views of business leaders [usually the desire for lower taxes, easier trade laws, low wages and so forth] to their government representatives who, more often than not, created laws to fit those interests. Founded even earlier, in 1895, the National Association of Manufacturers represented businesses that manufactured goods—especially big industries but also smaller companies—and had a pro-business agenda similar to the Chamber of Commerce. . .  Today, trade associations like The Tobacco Institute, the National Rifle Association, the Recording Industry Association of America, and many others are powerful lobbies for businesses in their particular fields. They get together and engage in economic planning and protecting their corporate interests . . .  while the government supports and enforces their work. In Hoover’s original development of the trade associations, he even suspended anti-trust laws, allowed big mergers, accepted “collusion,” or secretive deal-making, and let companies fix prices and production—if, as he saw it, it would make capitalism more rational and thus less “damn greedy.”

 *****

 The Great Depression confirmed the predictions of many critics of Capitalism. Communists had been claiming that a system built on the private ownership of production and banks by a tiny percentage of wealthy Americans who got rich off the labor of low-paid and often impoverished masses could not last long. Even those who were Capitalist, but devised a new form of political economy known as “corporatism,” or more commonly fascism had issued warnings about a possible collapse of the U.S. economy. No matter what ideology one held, it was clear that there were limits to Capitalism, and FDR’s job was to rescue it without resorting to an alternative economic or political system, and also make it stronger and less likely to crash again. Though he did not use the phrase, he surely would have agreed with Hoover about the problem of “damn greedy” Capitalists, and so he set about to fix, reform, and regulate the system more than any government ever had before—in order to save it.

*****

If German and Italian fascism [and similar Japanese policies in Asia] took hold, then the U.S. and others would lose access to huge parts of the world and the raw materials, labor, trade and investments there, and their own economies would be in even deeper trouble. More than anything, then, World War II was a war for the Open Door.

Class 4

The World at War

War in Europe Maps

German Expansion.  Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, 1939

 

“The Phony War”

Invasion of France

The Battle for Britain

German invasion of USSR

The Grand Alliance: Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin

            Open Door, Empire, Eastern Europe Bloc

The Politics of War: The Second Front: Delays and Diversions

Europe: The Red Army, D-Day and Victory: Seeds of Cold War

Pacific War

The Atomic Bomb!  Why?

Manhattan Project

Timetable on Atomic Bomb, 1945

Feb. 1945: Yalta–Soviet agrees to war v. Japan after European war ends
   

Spring 1945: U.S. planners expect Japanese surrender; Japan fears Soviet intervention

Spring/Summer 1945: Japanese overtures to Soviet; American planning for invasion (1 November 45, limited; 1 January 46, mainland), casualty estimates 25-50K
   

VE Day, 8 May: Soviet to enter war in Asia early August
   

July 1945: Stalling Potsdam
   

16 July: Potsdam Conference and Almogordo
   

6 August: Hiroshima
   

9 August: Nagasaki

 

Saving Lives or “Atomic Diplomacy”?

The Alperovitz Debate
Critics of the Bomb

End of WW II and Origins of Cold War

Wartime Factors: Second Front, Surrender of Italy, Communist governments in E. Europe, A-Bomb

Protecting the “Free World” or Creating a Global Open Door?
       

Reconstructing Postwar Europe
        Yalta and the Question of Eastern Europe

Key Issues: Poland and Partition and Occupation of Germany

Class 5

Truman, Stalin, Churchill Goals

Conditions in Europe: Western Europe Devastated; Soviet Lost 20-25 million and half of economy; U.S. with unparalleled power

Strategies for Hegemony: Economic and Political (Cold War for the Open Door)

Bretton Woods*  (See Below)   Article from Federal Reserve, https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/bretton_woods_created

IMF [Currency Stabilization]
World Bank [“reconstruction and development”]
The dollar and convertibility

United Nations
Security Council and Veto
Inclusion and Power

    Containment: Economic, Military and Political 

Kennan, containment, and “. . . to maintain this position of disparity.”
       

(Bretton Woods), Loans, and the Marshall Plan (the “Dollar Gap” and counterpart funds)  [Importers put in purchase order with their government, and pay in country’s currency.  Government has received aid from outside source (U.S.) and uses that foreign currency ($$) to pay for goods.  Turns Foreign Aid ($$) into reserves of domestic currency and creates market for U.S. producers].     

The “Iron Curtain”

The Truman Doctrine and Greece

The Berlin Blockade

NATO

The Cold War in the U.S., or Domestic Containment

            “McCarthyism” and the National Security State

American Hegemony Established

***************

*While the use and possession of the atomic bomb was the best example of American military strength, a more important factor in the overall goal of hegemony was economic, and U.S. officials began to plan for postwar economic supremacy even before the war ended. In July 1944, the Americans held a meeting with 43 other allied countries at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire with the goal of creating an international economic system. Before the war, recall, the world was devastated by depression, so the most important priority for the U.S. and other western powers was to be sure that such an economic calamity, much like the depression or the 2008-09 meltdown, did not happen again.

At that conference, the great powers created the Bretton Woods System, which would define the world economy for the next quarter-century or so. This system had a two-fold purpose, to rebuild the capitalist global economy after years of depression and war, and to prevent the rise of Socialist or Communist economies and to thus establish the U.S. as the dominant world economic power. The decisions made at Bretton Woods may seem difficult to understand, but they are basic and it is important to study them as a way of examining U.S. power after World War II. The U.S. was attempting a grand project, creating a new international economic order, but it was also simply trying to dismantle the colonial system, which did not respect the Open Door,and create a Pax Americana, a world dominated by U.S. power.

At Bretton Woods, three key decisions were made: the countries represented there created the International Monetary Fund, or IMF; started the World Bank [officially the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development]; and established the dollar as a global currency. At first glance, these programs seem to be complex but they addressed basic problems in a fundamental way [and the IMF and World Bank are still with us, and still controversial, today] and one need not possess a degree in economics to understand them.

They built the IMF to address problems of currency stabilization. The war had obviously devastated the economies of Europe and Asia. Many countries had run huge deficits to pay for war [like the U.S. in the early 21st century in Iraq and Afghanistan has] and many suffered from inflation, along with unemployment and a shortage of vital resources. Like any institution, or any person, in desperate straights, the damaged countries needed money, and people go to banks to get money [just as the Americans have borrowed so much money from China in the past few years], so the IMF became a lender to nations that needed capital or needed to fix their currencies. The IMF would infuse a nation with capital–which is money used for productive purposes, money used to develop more economic activity, not simply cash to put into storage–so that it could recover from the war, reduce inflation, or be able to borrow and lend in the international banking world.

The World Bank was somewhat similar, but dealt with the physical reconstruction and development of countries in need. Those nations that had fought in World War II had suffered enormously and needed help in rebuilding. The World Bank would make funds available to nations to reconstruct their infrastructure–highways, bridges, communications networks, health and education systems, and other areas–after it had been destroyed in the war. It could also provide funds for smaller, developing, countries that had not yet industrialized but that wanted to modernize, or develop their own infrastructure like the established countries already had.

These programs, however, had a specific purpose and came with strings attached. To receive IMF or World Bank aid, a country had to have a privatized economy–meaning that the key industries were owned by private individuals, not the state. State, or public, ownership of factories, communications, or other key industries would be considered Socialist, and the point of the Bretton Woods System was to prevent the spread of Socialism, which put capital in public, not private, hands. The new order, then, was intended to help out America’s friends, other capitalist countries, and hurt its rivals, Socialist and nationalist economies. Consequently, funding received from the IMF and World Bank was given on the condition that much of that money would be used to purchase goods and services from U.S. companies in return. So, for instance, World Bank loans to build an electric grid, or an international airport, or a health system, or roads, or housing, would lead to contracts for companies like Brown & Root, a huge Texas-based construction firm [which today is Halliburton], General Motors, General Electric, and the like. In this way, the U.S. could develop the world along capitalist lines and be sure of having economic partners, while also providing business for American companies that feared another depression like they had just experienced. Critics would create the term “corporate welfare” to describe such a system.

The final piece of the Bretton Woods System, and a bit more complicated, was creating a global, convertible currency–the U.S. dollar. What did this mean? Any country could use American dollars to buy and sell goods with other countries, and those dollars would be guaranteed by an international gold standard, meaning the dollar could be exchanged, converted, with other currencies at a fixed rate. If country X wanted to trade with country Y, it could exchange its currency for dollars to make that transaction, and it could always trade those dollars for gold, at the rate of $35 per an ounce [and it could always trade gold for dollars on the other hand]. Whether one used marks, yen, francs, lira or some other currency [the Euro was still far off], he/she could trade that money for dollars, and then gold, to conduct trade. In this way, all countries that wanted to join this new economic order would desire dollars; countries wishing to trade, especially with the U.S., would want dollars; and the U.S. would prosper even more because its currency was truly international and had a fixed rate based on convertibility and the price of gold. (To use a contemporary example, the U.S. dollar in 2014 is worth much less than the Euro. A Euro is worth about $1.40 or so. When the Euro was established it was worth exactly a dollar. So if you were traveling and bought a Gucci bag for 100 Euro, you would pay $100 for it. In mid-2014, that exact same bag would cost you nearly $140 dollars, because currency is no longer fixed and the dollar has weakened). But in the late 1940s [until the 1960s], the dollar was at a fixed rate–so those fluctuations in the price of a Gucci bag would not have happened– and was the world’s most desired currency, and therefore gave America tremendous economic power as a creditor and producer.

Class 6

NSC-68 and Military Keynesianism

Military Spending as Economic Doctrine and The “Military-Industrial” Complex, growing arms race

(1950: US=450 Atomic Bombs; USSR=25)  (1952: US=1200; 1958=7500; 1960=22,000) (1961: US=57 ICBMs; USSR=10)

 

Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), warheads and throw-weights of United States and Soviet Union, 1964–1982
Year	Launchers		Warheads		Megatonnage
	United States	Soviet Union	United States	Soviet Union	United States	Soviet Union
1964	2,416	375	6,800	500	7,500	1,000
1966	2,396	435	5,000	550	5,600	1,200
1968	2,360	1,045	4,500	850	5,100	2,300
1970	2,230	1,680	3,900	1,800	4,300	3,100
1980	2,042	2,490	10,000	7,200	4,000	6,200
1982	2,032	2,490	11,000	10,000	4,100	8,200

Fear at Home: “Duck and Cover”  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKqXu-5jw60&t=35s)

 Enemies Everywhere (“If it looks like a duck . . .”)

Iran, 1953: The Fall of Mossadegh  (1946 Crisis)
       

Guatemala, 1954: UFCO and the Ouster of Arbenz   

Cuba, 1959-present: Contesting Castro  (Below)

Chile, 1973: The Allende “Threat”

1945-Onward: The Spectres of Nationalism and Neutralism

Indonesia/Sukarno

“Red” Nehru

Nasser/Suez

Global Communism and Nationalism from World War II to 1960

Death of Stalin/De-Stalinization

Eastern Bloc dissent: Eastern Germany and Poland and Hungary

The Third World at Bandung

Self-Determination, Sovereignty, non-Aggression, non-Interference

Non-Aligned Movement, 1961, Belgrade

The Cuban and Vietnamese Revolutions

Cuba: Moncada Barracks, 1953/Revolution, 1 January 1959

American opposition immediate

“History will absolve me”

Fidel, Che and Global Revolution

Bahía de Cochinos Invasion/Cuban Missile Crisis/Embargo

Vietnam

Nationalism/Communism/Revolution

Ho Chi Minh

Anti-Colonial resistance to the French, creation of the Viet Minh, and the Indochinese Communist Party

Class 7

Right to guns “is not bestowed by man, but granted by God to all Americans as our American birthright.” Wayne LaPierre, NRA

Vietnam

Nationalism/Communism/Revolution

Ho Chi Minh

Anti-Colonial resistance to the French, creation of the Viet Minh, and the Indochinese Communist Party, the Japanese Occupation and French Return

The First Indochina War–Dien Bien Phu

Geneva and Two Vietnams:  Ho vs. Ngo Dinh Diem

Inside Vietnam—the Insurgency Grows

            Southern resistance and Diem repression/ The Creation of the NLF

Viet Cong

Southern resistance to Diem–Buddhists

The American Response to Vietnam

            Supporting France/Rebuilding Asia (Japanese Capitalism)

            The “Domino Theory”

From The Military Assistance Advisor Group to JFK’s Escalation

            1955—700 military personal

            1961—800

            1962 (Nov)—11,000

            1963 (Nov)—16,000

Nov. 63—Diem and JFK dead

Gulf of Tonkin “Attacks”–August 1964

Lyndon Johnson “Americanizes” the War

Rolling Thunder

1965–Combat Troops enter Vietnam

American Escalation—by 1968=525,000 troops

Tet Offensive

American Opposition to the War

Teach-Ins, Protests, Counter-culture, Music

Vietnam Protest Songs,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjSpO2B6G4s&list=PLVOnifd58sFaSzzKcutaOAZctDDzftAYr

1969-1973, U.S. Destruction of VN—Air War, Cambodia and Laos, Operation LINEBACKER (May-October 1972), X-Mas Bombings—Withdrawal January 1973

15 million tons of explosives  (more than WW II combined)

400,000 tons of napalm

20 million gallons of herbicides

25 million bomb craters

10-15 million refugees

(3.6 million tons bombs dropped on South—America’s ally.  About 1 million on North, 1.5 million in Laos, about half-million in Cambodia)

Paris Peace Treaty—Communist victory 1975 (Cambodia and Laos too)

Class 8

Nixon
“Vietnamization” and Kent State

The End of the War

Arms Sales

Post-Vietnam military drawdown, arms sales increase

Middle East—4-fold increase, $19 billion to Iran

African nations, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey . . .

A “New” Cold War/Aftermath of Détente/
Committee on the Present Danger and “Team B”

 Jimmy Carter—Human Rights, supporting Apartheid, encouraging China (Nicaragua and OAS, Muhahadeen, Olympics) (Carter and Africa)

 

The 1980s–Making America Strong Again?  Military Keynesianism

“The Evil Empire”  (Speech)  (Video)

Evil Empire, Redux . . . Killing Hope in Central America

Nicaragua—Sandinista Revolution

The Contras, America’s Terrorists

El Salvador and the FMLN—Killing Nuns and Paying Death Squads/Liberation Theology/Romero

“I’d like to make an appeal in a special way to the men in the army. Brothers, each one of you is one of us. We are the same People.  The farmers and peasants that you kill are your own brothers and sisters.  When you hear the words of a man telling you to kill, think instead in the words of God, “Thou shalt not kill!” No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the Law of God. In His name and in the name of our tormented people who have suffered so much, and whose laments cry out to heaven: I implore you! I beg you! I ORDER you!! STOP THE REPRESSION!!!”

Iran-Contra, Weapons to the Ayotollah, and the Contra-Cocaine Connection

Class 9

The Gorbachev Alternative

Glasnost and Perestroika

Soviet Overreach and Economic Crisis (Afghanistan)

Arms Deals, almost, at Reykjavik

 The End (?) of the Cold War
The Bloc Crumbles

Globalization
 Integration and Hegemony
Bretton Woods–IMF and World Bank

TNCs and Transnational Institutions

WTO
NAFTA
FTAA
CAFTA

Peace Breaking Out?  Military Budgets Decreasing?

Looking for Enemies
Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws
Saddam to the Rescue

The War on Drugs

The Road to 9/11, and Iraq: The US and the Middle East

Background: Oil and Nationalism

Mandates and Balfour  (Zionism)

“His Majesty’s Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

 The Holocaust, Nakba (“catastrophe”)*, creation of Israel

*700,000, now 7 million, refugees

Israel and Palestine

“Resurging Anti-Americanism”  1950

Mossadegh– https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB435/

Nasser– https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB98/

Suez

Iraq, Karim Qassim, Ba’athist and CIA overthrow

Palestine intensifying

PLO

Arafat

 

Six-Day War, 1967

Egypt-Israel Skirmishing

June 5, Israel attacks Egyptian airfields

Israel takes Gaza and Sinai

Yom Kippur/Ramadan War, 1973

Egypt crosses Suez, into Sinai

Washington Sends Aid to Israel

Resolution 338    

U.S. Support of Israel

Saddam to the Rescue: From Ally to Terrorist

Iran-Iraq War, 1980s  (Iran, from Mossadegh to the Shah to the Ayotollah) Iraq imperiled, skirmishes with Kuwait

Islamic Revolution and Hostages– https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB21/

 

Iran-Iraq War– https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

Afghanistan and Carter’s new cold war

U.S. support of Afghan mujahadeen   

Afghan Communists, Amin, seized power from previous Communist government, unpopular in Moscow, make overtures to U.S.

Soviet goes into Kabul, 26 Dec. 1979, installs Babrak Karmal

Soviet Reluctance, March 1979

Bin Laden, al Qaeda, “Blowback” 

The First Gulf War, 1990-91   (Looking for Enemies after Eastern European Communism Falls Apart) Iraq needs to Rebuild

 

Iraq and Kuwait

Glaspie meeting with Saddam and Aziz

“GLASPIE: I think I understand this. I have lived here for years. I admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. I know you need funds. We understand that and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.

I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late 60’s. The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction. We hope you can solve this problem using any suitable methods via Klibi or via President Mubarak. All that we hope is that these issues are solved quickly. With regard to all of this, can I ask you to see how the issue appears to us?”

The Gulf War—Desert Shield/Desert Storm

Air War, 100-Hour War, Saddam still in power, Sanctions Regime 

Sanctions Regime

90s Terrorism

PDB, 6 August 2001

9/11 Attacks

Lies and Deceptions—WMDs and Iraq Connection to 9/11

Colin Powell at UN:    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErlDSJHRVMA

Class 10

Italy, U.S., Cold War, CIA

1946 Elections

Left 39.6 %  (Socialists=20.7; Communists=18.9)

Xian Democrats  35.2%

 

Palmiro Togliatti

AFL-CIO and CIA involvement in Italy (1944-1947)

 

Exchange Stabilization Fund

Catholic Action

Mafia and Unions

Togliatti and PCI—Soviet Aid

Operation Gladio

1948 Elections

Xian Democrats    48%

Left   31%

Obama and Trump

Drone Wars

Iraq quagmire and ISIS

Syria

Honduras Coup

Israel and Palestine

Venezuela

Iran

Bolivia