6/3/2019 Ariann Adams - Blog Post 3 Different Lenses (Historical, Cultural, Geographi - 861348 - Google Docs
Name: Ariann Adams
Blog Post #: 3 From my previous blog posts we know that, following the 9/11 attack President Bush decided to target Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda terrorist group for retaliation. Political situations arises as the U.S refrained from hitting the Taliban forces outside of Kabul. They feared that the North Alliance would take over the capital city and the country. How does one solve a problem such as this? Well, Americans wanted to build “a broad coalition of afghan forces, one that would threaten diplomacy with the Pakistanis.” (Bargeron,1). The only problem was that Pakistanis refused to cooperate U.S forces. They wanted the north alliance to seize Kabul. Bin Laden is still at large, and Taliban proving difficult to eliminate President Bush warned Americans that the war was far from over, and it still is to this day. As Bush began to negotiate with other nations to assist in U.S efforts, he expanded his list of nations that posed a possible threat to american security. It seems as if one thing was leading to another as Hamid Karzai, an Afghan politician negotiated with the remaining taliban soldiers to lay their weapons down and surrender. 2001 had come to an end and American led coalition forces had defeated the taliban and uprooted al qaeda. With these two groups now under US control, Bush focused on Iraq. His goal was to gather evidence against Saddam Hussein. Early 2002, troops were deployed to prepare to take action on Iraq. Changing the course was hard, president Bush knew the importance of staying in Afghanistan to find Bin Laden. Bush “invoked the Marshall plan, the post world war II rebuilding effort in Europe.” (Bargeron,4). He wanted to avoid the term nation building to describe his hoped for an American role in Afghanistan. Many criticized bush for invading iraq. They said it was “irresponsible to start another war without finding Bin Laden. Some worried that war in Iraq would make an incomplete job of Afghanistan, threaten the Karzai administration and allow the Taliban to regain control.” (Bargeron,4). This could possibly caused the region to destabilize, but despite the risks of fighting both wars at the same time Bush made sure the troops were ready for Iraq, while reassuring the Afghan people they will not forget them. This post was important because it described some of the decision making President Bush went through when calling the two wars. It showed was went on behind the scenes. In my next blog post I’m going to be focusing on possible solutions to this issue. Like what can be done by the government to possibly end the war peacefully? I do want to know more about what was going through the mind of President Bush, as he stepped out of office leaving this mess for future presidents to try and clean up. Why did Bush feel the need to keep adding fuel to the fire if he was under so much stress? Coming up with a solution to this war won’t be so I intend on doing plenty of research in my next blog post.