April, 2010

Volume 1, Issue 1 America: Then & Now

Special Interest Articles:

• Vietnam Highlights � Map of

Revolutionary War Battles

� Statistics of

World War I Casualties

Individual Highlights:

Revolutionary War 2

Civil War 3

World War I 4

World War II 5

Vietnam War 6

New Millennium Business Academy

The United States, with support from the United Kingdom invaded Afghanistan in October,

2001 as part of its "War on Terrorism". The military campaign, led by U.S. general Tommy

Franks, was initially dubbed Operation Infinite Justice but quickly renamed Operation

Enduring Freedom, due to the perceived religious connotations of the former. British military

operations against Afghanistan were codenamed Operation Veritas.

According to the US, the purpose of Operation Enduring Freedom was to target Osama bin

Laden, suspected of planning and funding the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack, and his

terrorist network al-Qaida, as well as and the Taliban government in Afghanistan which

refused to unconditionally extradite bin Laden and members of his organization. Many

journalists have reported that plans to attack al-Qaida and the Taliban had been made as

early as the Clinton administration, but bureaucratic wrangling had delayed action until after

the September 11 attack.

U.S. Invasion of Afghanistan

Beginnings of a Long Entanglement with the Middle East: The Gulf War

The Gulf War (also: Persian Gulf War, War in the Gulf, Iraq-Kuwait Conflict, UN-Iraq

conflict, and Operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm, and Desert Saber) (1990- 1991)

was a conflict between Iraq and a coalition force of 34 nations led by the United States. The

result was a decisive victory of the coalition forces, which were able to drive Iraqi forces out of

Kuwait fairly quickly and with minimal coalition deaths. The main battles were aerial and

ground combat within Iraq, Kuwait, and bordering areas of Saudi Arabia. During the conflict,

Iraq fired missiles into Israeli territory. The cost of the war to the United States was calculated by Congress to be $61.1 billion; two-

thirds of that amount was paid by Kuwait, Japan and Saudi-Arabia.

Newsletter Title Page 2 of 6

.”

Fight for Freedom: The American Revolution

The American Revolutionary War (also known as the American War of Independence has

been mistakenly called the American Revolution but the American Revolution began much

earlier and was a larger scheme including the war.) was a war fought between the British Crown

and its colonies in North America, allied with France, from 1775 to 1783. The eventual outcome

was the recognition of independence of the 13 southernmost of the colonies, as well as lightly

settled territories west to the Mississippi River.

Before the revolution most people in the British North American Colonies considered themselves

loyal subjects of the British Crown, with the same rights and obligations as people in Britain.

However, under the doctrine of mercantilism the British considered the Colonies more as a

resource to be utilized for the benefit of their own economy and had little respect for the

Colonialists. This difference in perception led to a vicious circle of Colonialists acting against

what they saw as unfair policies, harsh British reaction, followed by stronger Colonial reaction,

leading to even harsher British reaction -- all of this spiraling into the revolution.

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The American civil war was

fought in the United States of

America between the

northern states, popularly

referred to as the "Union",

and the seceding southern

states (in the U.S., The

South), calling themselves

the Confederate States of

America or the "Confederacy"

between 1861 and 1865.

there is no question that the

salient issue in the minds of

the public and popular press

of the time, and the histories

written since, was the issue of

slavery. Slavery had been

abolished in most northern

Brother Versus Brother: The Civil War

“A Country divided!”

states, but was legal and

important to the economy of

the Confederacy, which

depended on cheap

agricultural labor. The Union

was led by President

Abraham Lincoln and the

Confederacy by President

Jefferson Davis. The war

ended in 1865 with the

surrender of Confederate

forces. Lee surrendered his

Army of Northern Virginia on

9 April 1865 at Appomattox

Court house.

Caption describing picture or graphic.

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World War I or the First World War, 1914 - 1918, was the first war that involved nations spanning

more than half the globe, hence world war. It was commonly called The Great War or sometimes the

war to end all wars until World War II started, although the name "First World War" was coined as

early as 1920. Some scholars consider the First World War merely the first phase of a 30-year-long

war that spans the time frame of 1914 to 1945.

It is accepted that the triggering event for the war was the death (June 28, 1914) of the heir to the

Austro-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, and his morganatic wife Sophia in

Sarajevo, Bosnia at the hands of a pro-Serbian nationalist assassin (a Bosnian Serb student named

Gavrilo Princip). The consequences of the War were long lasting. The June 1919 Treaty of Versailles put an official end to the war with Germany. The treaty required that Germany accept responsibility for starting the war and pay heavy reparations. It included a clause that would create a League of Nations, an international organization that should prevent a new war. The First World War was different from prior military conflicts: it was a meeting of 20th century technology with 19th century mentality and tactics. This time, millions of soldiers fought on all sides and the casualties were enormous, mostly because of the more efficient weapons (like artillery and machine guns) that were used in large quantities against old tactics. Although the First World War led to the development of air forces, tanks ,and new tactics (like the Rolling barrage and Crossfire), much of the action took place in the trenches, where thousands died for each square meter of land gained. The First World War also saw the use of chemical warfare, and aerial bombardment, both of which had been outlawed under the 1909 Hague Convention[?].

Beginnings of Global Interaction: World War I

Casualties of the First World War

“A new kind of warfare.”

“Everyone wants a piece.”

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Stopping the Hangman: World War II

World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a war fought from 1939 to 1945 in Europe

and, during much of the 1930s and 1940s, in Asia. The accepted view is that the war began in earnest

on September 1, 1939 with the raid of Poland by Nazi Germany, and concluded on September 2, 1945

with the official surrender of the last Axis force, Japan. However, in Europe, the war had concluded

earlier with the unconditional surrender of Germany on May 8, 1945. World War II ravaged civilians more than any previous war and served as a backdrop for genocidal killings by Nazi Germany as well as several other mass slaughters of civilians which, although not technically genocide, were nevertheless significant. These included the massacre of millions of Chinese and Korean nationals by Imperial Japan, internal mass killings in the Soviet Union, and the indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets in German and Japanese cities by the Allies. In total, World War II produced about 50 million deaths, more than any other war to date.

“Once more into the trenches!”

The Second Indochina War, 1954-1975, grew out of the long conflict between

France and Vietnam. In July 1954, after one hundred years of colonial rule, a defeated France was forced to leave Vietnam. Nationalist forces under the direction of General Vo Nguyen Giap trounced the allied French troops at the remote mountain outpost of Dien Bien Phu in the northwest corner of Vietnam. This decisive battle convinced the French that they could no longer maintain their Indochinese colonies and Paris quickly sued for peace. As the two sides came together in Geneva, Switzerland, international events were already shaping the future of Vietnam's modern revolution.

As longstanding allies of France, America decided to join the war once France had to exit the war. One of the greatest ironies in a war rich in ironies was that Washington had also moved toward a limited war in Vietnam. The Johnson administration wanted to fight this war in "cold blood." This meant that America would go to war in Vietnam with the precision of a surgeon with little noticeable impact on domestic culture. A limited war called for limited mobilization of resources, material and human, and caused little disruption in everyday life in America. Of course, these goals were never met. The Vietnam War did have a major impact on everyday life in America, and the Johnson administration was forced to consider domestic consequences of its decisions every day. Eventually, there simply were not enough volunteers to continue to fight a protracted war and the government instituted a draft. As the deaths mounted and Americans continued to leave for Southeast Asia, the Johnson administration was met with the full weight of American anti-war sentiments. Protests erupted on college campuses and in major cities at first, but by 1968 every corner of the country seemed to have felt the war's impact. Perhaps one of the most famous incidents in the anti-war movement was the police riot in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Hundreds of thousands of people came to Chicago in August 1968 to protest American intervention in Vietnam and the leaders of the Democratic Party who continued to prosecute the war.

Masters of War: The Vietnam War

America learns the price of war.