HIST 106 1st Edition Lecture 32 Outline of Last Lecture I Reagan abroad II Trying to avoid foreign entanglements III Reagan s second term IV Iran Contra Scandal Outline of Current Lecture I The beginning of the Bush Era II End of the Cold War III Fall of the USSR IV Persian Gulf War V The 1990s Current Lecture The beginning of the Bush Era o 1988 presidential election George HW Bush runs and managed to stay away from the Iran Contra scandal untouched person Handily wins the 1988 presidential election o Read my lips no new taxes This was his main campaign promise and he basically ran on the same points that Reagan did o Operation Just Cause 1989 Panama has become a bit of a problem spot because there was a coupe and an army officer Manuel would com into power Uses the power that Cater sets if the Panama Canal is in danger we have the right to intervene to order a huge invasion of Panama Very short but Manuel Noriega flees to the Vatican embassy in Panama and he finally surrenders We take him to the US had him serve a prison sentence deported him to France had him serve a prison sentence deported him to Panama where he is still serving a prison sentence The US did not become any more popular with any of the Latin American countries because there was really no reason ex Communism behind the invasion besides the fact we did not like the leader Manuel Noriega Him coming into power was very concerning for us because there were many Americans living in Panama we still had the Panama canal and he became very heavy in drug trafficking There is a lot of escalation in the conflict between Panama and the US End of the Cold War o Fall of the Berlin Wall Nov 1990 Hungary opened its borders got overwhelmed from the amount of people coming in closed its borders to E Europe Peaceful protestors outside of the Berlin wall the most active were allowed to go through people brought sledgehammers but the wall did not fall until about a year later o Reunification of Germany Oct 1990 This signifies the cold war basically being over as Germany divided was the biggest part of the cold war o Fall of the Soviet Union Glasnost perestroika openness restructure Responses to demands by the people but it took people like Gorbacheve to implement these demands from the top down War in Afghanistan This went on until 1988 invaded in 1979 and sucked up tons of men material resources and people were tired of it Their system was oppressive so there were not open protests but people were very unhappy with it Economic stagnation The problem with the Soviet system was because they really did not produce consumer goods and when they did produce consumer goods they were really bad at it They mainly made industrial goods that would be used to run the country The system was from the 1950s and the only reason they supported themselves was because of huge natural discovers oil diamonds gold in Siberia Crumbling system The soviet union crumbled from the inside not that Reagan out spent the Soviet Union They had decided longer before the 1990s that they would not match the US in military spending Fall of the USSR o The USSR becomes the Commonwealth of the Independent states The CIS is not really an actual state but is more like a regional organization no real power behind it Not all USSR countries join the CIS o US is the only superpower The next couple of decades Russia will try to figure out what democracy is in Russia which is really nothing because Russia has become a totalitarian nation Persian Gulf War o Access to Persian Gulf oil and security of key friendly states in the area are vital to the US national security President HW Bush o Iran Iraq War 1980 1988 This war went on for a really long time and basically ended in a draw didn t gain much but it lost a lot We basically supported both sides as we sold weapons to Iran and we financially supported Iran sold them helicopters Iraq was seen as a country that we could not let fall to Iran and took them off of the state sponsored terrorism list in the 1980s o USS Stark Incident 1987 An occurrence in the Persian Gulf a US ship was close to Iran Iraq war and an Iraqi helicopter fired at the ship and killed about 30 people The Iraqis played it off as an accident and because the US had decided that Iraq could not fall to Iran the US forgave and forgot o August 1990 Iraq invades Kuwait The reason was because Iraq had just finished a war and Kuwait was very rich in oil Iraq invades so that they could repay their debts to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and that Kuwait was producing too much oil The Iraqi army is the 4th largest in the world at that time and very easily overruns the Kuwait government o UN security council resolution 678 Give Iraq until Jan 15 1991 or else o 17 January 1991 coalition defensive begins The coalition he builds up consists of forces that are around the Middle East the Persian Gulf states and even from Africa The or else is a huge attack from the US coalition forces from land the Iraqis though we were going to do an amphibian invasion so they were prepared for that o Operation Southern Watch This was an operation that enforced a no fly zone between Iraq and Kuwait The US will stay in Kuwait well into the 1990s to protect them from a potential invasion from Iraq The 1990s o Presidential election of 1992 George HW Bush lost this election as he broke his promise on taxes and there was still economic stagnation Bill Clinton o Operation Restore Hope Will send forces to Somalia for Operation Rescue Hope because Somalia has broken down long time dictator had died and the whole government system collapsed Battle of Mogadishu Oct 1993 black hawk down A US invasion of a city in Somalia Mogadishu goes horribly wrong and this was really embarrassing and terrifying for the US public The US really does not use the Weinberger document anymore due to these two acts o Family and Medical Leave act 1993 This is going to secure the obligation of employers to allow their employees to take unpaid leave to do take care of family members have a baby etc and required to have your job available to you once you get back o Personal responsibility and work opportunity act 1996 Requiring recipients to begin working after two years of receiving benefits Placing a lifetime limit of five years benefit paid by federal funds Ends welfare as an entitlement program and made it a program to get people back to work Enhancing enforcement of child support This bill reduces the number of people on
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