6/3/2019 Ariann Adams - Blog Post 2 Different Lenses (Historical, Cultural, Geographi - 861348 - Google Docs

Name: Ariann Adams

Blog Post #: 2
War in Afghanistan
In my first blog post, I began to explain an important world issue. Since 1999 the U.S has been at war with
afghanistan. This issue has been ongoing for almost 20 years. When will it end? How far does it have to stretch
before it gets worse? There are Six main reasons on why the war started. In my previous blog post I explained the
first three: 9/11, Afghanistan, and Support.
Weapons of Mass destruction- Iraq was the observer of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Director,
George Tenet agreed that “the focus on WMD would prove a critical political mistake (Why we went to war,
2013).” The missing piles of WMD quickly became the source of a slogan, “Bush lied, thousands died (Why we
went to war, 2013).” The Bush administration didn't worry about the WMD, they believed that the it wouldn’t
create enough importance to the public for “pre- emption.” It’s hard to tell when we will know the full story of
WMD. We heard the same conflicts about Syrian weapons from the Obama administration as we did of Iraq
weapons from the Bush administration.
Nation Building- The 1991 war ended terribly, due to a failure to finish the regime. The U.S decided to
do the right thing and create a government that will ensure the end of saddam’s “atrocities” and pressure the
monarchies in the gulf to “liberalize and cease supporting terrorism of the sort that had killed three thousand
Americans (Why we went to war, 2013).” The democracy in Iraq lead to an “Arab spring” (Why we went to war,
2013) of U.S. fostered democracy in the Middle East. The policy deciders at Bush Administration believed that
democracy was their last choice for postwar reconstruction, considering everything that has been tried after past
conflicts and had failed. If President Bush had announced in advance that he would be leaving Iraq when he
deposed Saddam, or that his plan was to propose a “less violent relative to Saddam to keep order as we departed
(Why we went to war, 2013)“, congress wouldn’t have authorized an invasion of Iraq.
Oil- The most important part that most people forget is that this war is not a matter of "blood for oil.” The
oil was an issue because Iraq's oil revenues allowed Saddam the resources to provoke trouble. If Iraq had been a
resource and landlocked without key access to the Persian Gulf, the United States would not have invaded.
Invading Iraq was predicted from the start, if any of these reasons were avoided the invasion could have been
pushed back and maybe never spoken about.
I decided to continue the historical background of this world issue. This blog post was important to me
because it helped me and hopefully you understand why the war started. As i continue writing these blog posts I
am going to be using different lenses to research all aspects of the issue. In my next blog post, I will be looking
into the political lense, seeing how politics came into play with the decision of this war. In my other blog posts i I
want to learn more about the other side, what was Afghanistan’s reasoning for going to war with the U.S? What

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6/3/2019 Ariann Adams - Blog Post 2 Different Lenses (Historical, Cultural, Geographi - 861348 - Google Docs

measures did their government take? What were their risk factors? Was there anything they could've done to avoid
our invasion?

Source Citation (MLA 8th edition)

Hanson, Victor Davis. "Why we went to war: disappointment with how the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq turned
out is no excuse for rewriting the record." Hoover Digest, no. 3, 2013, p. 91+. Opposing Viewpoints in Context,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A350978598/OVIC?u=pl9363&sid=OVIC&xid=5757f036. Accessed 14 Feb.
2019.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yocCnJr0COHaDgwcGCqdHh4pG6X9dZ7jKyvaE7ZKFrU/edit 2/2