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<h1 class="title">Why America is involved in every major war</h1>
<p class="author">axtlos (axtlos@tar.black)</p>
</header>
<h1 id="introduction">Introduction</h1>
<blockquote>
<p>“War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes
think they are going to profit from it.”<br />
― George Orwell <span class="citation"
data-cites="orwell-quote"></span></p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="the-purpose-of-this-term-paper">The purpose of this Term
Paper</h2>
<p>At the time of writing this, war is starting to become a more
important topic again, with the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 <span
class="citation" data-cites="bbc-invasion-ukraine"></span>, increasing
complications between China and Taiwan <span class="citation"
data-cites="bbc-china-taiwan"></span>, as well as the US withdrawal from
Afghanistan and the following takeover from the Taliban <span
class="citation" data-cites="cfr-afghanistan"></span>.</p>
<p>In the western world, people usually take a side with the US or other
western countries and see them as the "good guys", however people often
fail to see the background of wars and completely ignore the fact that
wars are not for the "Liberation of a country" <span class="citation"
data-cites="george-bush-liberation-iraq"></span>, but for the profit of
those, who win the war. Which, due to the NATO mainly consisting of
Western countries and being <em>the</em> strongest Military force, is
guaranteed to be them <span class="citation"
data-cites="nato-strongest-force"></span>. With this Term paper I want
to show that there are no "good guys" in a war, only "better guys" at
best.</p>
<p>The reason I chose the United States for this is simple, they are the
strongest force in the NATO <span class="citation"
data-cites="statista-nato-aircraft-strength"></span>, which results in
them having the most influence in NATO decisions. If I want to show the
reasons for wars, then America will be the best example since other NATO
countries follow America in a lot of military decisions.</p>
<p>But it should also be noted that America is not the only country
guilty of starting wars because of money, every war is in some way
caused by money, no matter if the war was started by America, Russia,
China or any other country. Every war is a crime on humanity and an
example as to why Capitalism is a horrible economic structure.</p>
<h2 id="list-of-wars-america-was-involved-with">List of wars America was
involved with</h2>
<p>Since the second World War, America has been involved in four War
operations <span class="citation"
data-cites="va-gov-american-wars"></span>. The Korean war, Vietnam war,
Operation Desert Storm, which is also known as the Gulf War <span
class="citation" data-cites="defense-gov-gulf"></span>, and the Global
War on Terror <span class="citation"
data-cites="va-gov-american-wars"></span>.</p>
<p>In these four wars the US committed a bunch of war crimes, the
most common one being massacres of unarmed civilians. The
US made no efforts in cooperating with human rights organizations or the
International Criminal Court, effectively commending any war crimes US
soldiers committed <span class="citation"
data-cites="globaltimes-us-evade-warcrimes"></span>.</p>
<h2 id="vietnam-war">Vietnam War</h2>
<p>The Vietnam War is most likely one of the most well-known wars
America was involved with. The origins of this war date back to the end
of the second world war in 1945, where Japan withdrew its soldiers from
Vietnam, which then was split up into the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam, under control of Ho Chi Minh, who strove to create a country
following Chinese and Soviet Communism <span class="citation"
data-cites="vietnam-war-history"></span> and the state of Vietnam under
control of the French emperor Bao Dai, who wanted a Vietnam which had
close cultural and economic ties to the West <span class="citation"
data-cites="vietnam-war-history"></span>.</p>
<p>Both sides of Vietnam had signed a treaty in the year 1945 during the
Geneva Convention, which split Vietnam along the 17 degrees North
Latitude, also known as 17th Parallel and set Minh in control of the
North and Dai in control of the South.<br />
This lasted until 1955, where Ngo Dinh Diem, a "strongly anti communist
politician" <span class="citation"
data-cites="vietnam-war-history"></span>, became President of the
Southern part of Vietnam. Due to the cold war and the US hardening
policies against any Communist states, the currently acting US President
Eisenhower pledged "firm support to Diem and South Vietnam" <span
class="citation" data-cites="vietnam-war-history"></span>.</p>
<p>With the formation of the National Liberation Front in 1960, which
was meant to be a resistance against Diem at the request of a US report
team, John F. Kennedy started increasing US Military Aid in South
Vietnam based on the Domino Theory <span class="citation"
data-cites="vietnam-war-history"></span>, which assumed that once a
country falls to communism, many other countries would follow, like a
chain of dominoes <span class="citation"
data-cites="cold-war-domino-theory"></span>.</p>
<p>The situation escalated in 1965 when Lyndon B. Johnson sent US Combat
Troops to Vietnam.</p>
<h2 id="the-global-war-on-terror">The Global War on Terror</h2>
<p>The Global War on Terror began after the Terrorist attack on the
World Trade Center on the 11th September 2001, George W. Bush, who was
the acting President at this time, announced that the US was creating a
plan to locate and stop Terrorists all around the world <span
class="citation" data-cites="gowt-bushlibrary"></span>. In connection to
these announcements the US first started a war in 2001 with Afghanistan
and then in 2003 in Iraq <span class="citation"
data-cites="gowt-bushlibrary"></span>, these wars are part of the Global
War on Terror, however the Global War on Terror also describes
non-violent actions taken against the financing of Terrorist groups. The
invasion of Iraq began on the 20th March 2003 <span class="citation"
data-cites="cfr-iraq-war"></span> with US air strikes, the invasion was
justified with the Global War on Terror and Iraq’s ownership of nuclear,
biological and chemical weapons. <span class="citation"
data-cites="britannica-iraq-war"></span>. The first stage of the war
ended a month after the first air strikes with the downfall of Saddam
Hussein’s regime on the 1st May 2003 <span class="citation"
data-cites="cfr-iraq-war"></span>.</p>
<p>The war however continues with the hunt for Saddam Hussein, who was
captured on the 14th December 2003 and executed 3 years later on the
30th December 2006 <span class="citation"
data-cites="cfr-iraq-war"></span>. During this time the battle in Iraq
continues after Shiites won the 2005 election <span class="citation"
data-cites="cfr-iraq-war"></span>. Even though the war went on until
2011, the Bush Administration admitted on the 24th January 2004 that no
biological, chemical or nuclear weapons were found in Iraq, as the
former US weapons inspector David Kay told the congress: "we were almost
all wrong" <span class="citation"
data-cites="cnn-david-kay-senate-hearing"></span>.</p>
<p>This then begs the question, if it was already known that Iraq had no
weapons of mass destruction in 2004, why did the US continue the war
until 2011, what are the real reasons for the war?</p>
<h1 id="the-real-reasons-for-the-wars-and-how-america-hides-them">The
real reasons for the wars and how America hides them</h1>
<p>As shown in the first paragraph, the US is not always fully honest
about their reasons for invading a country or starting wars. So in this
paragraph I am going to show the multiple reasons America, and other
countries, go to war or start Invasions.</p>
<h2 id="big--oil">(Big-) Oil</h2>
<p>Big Oil is a term that describes the biggest Oil Companies under
public ownership, these include BP plc, Royal Dutch Shell plc, Exxon
Mobile Corporation, Chevron Corporation, ENI SpA and Total SA <span
class="citation" data-cites="financial-dictionary-big-oil"></span>. Due
to these companies being Government controlled, the Government will set
regulations or even start Wars, just to benefit their Oil Companies.</p>
<p>The Wars which are started for the acquirement of Oil are usually
called "resource wars" <span class="citation"
data-cites="belfercenter-oil-conflict"></span>, these however are not
the only wars started due to oil. There is the petro-aggression, which
is not a war directly started because of oil, but due to the domestic
isolation which oil can cause, making a country more likely to try out
potentially controversial foreign policies <span class="citation"
data-cites="belfercenter-oil-conflict"></span>. Another type is the
financing of other groups with profits made from oil, like Iran
financing the Hezbollah through oil profits <span class="citation"
data-cites="ny-times-lebanon-hezbollah-fuel"></span> and wars started
over oil market domination, as seen in the US war with Iraq over
Kuwait <span class="citation"
data-cites="britannica-persian-gulf-war"></span>.</p>
<p>However, the existence of oil wars are a very controversial, there
are people who claim that oil has no cause in wars, while others claim
that oil is a very important factor in wars. Often these discussions are
made on the example of the wars in Kuwait, to which the US Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated that it’s "nonsense to suggest that the
US invasion of Iraq involved oil in any way" <span class="citation"
data-cites="stokes_blood_for_oil"></span>. Even among political
Scientists oil, or even energy in general, is rarely mentioned, the few
scientists who do focus on the involvement of oil in wars also disagree
about the importance of oil, one group argues that resource wars play a
major role in wars, while the other group rejects this claim due to the
lack of systematic evidence <span class="citation"
data-cites="fueling-fire-jeff-d"></span>. The main issue with these
discussions is that people often fail to check the influence of oil in
the country before the war started, as oil may not be the direct cause
of the war, but start a chain reaction of other events which eventually
lead to a war. It is also noteworthy that oil is a very important
resource and simply cannot be ignored when analyzing international
security. This can also be seen in the aforementioned discussions about
the involvement of oil in the Iraq wars, as scientists argue about
involvement of oil in the war, rather than the preconditions caused by
oil <span class="citation" data-cites="fueling-fire-jeff-d"></span>.</p>
<h3 id="resource-wars">Resource Wars</h3>
<p>A major example of resource wars is the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in
1990 and the following US Military operation Desert Shield, in which
Iraq successfully annexed Kuwait and gained control of 20 percent of oil
reserves <span class="citation"
data-cites="history-iraq-kuwait"></span>. This is more proof that oil is
not always the cause of a war, but rather a precondition of war.</p>
<p>Although the goals of Oil Resource Wars are not always only the
ownership of more oil, but also the gain of more Control over the
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, also known as OPEC,
which would allow a country to have more control over the worldwide oil
price, and as a result of this power also cut countries out of oil
trade.</p>
<h3 id="oil-market-domination">Oil Market Domination</h3>
<p>Wars about Oil Market Domination are similar to Resource Wars,
however they differ in one main point, the wars aren’t for personal gain
of oil, but rather to make sure that the opposing force has less oil
Power <span class="citation" data-cites="fueling-fire-jeff-d"></span>.
The US fears that countries with a big oil power could artificially
raise the Oil price, which OPEC would have to follow with, allowing the
country to enrich itself on oil profits.</p>
<p>Oil Market Domination wars are often a cause of Resource wars, a good
example is the US operation Desert Shield, which itself started due to a
fear of Oil Market Domination from Iraq, but was caused by the Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait, which, as already mentioned, was a Resource War.</p>
<h2 id="communism">Communism</h2>
<p>Communism as a cause of war is an interesting topic, the US did not
start any wars against communism ever since the cold war, yet Communism
and Socialism are still an important topic in modern foreign policies
and even internal policies, with the rise of Communism and Socialism
among Millenials and Gen-Z <span class="citation"
data-cites="theguardian-genz-capitalism"></span>, it becomes a more
broadly discussed topic in politics, with the majority of politicians
not being very happy, as they are a prime target of Communist and
Anarchist movements.</p>
<p>As a reaction to this, the US tries to silence any Communist
politicians or countries, be it through direct wars, secret CIA
operations or the influence of media to spread false information <span
class="citation" data-cites="theguardian-anti-communist-usa"></span>.
Secret CIA operations include assassinations of Communist leaders, like
the Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro, who survived over 600 murder
attempts from the CIA and ended up dying naturally at the age of 90 in
Havana on the 25th November 2016 <span class="citation"
data-cites="cnn-fidel-castro-assassination"></span>.</p>
<p>The war against communism however is not always violent. During the
cold war and the Red Scare, the US also made a huge effort to keep
people away from Communistic believes through state propaganda. This
propaganda was usually spread through movies, literature, music,
television and art. It would usually mock the soviet union and communism
through misinformation. The US Government however did not display it as
propaganda and insisted that everything shown was factually correct. <a
href="#section.4">An example of this propaganda can be seen in the
attachments.</a></p>
<h2 id="power-in-other-countries">Power in other countries</h2>
<p>Most wars which involve gaining power in other countries are not
military wars, but economic wars. The US in this case often sets
embargoes on countries that do not follow them in their decisions, like
with Cuba, Venezuela or a lot of countries in the Middle East <span
class="citation" data-cites="us-treasury-embargoes"></span>.</p>
<h3 id="cuba">Cuba</h3>
<p>The US embargo against Cuba started with the Cuban Revolution in
which Fidel Castro took over the Cuban Government, even though the
currently acting US President Dwight D. Eisenhower officially recognized
the new Cuban Government as legitimate, relations rapidly started to
deteriorate after Fidel Castro began nationalizing more companies and
started the agrarian reforms, in which the Government broke up large
landholding and redistributed them to the people who work on that land
and the state. With each state take-over of privately owned land the US
embargo rose in strength, up to the point where any trade with Cuba was
prohibited for US Companies. This embargo also got extended to the point
where the US threatened any non-US based company with sanctions if they
were doing trade with Cuba <span class="citation"
data-cites="cfr-us-cuba-relations"></span>. The US opposition to the
Cuban government under Fidel Castro even went as far as the CIA
attempting to assassinate Fidel Castro over 600 times <span
class="citation"
data-cites="cnn-fidel-castro-assassination"></span>.</p>
<h3 id="israel">Israel</h3>
<p>Israel is a very controversial topic in international politics, which
also makes it a prime reason for wars. The controversy stems from the
fact that Israel lies on land stolen from the Palestinian
population <span class="citation"
data-cites="aljazeera-israel-illegal-settlement"></span>. During the
second world war, Palestine was controlled by the British, due to the
holocaust in Europe a lot of Jewish people immigrated into Palestine,
under supervision by the British. They formed their own villages, also
called kibbutzim, and were not interested in forming any Jewish State.
After the British retreated from Palestine, Zionist groups started
attacking Palestinians with the goal of starting a Jewish State. The UN
tried to settle these attacks with the 1947 Partition Plan, which would
split Palestine into two parts and assign one half to the Zionists.
Palestine openly expressed their dissatisfaction this plan as it would
illegally steal part of their country, while the Zionists seemingly
agreed with it <span class="citation"
data-cites="aljazeera-israel-illegal-settlement"></span>. After the
Partition Plan was completed and Palestine was split into Palestine and
Israel, Zionists started attacking the Palestinian land and claimed it
for themselves, causing Palestinians to flee into other Arabic countries
like Jordan or Lebanon <span class="citation"
data-cites="aljazeera-israel-illegal-settlement"></span>. Even though
Palestine is an occupied territory, Israel continues to send their
population into these territories and apply Israeli law, which directly
violates the fourth Geneva Convention. Despite this, countries still
acknowledged the new Israeli territory as a legitimate part of
Israel <span class="citation"
data-cites="aljazeera-israel-illegal-settlement"></span>.</p>
<p>With Israel being a country with western ties in the middle east, the
US had an interest in forming good ties with Israel in order to have a
proxy in the middle east. This has been the case with the Iran-Israeli
Proxy conflict, in which Iran threatened to dissolve Israel and give the
land back to the Palestinian people. And now is a proxy war involving
Syria, Lebanon, Russia, the United States, the United kingdom and Saudi
Arabia <span class="citation"
data-cites="aljazeera-israel-iran-shadow"></span> <span class="citation"
data-cites="smh-shadow-war-israel-iran"></span> <span class="citation"
data-cites="lemonde-shadow-war-israel-iran"></span> <span
class="citation" data-cites="time-shadow-war-israel-iran"></span>.</p>
<h1 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h1>
<h2 id="what-to-take-from-this-term-paper">What to take from this Term
Paper</h2>
<p>In the end, what to take from this Term Paper is up to the Reader,
however I hope that this Term Paper cleared up that there are no good
reasons for War. Even if countries tell us that their War is for the
"removal of Nazis" or for the "liberation" of a country, it is never the
truth. Every War always boils down to the gain of power or money,
although nowadays these things are the same.</p>
<p>The war for Oil results in a shift of power in OPEC, which allows the
most powerful country to influence the international Oil price. Due to
this easy way of gaining a monopoly, any state can abuse their position
in OPEC very easily.</p>
<p>The war against Communism has the goal of defeating an idea that goes
against everything the US stands for. Communism tries to abolish the
entire concept of a class based society, which would result in the
Government any rich people would loose their power. It is clear why the
US government tries everything they can to avoid any Communist movement
in any country, since they seemingly still believe in the Domino Theory,
and fear that any communist country that gains a lot of power could
cause other countries to move towards communism.</p>
<p>And finally, the attempts of gaining power in countries. This is not
always very easy, as seen with the example of Cuba, getting power over
countries can also mean completely blocking any cooperation with
specific states, in this case setting an embargo on Cuba and threatening
non US companies to sanction them if they decide to trade with Cuba.
This gives the US control over every company that is interested in
having the US as a partner, which usually every company wants. Based on
this example it becomes clear that wars with the objective of directly
gaining power in countries does not always mean getting power over the
country in which the war is happening, but to gain power over other
countries through this war.</p>
<h2 id="what-i-learned-from-this-term-paper">What I learned from this
Term Paper</h2>
<p>The core information of this was nothing new to me, however the
extend of what the US does to justify their wars and war crimes was very
shocking and only increased my critical attitude towards US politics.
This Term Paper showed me, that countries are able to ignore war crimes
through and lie to the population in order to make them seem better to
retract a statement, which also is the reason why I want to retract a
statement I made in the beginning of this Term Paper, I said that there
are only "better guys" in wars, not "good" guys, after writing this
Paper it has become clear to me that even "better guys" do not exist in
wars. Everyone who participates in any war is a horrible person and it
does not matter what their political opinion is. They all commit
genocide towards groups of people and point at the others saying that
they are the ones violating human rights, while leading a genocide
against transgender people in their own country and secretly murdering
children in a state based on stolen land. I have also noticed that
Imperialism is not dead, as many assume. Imperialism never ended, except
that now the government knows how to hide their Imperialism and sell it
to the population as a "Liberation", "removal of Nazis" or "fighting
terrorist groups". Due to this system of gaining power through money and
gaining money through power it is only a matter of time until every
country turns into some sort of fascist, imperialist state.</p>
<h1 id="attachments">Attachments</h1>
<h2 id="sec:Propaganda">Anti-Communist propaganda</h2>
<p><img src="Propaganda/is-this-tomorrow.jpg" alt="image" /> <img
src="Propaganda/colleges-hire-red-professors.jpg" alt="image" /></p>
<img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-sa/4.0/88x31.png" />
This Term paper is licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0<br />
<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
class="uri">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/</a><br />
The source, including LaTeX and bibliography files can be found at<br />
<a
href="https://github.com/axtloss/Term-Paper-America-Involvement-In-Wars"
class="uri">https://github.com/axtloss/Term-Paper-America-Involvement-In-Wars</a></p>
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