Discuss a cultural, social, political, or intellectual topic that you have explored beyond school and explain how it has shaped who you are today.
After testing and retesting my views on these topics, I came with a multitude of answers and found multiple mistakes in foreign policy and planning. I prize my fortitude in patience and planning and could not believe the United States government could act so impulsively and blindly. Little or no planning had been done into the locations of these various terrorists groups and the reports of weapons of mass destruction were unsupportable and unreliable which I felt was surprising. Before 8th grade, I felt the government is right and made the best decisions for the country. However after learning about political parties and self interest, I realized that there was much more to this plan of action than just taking out terrorist groups. America was confronted with an unexpected strategy by Muslim extremists incorporating extreme religious views to strengthen their ranks and create a reason to attack people relentlessly. However, American leaders were unprepared for guerrilla attacks, hostage killings and beheadings, remote detonated bombs and suicide bombings. The conventional battle techniques up to the Vietnam War proved ineffective in fighting insurgencies in the Middle East and the military was forced to change their tactics, after heavy casualties were inflicted on American troops. A question was repeatedly asked in my mind. How can the professional and highly trained American military be unable to capture a nation of farmers? At the outbreak of war, the war was projected to last a couple months or a year at the most. Shortly after the Taliban was "brought to its knees", the American government rashly declared war on Iraq to take down the Saddam Hussein's regime. As we all know, again the weapons of mass destruction were used to fool the American public into supporting such a lackluster campaign.
Billions and billions of dollars have been spent by the American government to bolster the forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and I realized how the government and me as a person could have done to prevent such outright sapping of the United States treasury. Needless to say, that gas prices inflated almost a dollar at the outbreak of hostilities and people were losing their jobs left and right. Companies gradually began to move their headquarters out of the US permitting these companies to fire the American workers that originally worked in these factories. A more important question resonates in my mind. How long we can sustain such an expensive war effort with a depleting treasury and at the same time implement the promised tax breaks to average Americans? Needless to say, it only took a couple years before the government started to slip into financial obscurity. The Wall Street stocks fluctuated wildly during those 8 years of war causing many large companies to file bankruptcy and lay off employees. In addition, Congress passed bills to provide additional billions of dollars to help save these important businesses and stimulate the economy. Does my working class family really get some kind of advantage from these hefty donations? A most firm, no. Almost none of this money will reach the working and the poor. Besides raising oil prices and angering foreign nations what has really been done during these years?
The positive effects of military action in Iraq and Afghanistan included better security for the United States, a more politically conscientious society, and the longing for those years of peace that I take for granted. As a result, sacrificing some of my rights to make my country safer is ok with me as long as the government does not abuse. Numerous suicide attacks were foiled, terrorist group sympathasizers and supporters were prosecuted, and my overall feeling of safety felt higher than it's ever been. The most significant result of the Iraq invasion was the Iraqi people's freedom from Saddam Hussein . these people were ruled by a brutal leader who felt no pain in gassing his own people and squandering his people to benefit himself. During Saddam Hussein's reign, the loyalists to Saddam received the highest quality of life leaving most of the common people starving, poor, and technologically handicapped and outdated. These major events made me proud and privileged to live in a free country and taught me to value the peace that was before.
The invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan was the single most influential event that contributed to the eventual failure of Bush's economic policy and a crashing Stock Market.
I have not started to add the second part of the prompt discussing how it shaped me today. Grammar and other criticisms are welcome. Thank you in advance. don't be shy to add comments to make it more concise and to enhance the overall reading flow. thank you again.
