In his book, The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide, Gary J. Bass depicts the horror and political nature of the massacre of East Pakistani citizens in which Nixon and Kissinger did nothing to try to prevent the deaths of thousands, instead, they keep good relations with the dictator and continued to supply Pakistan with American weaponry. Bass supports his explanations by illustrating the events using copious amounts of quotes. The author’s purpose is to clarify this confusing period and show Nixon’s role in it. The author writes in an objective tone. Bass clarifies the events surrounding the infamous genocide and reactions. Bass receives automatic ethos because of his occupation as a professor of international affairs and politics at the University of Princeton. While he does not state any of his beliefs or opinions, he builds a case against Nixon by the …show more content…
sheer amount of unflattering quotes. He introduces the audience to why the genocide had started; due to the results of Pakistan’s first free election in 1970. The victor should have been the popular Sheikh Mujib Rahman of the Awami League, but the The victims were namely Bengalis, for their ties to the Awami League, and Hindus, due to long-established ethnic hatred. reveals that the consulate in Dacca, located in modern day Bangladesh, were horrified by the use of American weaponry in the brutal military crackdown on East Pakistani citizens. (67 and 68) The consulate sent numerous reports to the White House of the acts of terror enforced by the Pakistani military. Despite the shock in Dacca, Secretary of State Kissinger was shown to be indifferent, to the horror and frustration of his own aides.(73 and 74) In fact, he and Nixon expressed anger at the consulate for the subsequent leak of the telegram and at India, who, in their eyes, would use this as an “excuse” for invading “poor Pakistan.” In consulate Archer Blood’s famous dissent telegram, the Blood Telegram, he uses emotional and logical appeals to criticize the U.S.
foreign policy. He claims that the U.S. government failed to “denounce the suppression of democracy… [and] atrocities. (77 and 78.) Furthermore, he emphasizes the paradox of the democratic U.S. trying to appease Pakistan by not taking any action to stop them while the totalitarian USSR sends a message to Pakistan defending democracy, condemning the bloodshed, and calling for it’s end. While discussing the “moral bankruptcy”of the U.S. government, he explains the consul’s disgust at the government’s lack of intervention in what the White House has concluded to be a “purely internal matter.” There is a noticeable shift in tone in Blood’s reports. As the consulate continued to send messages to the White House, he grows more frustrated in the lack of change in the U.S. foreign policy and changed his diction. While initially he tentatively noted that the Hindus were “undeniably [a] special focus of army brutality,” he later bluntly calls it a “genocide.”
(71) Bass also sheds light on the irony of the relationships between the nations during this period. The Nixon administration was fully aware of what was going on in East Pakistan. However, Nixon was such good friends with Yahya, he ignored all pleas for a change in foreign policy, calling the dictator a “decent man.” Despite that, he compared his friend to Hitler, “Look, there wasn’t very many Jews in Germany, was it therefore not immoral for Hitler to kill them?” His analogies, Bass points out, for this crisis is the Holocaust and Biafra, both horrible acts of genocide, and he still sides with the tyrant instead of democratic India. Despite being the world’s largest democracy, Nixon abhorred India, he called Indians a“slippery, treacherous people.” (177.) He believed they were Soviet sympathizers, India’s non-alignment policy in the Cold War made them more suspicious in Nixon’s eyes. Despite the nature of this book, centering on a massive genocide, Bass does not use any emotional appeals of his own. Instead, he uses the emotions of key people like consulate Archer Blood and accounts from survivors to speak for him.
Rick Perlstein argues over whether "Nixonland", a country at war with itself, still resides in the heart of America. The book took a in depth look at Nixon’s political career from the beginning up to the outcome of the 1972 election, as well as how America’s political scene went from perceived consensus in the LBJ era to the bitterly divided right versus left, also known as the red state/blue state split. Perlstein’s argument is that we are still living in Nixonland. “Nixonland” is a study of the consensus, it isn’t just about Nixon, he isn’t the protagonist of Nixonland although it does include his rise and fall; instead, the protagonist of Nixonland is the American voter who found themselves voting Democrat in 1964 and then Republican in 1972 for the same reasons. This book covers the American political and cultural terrain from LBJ’s liberal landslide in 1964, through Nixon’s comeback in 1968, and land...
Another strength of this book is Prochnau's treatment of the central characters. These journalists were often reviled and criticized for their caustic and searing articles about the Vietnamese situation. These popular opinions undermined the legitimacy of their work and the truthfulness of their reportage of the deterioration of South Vietnam. Prochnau's accounting of these individuals runs contrary to these opinions, and in effect, reaffirms the validity of these journalists' work. For example, the David Halberstram has often been portrayed as an antiwar hero, yet the author stated that Halberstram was quite the opposite. "But not once during his Vietnam years or well afterward, did he (Halberstram) question America's right, even her need to be there (Vietnam). His criticisms were of methods and foolishness, lying and self-delusion, of a failure to set a policy that could win."(pg 141) These depictions exonerate the image of this hardy "band of brothers."
In the article, Blood Red Night, author Lauren Tarshis' point of view is focused mostly on the destruction that the fire caused. I know this because most of the ideas that she conveys in the text use words that have to do with destruction. For example, in the section "A Choking Fog", the author states, "The blazes burned hundreds of acres of forestland and incinerated hundreds of homes and shops in nearby communities." This sentence uses several words such as blazes and incinerated which illustrate for the reader the destruction that happened during the peshtigo fire. Another example of when the author mentions the destruction that the Peshtigo fire caused was in the section "Sheets of Flame" when she states, "By morning, more than a billion
Wallace Terry has collected a wide range of stories told by twenty black Vietnam veterans. The stories are varied based on each experience; from the horrific to the heart breaking and to the glorified image of Vietnam depicted by Hollywood. Wallace Terry does not insinuate his opinion into any of the stories so that the audience can feel as if they are having a conversation with the Vietnam Veteran himself. Terry introduces the purpose of the book by stating, “ Among the 20 men who portray their war and postwar experiences in this book. I sought a representative cross section of the black combat force.”(p. XV) Although the stories in this book were not told in any specific order, many themes became prominent throughout the novel such as religion, social, and health.
...nure there are individuals who cultivate a positive change in the lives of the people in Sarkhan and Southeast Asia. These individuals are able to win friends for America and improve the living conditions of those who desperately need it. Unfortunately, Ambassador MacWhite failed to do the same. The full responsibility for the failure of his mission in Sarkan falls on MacWhite. Although dedicated, he was unprepared for the realities of Southeast Asia. Among all the mistakes he made, in each one he failed to start with the smaller things. He was reminded throughout his tenure both by the examples of individuals making a difference and direct suggestion from respected officials. Had he established a feeling of genuine concern for the population and a set of principles to combat the problems in Sarkhan, he may have succeeded in shaping foreign policy in the region.
On April 30, 1970, when Nixon gave a speech announcing his invasion of Cambodia, anti-war factions rose up across the United States. In the speech he stated that, “If, when the chips are down…the world’s most powerful nation, the United States of America, acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and institutions around the world. I would rather be a one term president and do what I believe is right than to be a two term president at the cost of seeing America become a second rate power.” Students did not agree with Nixon and protests cropped up on university campuses in the days that followed his speech. Amongst these protesters were students of Kent State University, “The Cambodian invasion defined a watershed in the attitude of Kent students toward American policy in the Indochina War.” At this point, the first two days of May, the students were protesting Nixon’s actions. While the cou...
While it is unknown as to what occurred with every hostage during the crisis, one retired diplomat on a special assignment in Tehran, Robert C. Ode, kept a journal detailing his experience: “I strongly protested the violation of my diplomatic immunity, but these protests were ignored…Some students attempted to talk with us, stating how they didn’t hate Americans—only our U.S. government, President Carter, etc.” Ode’s description of his captivity and his captors beliefs led to an insight into the motives of the Iranians. This valuable source allows historians to understand that President Carter and the United States government were responsible for the Iranian hatred. However, Ode’s journal is limited in it’s credibility due to possible alterations of the story in response to fear or pain. In addition to the declared state of hate for the Carter Administration, the government’s poor decisions throughout an attempted rescue attempt of the hostages displayed the weakness of the United States. According to
David Reynolds has written and enlightening book named “From Munich to Pearl Harbor” discussing three main objectives dealing with World War II. The first of the three objectives is to provide a detailed and clear narrative story from the years between Munich to Pearl Harbor. The second of the three purposes or objectives of the book is to analyze and show how President Franklin Delano Roosevelt led the American people into a new perspective on international relations that were different from anything Americans had known. The last of the three objectives of the book is to show the developments between the years of 1938 through 1941. Many of these developments were very important later for the foreign policy of the United States not only during the Second World War but also during the Cold War complications with Russia and today with President Bush’s war on terror currently taking place in Iraq.
This book takes place sometime during the 1960s after the Second World War. Some Germans would rather forget it ever happened than acknowledge the disgraceful events that took place during World War II “Adolf Eichmann's trial began on April 11, 1961 in Jerusalem, Israel. Eichmann was charged with 15 counts of crimes against the Jewish people, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and membership in a hostile organization” (“Eichmann Trial”). “The 1960s saw an upsurge in civil rights and other organizations promoting freedom and equality for blacks and women” (“Social Movements and Organizations”). Along with the war on poverty during this time, a war in Vietnam progressed as well. “Unfortunately, the War on Poverty was expensive–too expensive, especially as the war in Vietnam became the government’s top priority” (“The War in Vietnam”). The war on poverty was almost completely disregarded as the war in Vietnam continued. Funding the war in Vietnam was the main priority of the American government rather than helping the poor people of America become financially stable.
The Cambodian Genocide took place from 1975 to 1979 in the Southeastern Asian country of Cambodia. The genocide was a brutal massacre that killed 1.4 to 2.2 million people, about 21% of Cambodia’s population. This essay, will discuss the history of the Cambodian genocide, specifically, what happened, the victims and the perpetrators, and the world’s response to the genocide. The Cambodian Genocide has the historical context of the Vietnam War and the country’s own civil war. During the Vietnam War, leading up to the conflicts that would contribute to the genocide, Cambodia was used as a U.S. battleground for the Vietnam War.
...NATO aggression and occupation and the West’s expedient support of one or another oppressive indigenous or regional force. “The United States,” RAWA commented on this occasion, “wants the world to know that it is responsible for the establishment of order in the world and [that] nothing in the world changes without its will so it can extend its presence in the region by bringing together our enemies of different species and tightening their leashes in its hands.” The group went on to say that the United States “can create a regime that is much more mafia, dependent, corrupt, anti-people and more ridiculous than the current one in our homeland; and after the expiration date of its dirty creations, it will take each by the tail and throw them aside like mice. … These “insultingly painful games,” RAWA said, “are played with our suffering nation.…” However, they said,
After reading three separate accounts of the crisis in Angola (U.S. Senate hearings led by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a personal memoir by 1975 Assistant Secretary of State Nathaniel Davis, and a biography entitled In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story by John Stockwell), I have come to several conclusions. Although these three men all held important positions in the U.S. government, multiple contradictions exist in their chronologies of events. Of the discrepancies I found, all of them put Stockwell in opposition with Kissinger and Davis. I believe this is due to his position in the Central Intelligence Agency, where the greater availability of information was his advantage. Moreover, since all three accounts agree that the U.S. involvement was essentially a covert operation led by the CIA, I feel the account written by Stockwell was the most valid of the three.
Nye, Jr., Joseph S. “Hard and Soft Power in American Foreign Policy.” In Paradox of American Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. 4-17. Print.
Hello, I am Johnny S. Mini Jr O. My full name is Johnnythonationousgorgison Secretituswannabe Minithorwannahammer Joshedreader Oheeriotiswamis but of course everybody calls me John.
until recent days. The author says that “when the Soviet tanks and troops moved into Kabul” (Wolpert 2010) and placed their puppet Amir Babrak Karmal as a ruler it was an act that alarmed the U.S. and Islamabad. But India, on the other hand, was ambivalent because of a signed “treaty of friendship with Moscow” (Wolpert 2010). After the Soviet invasion, Pakistan’s Zia, who was a fundamentalist Muslim, welcomed the four million Afghan refugees that came to Pakistan and procured them with food, shelter and arms from Islamabad’s leaders with the massive U.S. military aid and money. India knew that all these arms were aimed “to do as much damage as they possibly could to Indian Kashmir.” (Wolpert 2010) This action was of course considered as part of the Cold War that was ongoing between the U.S. and the