Military Actions

WW I (Wiki)

1914 - Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Hungry assasinated
1919 - Treaty of Versailles

1933 FDR President

WW II (Wiki)

1939 - Germany invades Poland

WW II was pretty much caused by Hitler (Wiki) who adopted the Catholic position on Antisemitism.
December 7, 1941 - Pearl Harbor Day

1945 Truman President

May of 1945 - Victory in Europe
1945 - Atomic bombs dropped on Japan
September 2, 1945 Japan Surrenders

1953 Eisenhower President

Korean Conflict (Wiki) Soviet View of the War in Korea

1950 - North Korea invades South Korea
1953 - Armistice signed at Panmunjom

1954 Guatemalan coup d'état (Wiki)

CIA Operation PBSUCCESS to overthrow Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán

1961 JFK President

Bay of Pigs Invasion (Wiki)

April 1961 - failed CIA attempt to overthrow Castro

Berlin Wall (Wiki)

August 13, 1961 Construction of the Wall ; November 10, 1989 demolition works begin

1963 Johnson succeeds JFK as President

Vietnam Era (Wiki)

December 22, 1961, Army Specialist 4th Class James T. Davis died in an ambush not far from Saigon—the first U.S. soldier to be killed in action in the Vietnam war.
1964 Attack on U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin by North Vietnam (didn't really happen)

1969 Nixon President

Secret Bombing of Cambodia (Operation Menu) (Wiki)
18 March 1969 until 26 May 1970 - more bombs (carpet bombing: Wiki)) dropped on Cambodia than were dropped on Japan during all of W.W. II.

mid 1971 the American withdrawal was well underway
1975 - South Vietnam surrenders to North Vietnam

USS Liberty Incident (Wiki)

June 1967 Isreal was preparing to seize the Golan Heights from Syria.
The Wiki page says the Liberty (Wiki) was a "Technical Research Ship" which is government speak for a spy ship (Wiki).

USS Pueblo (Wiki)

January 23, 1968 was attacked by North Korean naval vessels and MiG jets. The Pueblo was an ELINT/SIGINT ship.

1974 Ford President

Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia (Wiki)

April 17, 1975 - Pol Pot banned by decree the existence of ethnic Chinese, Vietnamese, Muslim Cham, and 20 other minorities.
Maybe 1.4 milliion dead.

1977 Carter President

Afghanistan

(from: Charlie Wilson’s Rapture: Arming Afghan Islamists as Unintended Prelude to 9/11)
U.S. presidential finding, issued on July 3, 1979, authorized the CIA to begin non-lethal assistance (propaganda and medicines) to the Afghan rebels, who received supplies via Pakistan. (6) Some observers believe that CIA involvement triggered the Soviet invasion. (6) The second presidential finding, issued after the Christmas Eve

December 27, 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (Wiki) - “substantially altered the nature of the covert action by allowing the CIA to provide the rebels with weapons. Carter’s directive called specifically for ‘harassment’ of the Soviet forces, rather than their defeat. In part, this modest goal reflected the fearsome reputation of the Red Army at the time.” (7)

See the book or movie (IMDB) "Charlie Wilson's War" for what happened next. (Stinger anti aircraft missile - Wiki)
Foreign involvement and aid to the mujahideen (Wiki) - Operation Cyclone - CIA program to arm, train, and finance the Afghan Mujahideen (Wiki).
1979 Osama bin Laden (Wiki) joins the fight in Afghanistan aginst the Soviet invasion.

Operation Eagle Claw (Wiki)

24 April 1980 - attempt to rescue 52 Americans from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran
The book "Delta Force" is about this mission.

Iran-Iraq War (Wiki)

Iraq launched a full-scale invasion of Iran on 22 September 1980. The U.S. supplied Iraq with several billion dollars worth of economic aid, the sale of dual-use technology, non-U.S. origin weaponry, military intelligence, Special Operations training, and direct involvement in warfare against Iran

1981 Regan President

KAL Flight 007 (Wiki)

August 31, 1983
Regan makes the GPS system public to allow commercial airliners to know their position, but Selective Availability (SA) is on (degraded accuracy)

1982 Lebanon War (Wiki)
Osama bin Laden says was the inspiration for his 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

Invasion of Grenada (Wiki)

October 25, 1983 - U.S. forces land on Grenada
December, 1983 - U.S. military units leave the island with a pro-democracy government in place

Al-Anfal Campaign (Wiki)

1986 - 1989 - The Anfal campaign included the use of ground offensives, aerial bombing, systematic destruction of settlements, mass deportation, firing squads, and chemical warfare, which earned al-Majid the nickname of "Chemical Ali". Maybe 100,000 dead.

Vincennes (CG-49) (Wiki)

July 1988 the US Navy battle cruiser Vincennes shot down an Iranian Air Flight 655 (Wiki) airliner over the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war (Wiki)

1989 GHW Bush President

Pan Am Flight 103 (Wiki)

December 1988 a bomb exploded aboard Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland

US Invades Panama (Wiki)

February, 1988 - Contingency Plans start for a Panama invasion
December 20, 1989 - Invasion
December 27, 1989 - U.S. Forces begin withdraw

Gulf War (Wiki) Desert Storm - Desert Shield

August 2, 1990 - Saddam Hussein orders invasion of Kuwait
January 16, 1991 - Operation Desert Shield begins with air strikes on Iraq
March 3, 1991 - Iraq formally accepts cease fire terms
April 1991 - Operation Provide Comfort (Wiki) - to defend Kurds fleeing their homes in northern Iraq in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War
24 July 1991 - Operation Provide Comfort II - (1994 Northern Iraq, Black Hawk shootdown incident: Wiki)

Bosnia-Herzegovina

May 30 1991

JCET
1991 congress passes Joint combined Exchange Training (JCET) (section 2011, Title 10) (Wiki)
The special forces branches of the military have interpreted this law as an informal invitation to train foreign military forces in numerous lethal skills . . . (book: Blowback by Chalmers Johnson, pg 72)

1993 Clinton President

1993 World Trade Center bombing (Wiki)

February 26, 1993 - Al-Qaeda backed and trained the Muslim bombers.

George H. W. Bush assassination attempt in Kuwait

April 13, 1993 - based on analysis of the car bomb it was blamed on Iraq.
26 June 1993 - Clinton orders a missile strike on an Iraq secret service compound. (Wiki)

Bosnia-Herzegovina

November 8 1993

August 7, 1998 U.S. Osama bin Laden behind simultaneous Embasy bombings (Wiki) in: Dar es Salaam and Tanzania and Nairobi and Kenya.
August 20, 1998 U.S. military attacks Osama bin Laden using cruse missiles aginst the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory (Wiki) in Sudan. There were no WMDs there.

2001 G. W. Bush President

9/11 starts the "War on Terrorism" and spawns Homeland Security

War in Afghanistan (Wiki)

October 7, 2001 - Operation Enduring Freedom (Wiki)

Iraq War (Wiki)

28 Jan 2003 - State of the Union speach (last 20 minutes) George W. Bush claims Iraq has WMDs (Wiki).
"Liberty is God's gift to humanity"
5 Feb 2003 - UN Security Council hears Sec. of State Powell's case to go to war with Iraq.
20 March to 1 May 2003 "Shock and Awe" invasion of Iraq (Wiki).
The damage did not end with the end of war but continuted on when the Iraq military was fired leaving the country to be looted.
In the book "Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics" by John J. Mearsheimer he explains why leaders lie to their own population but not to other countries.

2009 Obama President

Links

U.S. War and Conflict History Site -
USS Liberty -
USS Pueblo -
KAL Flight 007 - What Happened to Flight 007? - The Truth About the Korean Airlines Flight-007 -
The Lockerbie Bombing and the USS Vincennes -
Brief History of the War in Bosnia-Herzegovina - Operation JOINT FORGE -
Defense Technical Information Center -
Korean War Commemorative Web Site -
Kosovo

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