National Security: the Protection of the Nations Citizens - Article Example

 National Security When Presidents speak of national security, they are describing decisions and actions intended to protect the nation’s citizens. President John Kennedy faced the most prominent threat to national security in the history of the country during the Cuban Missile Crisis. President George W. Bush was largely elected to his second term because of his perceived competence regarding national security following the most deadly and dramatic attack on American soil by foreign enemies since the Revolutionary War. Several factors were involved in making one’s national security policies successful and another’s wildly unsuccessful. The Cuban Missile Crisis is the closest that the United States and the USSR have ever come to fighting a nuclear war. The U.S. and Cuban governments were each compelled to action by the fear of each other. Both countries posed a threat, real and implied, to the other. Nuclear bomb paranoia swept the post World War II world. In no place or time was this fear more apparent than during the Cuban Missile Crisis. During the 1962 crisis, Cuban President Fidel Castro, Soviet Union Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Kennedy jockeyed for the upper hand, each employing bold moves that brought the world to the brink of possible annihilation. In April, 1961 a group of Cuban rebels backed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in a plan approved by the president, invaded southern Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. The invasion was an attempt to overthrow Castro by instigating a Cuban rebellion, but all rebels participating in the invasion were killed or captured within four days of the landing. So he could later deny U.S. involvement, Kennedy refused to provide any air support dooming the mission (Frankel, 2004, p.50). Alarmed by this escalating threat by a major world super-power, Castro escalated the importation of missiles from the Soviets in what he and Khrushchev described as a “defensive mechanism” to thwart future aggressive acts by its neighbor 90 miles to the north. The Soviet Union, deeply involved in a cold war with the U.S., eagerly sent munitions, medium-range missiles and equipment to build airfields in Cuba. Castro viewed the Soviets’ aid as building blocks to a strong Cuba-U.S.S.R. alliance. For the Soviets’ part, Khrushchev was motivated to arm Cuba in order to take U.S. attention away from the Berlin Wall being erected. The Soviets did not want the U.S. to occupy Berlin and use the German city as a spying base while promoting anti-Soviet propaganda. Kennedy, meanwhile, was arguing for a greater U.S. military presence in Berlin. Having missiles in Cuba was also a Soviet opportunity to gain a strategic arsenal close to America. Khrushchev eagerly extended an offer of assistance to the then desperate Castro and offered new trade opportunities to ease the effects of U.S. sanctions as well as the promise of protection from U.S. hostilities (“Kennedy-Khrushchev”, 1996). By 1962, tension between Cuba and the U.S. was at its height. Kennedy was perceived by Khrushchev as immature and even incompetent following the June, 1961 summit in Vienna. These perceptions were only bolstered by the botched Bay of Pigs invasion. Furthermore, the U.S. had taken no action while the Soviets were slowly constructing the Berlin Wall. The situation was further complicated by a U-2 flight that unintentionally entered Soviet air space, but a conflict was averted when the U.S. spy plane left the restricted air space before military action could be taken. Both Kennedy and Khrushchev held the constant concern during the crisis that an incident such as this would initiate a war. Kennedy decided on a naval blockade around the island of Cuba to prevent the delivery of military ordinance. On Oct. 28, Khrushchev announced over Radio Moscow that he has agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba. Tensions eased on October 28, but the ordeal was not yet over. During final negotiations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, Castro, who felt betrayed by Khrushchev, tried to halt the removal and inspection of the missiles. He eventually backed down and the two sides reached an agreement (“On the Brink”, 1997). Though it was mostly Saudi Arabians involved in the attacks that were financed by a man who lived in Afghanistan and were helped with immigration paperwork in Iran, Bush was successful in convincing half of America that Iraq was responsible. “Fifty-five percent of voters said that the Iraq war was part of the war on terrorism and 51 percent approved of Bush’s decision to go to war” (Nobel, 2005). This was the basis for his reasoning for a military invasion and occupation of the sovereign country. There are many perspectives on terrorism that reach well past the terrorist act itself. The illegal war in Iraq has caused terrorist attacks to increase as well as the loss of many thousands of Iraqi and American lives and as a consequence has cost the U.S. dearly as far as international respect. The Patriot Act has stripped away constitutionally guaranteed freedoms that stood for more than 225 years. The fear of terrorism ultimately caused a president to be re-elected and is the justification for the rights of many innocent people to be disregarded. Both the Iraq War and the dissolution of civil liberties were justified by national security concerns and characterized as the ‘War on Terror.’ The ultimate culmination of the rhetoric and selective legal reasoning regarding the war on terror was Bush’s order of the U.S. military to invade both Iraq and Afghanistan, an illegal act on many fronts. Bush has constantly maintained that these actions against sovereign countries were legal. First, he argues, because of existing language within the UN Security Council resolutions on Iraq and secondly, the invasions are an act of self-defense which international law permits. However, according to Richard Perle, a top official of the U.S. Defense Policy Board and advisor to former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, “international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone” (Burkeman & Borger, 2003). Yet, this would have been “morally unacceptable” according to the Bush administration. The war is unquestionably illegal as defined by the International Court of Justice and the UN, the two most preeminent legal bodies on the globe. At best, the information provided to Bush was faulty, at worst, his justification for war was based purely on fabrications. The alleged link between the terrorist group Al Qaeda and Iraq was referenced before the war and became the primary excuse of the Bush administration following the lack of weapons evidence. Contrary to these assertions of terrorist ties, then Secretary of State Powell stated in January of 2004, “I have not seen a smoking-gun, concrete evidence about the [terrorist] connection” (“Iraq After Saddam”, 2004). According to the United States Constitution Article One, Section Eight, only Congress has the exclusive authority to declare war. Presidents do not have this authority (United States Constitution). However, the War Powers Act of 1973 allows the President to deploy troops to a country for 60-90 days without the consent of Congress (War Powers Resolution, 1973). Though United Nations Resolution 1441 was not authored or passed as an intention to authorize war, the U.S. asserted that another interpretation of the resolution was possible. However, Secretary-General of the U.N. Kofi Annan, who spoke with regard to the UN charter, declared “I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal” (“Iraq War Illegal”, 2004). The Chief Prosecutor of the war criminals at the Nuremberg Trials subsequent to World War Two, U.S. citizen Benjamin B. Ferencz, has condemned the Iraq invasion calling it an “aggressive war” and declared that Bush, the war’s architect, “should be put on trial for his war crimes” (Glantz, 2006). Nelson Mandela, widely renowned as one of the most respected statesmen in the world has also condemned this action as “a threat to world peace. It is clearly a decision that is motivated by George W Bush’s desire to please the arms and oil industries in the United States of America” (“US Threatens”, 2002). As the Iraq war has progressed since 2003, the Bush administration has lost much confidence among the American public who are more and more of the understanding to what the rest of the world has known since Iraq was first invaded. Because of Bush, America has lost prestige, respect and credibility by the people and leaders of all other nations in the world in addition to costing hundreds of thousands of people their lives. Kennedy, on the other hand, averted a possible nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis which was certainly the most important conflict between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. This marked the beginning of what seemed to be a new willingness of the nations to cooperate and communicate. Works Cited Burkeman, Oliver & Borger, Julian. “War Critics Astonished as US Hawk Admits Invasion was Illegal.” Manchester Guardian. (November 20, 2003). Frankel, M. High Noon in the cold war: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: Ballantine, 2004. Glantz, Aaron. “Bush and Saddam Should Both Stand Trial, Says Nuremberg Prosecutor.” One World USA. (August 25, 2006). November 8, 2007 “Iraq After Saddam: GIs Swoop Down On Tikrit Suspects Iraq.” CBS News. (January 9, 2004). November 8, 2007 “Iraq War Illegal, Says Annan.” BBC News. (September 16, 2004). November 8, 2007 John F. Kennedy Library and Museum. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963: Volume VI: Kennedy-Khrushchev Exchanges. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of State, 1996. Nobel, Charles. “How Bush Won.” Logos Journal. (Winter 2005). November 8, 2007 ThinkQuest. On the Brink. (1997). November 8, 2007 [ United States Constitution. Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute. November 8, 2007 “US Threatens World Peace, Says Mandela.” BBC News. (September 11, 2002). November 8, 2007 War Powers Resolution Public Law 93-148. 93rd Congress, H. J. Res. 542 (November 7, 1973). The Avalon Project Yale Law School. November 8, 2007 Read More