Name Date History 12 Bush & Clinton s Domestic & Foreign Policies (1989-1993) was a decorated WWII naval pilot who finished a bombing run even though his plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire. After the war, Bush became wealthy as a. After serving as a congressman he was the ambassador to the and director of the CIA among other posts. Bush was a moderate Republican who first opposed Reagan and then served as his vice president. He was immensely after his handling of the first Persian Gulf War but slipped in domestic policy after agreeing to a compromised with Congress over. Having promised to raise taxes, the public doubted his integrity and even his ability. After Gorbachev pulled USSR troops out of, the communist superpower known as the USSR began to crumble.,,,,, and all held free elections or otherwise disposed of communist rulers, and Gorbachev did nothing to stop them. President Bush continued holding with the USSR leader as had Reagan. Bush and Gorbachev signed the that further reduced the number of nuclear weapons and agreed to the eradication of chemical weapons. Instead of winning him support, these steps and the winning of the Nobel Peace Prize only caused communist hardliners to attempt a coup. Gorbachev held on but his power was diminished as was that of the Communist Party. With the destruction of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, and the fact that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania again became independent countries in 1991. Gorbachev resigned that year. The Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics, or USSR, ceased to exist. A Commonwealth of Independent States retained a loose organization, and Yeltsin took up the mantle of establishing a free Russia and continued détente with the West. The Cold War was over. The US won. Yeltsin became both and first democratically elected leader in Russian history in 1996 and the first Russian leader to voluntarily resign and give his power to someone else in 1999. Whereas Gorbachev had reformed the Soviet government with the aim of maintaining Communist Party control, Yeltsin instituted reforms that sought to decentralize control and create a more
democratic Russia. He stopped government censorship of news media, tolerated criticism of himself and the government, and even experimented with free markets. He did not see these reforms through, however, and presented an unstable face for Russia to the world with peculiar behaviour associated with alcoholism that only served to feed anti-russian stereotypes. He did convince the world that a new Russia was possible, a fact he later undermined by placing former KGB against Vladimir Putin in the interim president job upon his surprising resignation. joined the Ba ath Party of Iraqi nationalists and helped in an assassination attempt on the British-backed prime minister of colonial Iraq. When his party eventually took power in a free Iraq, he returned from exile only to be sent to prison when the Ba ath Party fell from power briefly. He escaped from prison, rose in rank, and became Iraq s in 1979. He led Iraq in a war against Iran in the 1980s (in which the US backed him) and through a against the Kurdish people and throughout ruled as a harsh. He ordered the use of against the Kurds of Iraq by which thousands of men, women, and children were killed. His invasion of Kuwait prompted the after which he withdraw from Kuwait but remained in power. After the Iraq War in 2003, Hussein was executed for his crimes against humanity in 2006 after being tried by an Iraqi tribunal. After Hussein, the dictator of Iraq, invaded Kuwait in, King Fahd of allowed Bush to send American troops to protect his country in. This mobilization of US military power, the largest since WWII, eventually became as the US and other nations prepared to invade Kuwait in order to liberate it. As airstrikes pummelled Iraqi military targets in both Kuwait and Iraq for six weeks, Bush told Hussein to leave Kuwait or else. As the day of the ended, the coalition force struck in Kuwait while an even larger attack swept into Iraq in a massive flanking maneuver designed by American General. He sent the bulk of his armoured division around Kuwait through a desert that had never been crossed by an army. This encircling maneuver caused a rapid retreat of Iraqi forced from Kuwait and the destruction of most of their vehicles by US air power. Americans watched on as their military destroyed the most formidable army in the Middle East in. Kuwait was liberated, but Hussein was allowed to stay in power and even to crush Shiite Muslim and Kurdish revolts. In accomplishing the original goals of the coalition, however, Bush was lauded as
a skillful diplomatic and military leader, for a time. Riots broke out in in 1992 as a result of frustration over the beating of an African American named by LA police. After leading law enforcement personnel on a chase at over 115 mph, King was,, and when he resisted arrest. The beatings were caught on that led to a trial of four officers involved for excessive use of force. Mostly white juries acquitted the officers, and LA erupted in of violent rioting. Acts of arson, looting, assault, and murder occurred, many on live television. Over $1 billion in damage was done, 54 people killed, and 2000 injured. During the riots, King appeared on television to say, Can we all get along? In interviews, he said he originally fled the police because he was afraid a DUI would end his parole on a robbery charge. In an odd twist on American racism, Korean and other Asian stores in Watts neighbourhoods were targeted for looting, and owners took up assault-style weapons to protect themselves. Later trials convicted two of the officers of violating King s civil rights, and Rodney King was awarded $3.8 million in damages. entered national politics as a campaign worker in 1972 and attended Yale Law School where he met his wife, Hillary Rodham. In 1978, he was elected as the nation s in Arkansas, an office he held for four terms. He formed a moderate wing of the national, and won the election of 1992 as president. His Party co-opted the Reagan appeal to law and order, individualism, and welfare reform, and made the party more attractive to white middle-class Americans. At the same time, the reborn party retained traditional Democratic commitments to providing for the, regulating the excesses of the, supporting and, and using government to stimulate economic growth. Moreover, Clinton capitalized on growing dissatisfaction with far right-wing extremism within the Republican Party. With the 1990s recession, for the first time, the middle class had to consider the impermanence of their jobs, and wonder whether they really wanted their health coverage contingent on their employment. And the worse the economy looked, the less they approved of this linkage. At first, Clinton moved quickly to harness the moment. Less than a week, Bill Clinton created the Presidential Task Force on. The health care bill was finished and presented to Congress on
November 20, 1993 almost 10 months later. By then, the economic anxieties had, the growth numbers had picked up, and the immediate momentum for reform had. And so the ground shifted. As the Clinton health care plan stalled in Congress and got battered by advertisements and business leaders, the American people found that they weren't feeling so scared anymore. Clinton harvested fruits of the economic expansion in the lowest and rate and the highest home ownership in modern history. He balanced the budget and even produced a budget surplus, that is, the stopping of the US from going deeper into debt for a time. He was also able to begin the painful process of reforming the welfare system. Abroad, he tried to hold accountable to the UN inspections because he feared the dictator was developing ( ). He worked to break down international and to expand in NATO. Despise being involved in several -gate scandals, Clinton remained a relatively popular president and became a humanitarian spokesman after leaving office. plan, its scope, and its political marketability. was a strong advocate for health issues and headed the task force to pursue a national health care program. However, the process largely left out of the picture as the task force drafted the particulars of the plan, thus the plan's chances for legislative success. Clinton had wanted to present to Congress a finished package, which meant that key participants in the congressional lawmaking process were not involved in its drafting. Moreover, there was significant internal disagreement within the administration about the costs of the The was a real estate firm in which the Clintons had invested. The company failed, but not before receiving several hundreds thousand in federally backed loans. The Securities and Exchange Commission investigated and found several of the Clintons associates guilty of, but the Clintons escaped prosecution because a lack of evidence linking them to any criminal behaviour. Before he left office, Clinton pardon one of the Whitewater associates who was serving time in jail for contempt of court because she refused to testify in the matter., a lawyer and one-time federal judge, was chosen to investigate the Whitewater situation as an independent counsel, but the investigation of the Clinton administration widen to include a number of scandals or potential scandals. The investigation was expanded to examine the death of a Clinton adviser in an apparent suicide as well as allegations of the president s having had numerous extramarital affairs. The was released to the public as a result of the investigation based on the
accusations of inappropriate sexual advances on the part of Clinton going back as far as his tenure as. The often graphic details of the report fed the scandal, but the of Clinton originated in Starr s assertion that the president had under oath when giving a statement during his investigation. Having taken an at the White House in 1995, became the centre of the scandals of Clinton s affairs. After a coworker secretly taped Lewinsky discussing sexual liaisons with the president, the story was leaked and led to the impeachment proceedings against Clinton. Clinton denied any sexual relationship with the much younger woman, but during an investigation by a special prosecutor, Starr, he lied under oath while giving a statement. Allegation of several other affairs created yet another media circus, which Clinton survived by apologizing to the nation on television. He also survived being impeached by the House of Representatives when the Senate vote to acquit him on the two charges, perjury and obstruction of justice. Although the nation was scandalized by the behaviour of the president, Americans were comforted to know that not even the president was. Although such infidelity was nothing new, the Clinton impeachment trial launched a debate in America about the different weight of public and private morality. The House of Representatives used a Republican majority to impeach the president, only the second time such a step had ever occurred. The entire experience both fascinated and sickened much of the American people and filled late-night talk show hosts monologues with material for years.