Bush, 9/11, and Canada

Bush and 9/11

Republican George W. Bush, son of the first President Bush, won the presidency in 2000. The new president soon found most of his attention directed toward the problem of terrorism. Terrorists directed by Osama bin Laden hijacked four commerical jets in Boston, Newark, and Washington D.C. The hijackers flew two of the ariplanes directly into the World Trade Center towers in New York City. A third hijacked plane slammed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. The fourth plane crashed into an isolated field in Pennsylvania. In all, almost 3,000 people were killed that day.

 

 

 

After the attacks of September 11, President George W. Bush vowed to fight terrorism. In October 2001, he led a coalition of countries in a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Taliban is a militant Islamic group that controlled Afghanistan and allowed Osama bin Laden to train his al-Qaeda terrorists there. After the defeat of the Taliban, the United States and its allies worked with Afghan leaders to create a new government.

 

 

In November 2004, Bush was narrowly elected to a second term as president. Four years later, however, his popularity plummeted due to growing discontent over the Iraq War, dramatic increases in oil and gas prices, and a significant downturn in the economy caused in part by the problems in the home mortgage industry.



The Disintegration of Yugoslavia

Adapted from our textbook: WORLD HISTORY by Spielvogel
MAIN IDEA: Ethnic tensions led to armed conflict in Yugoslavia.


Yugoslavia had a Communist government but was never a Soviet satellite state. By 1990, however, the Communist Party collapsed. The Yugoslav political scene was complex. Slobodan Milosevic, leader of Serbia, rejected efforts toward independence. In Milosevic's view, the republics' borders first needed to be redrawn to form a new Greater Serbian state. When negotiations failed, Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence in June 1991. In September 1991, the Yugoslav army assaulted Croatia. Increasingly, Serbia, aided by Croation Serbs, dominated the Yugoslav army. Serbian forces captured one-third of Croatia's territory before a cease-fire ended the conflict.

Wars in Bosnia and Kosovo

The Serbs next attacked Bosnia-Herzegovina and acquired 70 percent of Bosnian territory. Many Bosnians were Muslims. The Serbs followed a policy called ethnic cleansing toward Bosnians-- killing or forcibly removing them from their lands. Ethnic cleansing revived memories of the Nazis and their horrors from World War II.

With support from NATO air attacks, Bosnian and Croation forces regained considerable territory lost to Serbian forces. The Serbs signed a formal peace treaty that split Bosnia into a Serb republic and a Muslim-Croat federation. In 2008, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was arrested for war crimes.

A new war erupted in 1998 over Kosovo, an autonomus (or self-governing) province within Yugoslavia. After Slobodan Milosevic stripped Kosovo of its autonomy in 1989, grousp of ethnic Albanians founded the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and began a campaign against Serbian rule. To crush the KLA, Serb fordces massacred ethnic Albanians. The United States and NATO allies worked on a settlement that would end the killing. The Albanians in Kosovo regained their autonomy in 1999. Milosevic's rule ended in 2000. While on trial for his role in the massacre of Kosovo civilians, Milosevic died in 2006.

Yugoslavia ceased to exist in 2004 when the government officially renamed the country Serbia and Montenegro. The people of Montenegro voted for independence in 2006. Thus, all six republics that formed Yugoslavia in 1918 were once again independent nations.

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