United States Foreign Policy

Summary of Source:
This article focuses on the United States foreign policy before 9/11. The article begins by going all the way back to when George Washington was president, and explains how he and other presidents dealt with the terrorists in their day. Then, the article talks about how the United States has had wavering methods on how to fight terrorism. The policies changed depending on the president. There is the ideology that if the United States is directly attacked, then they have the right to “expedite extradition and prosecution” (Atkins) of the terrorist. On the other hand, there is the thought that if you could tackle the conditions that these people face like poverty and government oppression, you could prevent terrorism
While the spread of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism were ranked among the top threat to the United States, the elites and the public also expressed concern over a varied list of global problems ranging from infectious diseases to interactions financial instability.” (Heimlich) The author then talks about how China was viewed as one of the countries that posed the greatest danger, but China was view more like a problem to be managed, than an enemy to be defeated. Then the article goes into detail about Bush’s approval rate during some of his foreign policy decisions and how the public reacted to them. Next, the article talks about how the focus shifted form weapons of mass destruction to terrorism and also talks about how our allies felt that Bush’s only concern was the United States and he wasn’t making the right decisions for everyone. I will mainly be using the information about how China was the United States main concern. This will be most beneficial to my topic of the United States foreign policy
“9/11 Attacks.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2010.
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Parenthetical/In-Text Citation: (History.com)

Summary of Source: The article begins by explaining the overall summary of the 9/11 attacks. They talk about the number of causalities and where all the planes hit. Then, the article back tracks to before everything happened. Next, the article talks about how the attackers where from Saudi Arabia and how they were backed by the Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. It says in the article that “They were allegedly acting in retaliation for America’s support of Israel, its involvement in the Persian Gulf War and its continued military presence in the Middle East.” (History.com). Some of the terrorist had lived in the United States and had taken flying lessons, other had flown in just for the attacks. The next portion of the article talks about the specific details of the attacks, like how they attacked the Pentagon, and how the towers collapsed. Then, the article talks about the group that fought back against their hijackers to crash land the plane in a field, so that it wouldn’t harm anymore innocent lives. In addition, the article talks about how President Bush reacted on that day and how he addressed the American public. There is a lot of useful information in the article.