After completing this research assignment, I feel that I have walked away from this project with a better understanding of how our military operates and its true motives in a given conflict. It is somewhat disheartening to realize that most of the conflicts that we find ourselves in are based upon economic benefit or the possession of materials we don’t already possess. It was an eye opening project that led me in a direction of learning that I would not have been able to obtain if I simply went through a U.S. history text book to find information.
I initially chose to study the Persian Gulf War because I was lacking even a basic idea of why the war was fought and I truly wanted to learn more about the intervention. At first, the research for the project led me in a pretty straight forward direction. I was primarily focusing on the one dimensional aspects of the conflict such as the military campaigns of Saddam Hussein and the logistics of Operation Desert Storm. However, as I traveled deeper into the informational abyss that the internet provided, I found myself learning more and more about the economics during the 1980’s. This led me to question the legitimacy of the U.S. government’s intentions in assisting Kuwait in the removal of Iraq from its lands. I then researched the histories of oil and gas markets and began to make comparisons between the fluctuations in oil prices and the dates of military conflicts and found that whenever the U.S. became involved in a conflict with a country with large oil reserves, oil prices would climb. Whenever the U.S. emerged from a conflict with victory the oil prices would decrease. From here I was able to conclude that the Persian Gulf War was fought to keep control over oil while using the humanitarian liberation of Kuwait as a public appeal to morals. This allowed me to look as other interventions with a totally new perspective that rested on economic expansion. I think that this was that most beneficial lesson I have learned from the humanities coursework this year and I believe that I will continue to apply this newfound perspective in the future.
One of my favorite aspects of this project was the class viewing of other projects through PowerPoint presentations. It was very rewarding to listen to my classmates’ interventions in a visually stimulating experience. I learned a great deal from this event and I even learned of a few interventions I never even knew took place. An example of this would be Denvir Clarke’s presentation on the U.S. intervention in Columbia and the relation to the war on drugs. I had no idea that military involvement in Columbia ever occurred before and I was very surprised to learn of the CIA’s secret involvement in the issue.
I believe that the key take away from this project was a valuable lesson that we can all learn from: Always look behind the media and the one dimensional resources before you can true take a stand on an issue. I now try to look at the story behind the story in any provocative issue before I can even formulate an opinion because so much may be going on behind something like the media that might never be recognized as a truth. In fact, I would very well assume that the majority of our population has never known, does not know or will ever know some of the truths that are hiding behind clever rhetoric. That is why it is of the upmost importance that the American populous understands the lesson being taught through this project. So much can be changed through perspective and in order to preserve the future we must first understand the true perspective.
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