Through First Hundred Days New Boss Seems Same as Old Boss

Running on a platform of change, President Obama stated that if elected his actions would be different than those of the previous President. The direction of his administration would be one-hundred and eighty degrees from that of his predecessor. Previous policies would be changed to suit the ideological style of President Obama’s administration. However, since Obama’s election the bearing of his administration, at least on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, has been anything but a distinctive change. For example, during the 2008 presidential election campaign Obama promised to withdraw troops from Iraq over a certain shortened time period. Now President Obama has stated that a large number of troops will remain in Iraq for nineteen months, which is longer than promised in the 2008 election, and many for an undefined amount of time after that. In regards to Afghanistan, Obama has actually increased the amount of troops within Afghanistan by 21,000. Strange tactics for someone so different from the previous president.

The way in which Afghanistan and Iraq have been handled through the first one hundred days has disappointing for some of those who supported President Obama during his campaign. Most change that has occurred has been simply semantic in nature. Instead of calling the actions taken against terrorism by the Bush administration label “war on terror”, Obama’s administration calls them “overseas contingency operations”. Instead of calling attacks or actions by rogue groups terrorist attacks Obama’s administration calls them “mancaused disasters”. While we no longer indefinitely hold “enemy combatants”, we do still hold those we catch on the battlefield who do not use the laws of war, which is the definition of enemy combatant, indefinitely. With such little change occurring in the realm of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq between administrations, former supporters have begun to become disillusioned by President Obama. Some have called his administration merely an extension of Bush’s more accommodationist second term. Yet, the similarities do not only come in the way in which manpower and troop movements are used; spending on the war effort has also changed little to none.

Recently Obama requested $83.4 billion in order to prevent abrupt troop withdrawals. This request brings the total amount spent on the two wars to close to $1 trillion since their beginning in 2001. This request is meant to cover the remainder of operations in 2009. Previously Obama has criticized such supplemental spending moves due to the belief that war spending should be handled by the Pentagon. Yet, once in office the necessity for such supplemental spending bills has become apparent to Obama it seems. Reality has struck President Obama. Now that he is actually in office he is starting to see how difficult it is to operate the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq the way in which he had stated during the campaign. Strategies, tactics, and spending have stayed relatively consistent from the last President to this one.

Model UN Review

Model UN is a simulated crisis international crisis management activity. Each student is assigned to a country and, once assigned to a country, is given a position within that country’s government to represent. Each student is then expected to research their country and the issues which affect their position within that country. During the course of the simulation the students then would handle a variety of crisis situations and act in their country’s best interest in response to each crisis. All-in-all it sounds somewhat tedious and time-consuming. However, the actual activity itself, once it began, was hectic, fast-paced, and a lot of fun.

The most enjoyable part of the simulation for me was seeing the effects of the actions we took on the countries and the world in which we existed in the UN model. When you spend time coming up with a plan and you see the benefits or cost develop in front of you it is a gratifying feeling. You feel as if you have actually accomplished something. Also, you get to see the responses of the countries around the world to your actions.

I feel as though I was adequately prepared for the exercise. Before undertaking the actual activity we were required to research and write a paper summarizing our country as well as a paper which addressed and summarized issues that were relevant to our particular position within the government of the country which we were representing. Doing the research and constructing the papers actually greatly helped me understand my country and position. Also, the papers helped me to better understand the mindset of my country and what actions would be more realistic to take according to how my country behaves.

The action that I was most proud of which my country took was the construction of an effective contingency plan for actions to take in case of an attack from another country. We researched what defense strategy would be most effective and found one from an American General that had been constructed by him during war games. The strategy pitted the American Naval Fleet against the virtually non-existent Iranian Navy. Through using unconventional means and methods of attack the American General was able to largely destroy the American Naval force. We constructed a contingency plan along the lines of the one which the General had constructed and I was proud of this action. No other country showed the same initiative as us.

I wish our group had been more active with open confrontation. We were repeatedly being threatened by Iraq yet we never undertook any real action until almost the end of the simulation. I was disappointed by this. I felt as though we should have initiated action against the Iraqi threat much sooner than we actually did. We had the means and the plan yet we were hesitant to pull the trigger.