Res College Symposium 2018

This project aims to display six of the numerous military, political, or economical actions of the United States in foreign countries. The countries covered consist of Germany, Morocco, Chile, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Ghana. 

The following story  map will involve an interactive map-based presentation that was created by  students and led by students. The story map will present six different  countries from different periods in history. The purpose of this presentation  and story map is to showcase different countries in which the United States  has gotten involved in and to present various different locations or events  within each country. These individual events or locations will relate to  potential human rights violations and the role of the United States within  those locations or events. Information regarding these events and locations  were gathered from William Blum’s book, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA  Interventions Since World War II, and outside research.
  

In our Symposium  Presentation, we will use the medium of a digital poster to highlight human  rights violations at the hands of the United States and the Central  Intelligence Agency. Our argument and support is centralized to six countries  in the 20th century: China, Vietnam, Germany (East and West), the Soviet  Union, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. We will explore how the United States  manipulated these countries and how the outcomes of the interventions  strengthened American power.
  

U.S. intervention in the affairs of other countries reveals common themes adverse to Human Rights (As those defined in the U.N. Declaration of Human Right). Themes of flawed, misinformed justification for intervention, intentional destabilization of governments, and clear consequences for the those living in the intervened country. U.S. intervention in Korea, Libya, Cuba, Germany, Chile, and Peru serve as case studies in Human Rights abuses.   

Is the US a force for  democracy? Both famous and lesser-known examples of intervention in other  countries provide insight on what our foreign policy goals really are. Based  on academic readings, one can argue that America's impact on other  countries when trying to establish their global power is problematic, costly,  and harmful to others, having human rights being set aside in order to  fulfill the political, economic, and social motives of America. This is  apparent in the US's interaction with the Philippines between the 1940s and  50s, China in 1950s, Korea between 1950 and 1953, Iraq between 1972 and 1975,  Zaire from 1975-78, and Morocco in 1983.

Our presentation will explore the United States foreign policy and continued interventions during and after the Cold War in mainly developing countries. We will examine the Human Rights violations of the United States in Algeria, Costa Rica,Germany, Iran and Albania, during the Cold War, as well as a contemporary example in Iraq. We will ask key questions relating to these human right abuses, as well as define if the if the US is truly the worst human rights violator of the mid to late 20th century. 

Is Liberty and Justice truly for all? This digital presentation will analyze how the CIA intervened in Bulgaria, Morocco, Indonesia, Vietnam, Costa Rica, and Germany after World War II in an attempt to expand American influence and power. These interventions protected American buisinesses and foreign policy goals, but at a cost. Millions of people lost the right to decide the direction their country would go in because America got involved and left their political and economic systems in shambles. These places continue to feel the impact of these interventions today. We call you to form your own opinion on whether or not America truly lives up to its ideals.