Saturday, March 12, 2011

Asia Conflict (WW1-2)

During World War 1, Japan allied itself with Britain and France and gained them much trust int he western world. Due to the support of Britain and France, Japan believed that they should expand their empire. After World War 1, French strengthened their holdings in Indo China which lead to anti french resistances, and the colonies that were promised political gain if they fought with the allies, actually saw more of their territory taken and much more colonization. This angered many of the groups and would eventually lead to political upheavals. The first of these was the invasion of china by Japan. In 1931 Japan placed dynamite on their own railroads and detonated them, and attempted to place blame on China. Days later a fullscale invasion of Manchuria by Japan ensued and lead to the Japanese involvement in world war 2. After Japan's invasion of China, they were excluded from most western groups and were kicked out of the League of Nations, while China received support from Britain and France against the Japanese. Japan's isolation lead them to be considered as a potential ally by the Germans who were equally despised in the west.

Hezbollah

Hezbollah is currently a Shia Muslim military/political group that supports Islamic socialism in Lebanon. Hezbollah's military branch is known as "The Islamic Resistance". Hezbollah has been named a terrorist organization by the US government since the assassination of the Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. People are taking the streets against the Hezbollah party because they have remained a military power despite the demand that they disarm by multiple western and Middle Eastern powers. The Hezbollah party began as a military resistance against an invading Israeli force in 1980. Since then it has gained political and economic backing from Iran and Syria and have been funded from other countries. The problem the Lebanese people have been having is that Hezbollah has not disarmed despite the fact that they have named themselves a political group and not a military resistance anymore. The Lebanese army has been increased in power since the 1980s and view Hezbollah as a potential threat to a political overthrow of the government. The Lebanese fear that the Hezbollah group could potentially attempt to commit terrorist attacks that would endanger the Lebanese people and not just Hezbollah. In 2009 a Hezbollah terrorist plan was discovered in Egypt, since then Egypt has classified Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and has strained the political relationships that Lebanon has been trying to regain. In the 1980s Ronald Reagan was involved with a political scandal that revealed the Reagan administration had been secretly facilitating the sale of arms to Iran. Hezbollah's part was that, if the US sold arms to Iran, they would do everything they could to release 6 US hostages that were held by Hezbollah.