Seeing no end to violent conflicts

Regional wars raged during the Cold War. Among them, the U.S. was embarrassed in a

futile attempt to keep Vietnam, a former French colony in Southeast Asia, from going

communist. During the 1980s, the Soviets failed to quash Muslim rebels in Afghanistan.

The 2007 drama Charlie Wilson’s War is based on the true story of a Texas

congressman who conspired with a CIA operative and a Houston socialite to

supply weapons to Afghan rebels fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan.

When the Jewish state Israel was established in 1948 in what was British-ruled

Palestine, surrounding Arab nations joined Palestinian Arabs in opposing it. The

disagreement turned violent many times from the 1950s into the twenty-first century.

These decades were also scarred by many terrorist bombings in the region — often

motivated by support for the Palestinian cause — that killed many innocent civilians.

Then in the 1990s, Iraq invaded neighboring Kuwait. A U.S.-led international force

turned the Iraqis back.

On September 11, 2001, 19 extremist Muslim terrorists hijacked four American

passenger jets to use as weapons. They crashed two planes into the World Trade

Center in New York City, killing everyone onboard and thousands more in the twin

skyscrapers, which were destroyed. A third plane crashed into the Pentagon,

headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense in Washington, D.C. All onboard that

plane died, as did 125 people in the building. When they learned of the crashes in New

York and D.C., passengers onboard the fourth jet attacked the hijackers flying their

plane. It crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, killing all 40 people onboard.