Unit 5: Nigeria girls' abduction: US deploys manned planes

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27387370

A large debate in the United States is foreign policy. The country has gone through four phases of ideology towards foreign affairs. The first was Isolationism. After WWI, the United States believed that staying out of other countries' problems was the best option. However, Pearl Harbor and WWII changed the mindset of the American public. Citizens then believed in the Containment ideology. This meant controlling the other superpower 'bullies' such as the Soviet Union. Vietnam put the United States back into an isolationist ideology called Disengagement. The American people wanted to 'disengage' from problems that didn't involve the United States. The United States is now considered to have a Human Rights ideology. After the Serbians invaded and killed many Albanians, the American public started to believe that the United States should step in when the human rights of others are endangered.

The news story on the front cover of several news sites is the kidnapping of over 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria. Boko Haram, the terrorist organization that kidnapped the girls, have terrorized the Nigerian public for years in hopes of overthrowing the Nigerian Government and imposing an Islamic slate. When Americans heard about the tragedy of the Nigerian girls, the public was outraged. Social media sites of all types were trending the hash-tag '#BringOurGirlsBack" worldwide. Many Americans wondered when the United States was going to send troops in to aid the Nigerians in their search for the missing girls.

As of May 13, the United States, Great Britain, France, and China already have troops on the ground searching for any leads as to where the Nigerian girls are being held and an Israeli counter-terrorism team was currently on the way. The United States released a statement saying that they provided manned planes containing satellite surveillance. The goal is to locate and identify the location of where the more than 200 kidnapped girls are being held. An unnamed, senior administration official said, "We have shared commercial satellite imagery with the Nigerians and are flying manned ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) assets over Nigeria with the government's permission."