12 Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present
Taliban regime in the former country and the presidency of Hussein, who was
captured and ultimately hanged, in the latter. The quick victories were succeeded in
Afghanistan by attacks on U.S. troops by Taliban guerrillas and in Iraq by an anti-
Western insurgency and sectarian fighting between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. The
wars, combined with tax cuts by the Bush administration, contributed to a growing
national debt that reached $11.3 trillion dollars in 2008. In his second term Bush
began to lose the confidence of Americans and the international community. The
war on terror met with disapproval around the world, with many doubting the
justice of America’s actions. Photographs of American soldiers abusing prisoners
in the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad caused widespread outrage, as did the long-
term detention, without charges or trials, of “enemy combatants” at the American
military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. In November 2009 a court in Milan tried
twenty-three Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives in absentia for unlaw-
fully kidnapping a Muslim imam in Italy and transporting him to Egypt for inter-
rogation and torture. All were convicted and are considered fugitives. Domestically,
the administration was faulted for not acting promptly and effectively on behalf of
the victims of Hurricane Katrina, which made much of New Orleans uninhabitable
in 2005. Economic problems added to the unpopularity of the Bush administration.
Toward the end of his term in 2007 the country entered a recession characterized by
increasing fuel prices, crises in the mortgage and housing industries, rising unem-
ployment, and the failure of global financial firms.
A turning point in American politics and social life came in 2008 with the
election of Illinois senator Barack Obama as the first African American president
of the United States. Although African Americans had previously made bids for
the office (most notably Shirley Chisholm in 1972 and Jesse Jackson in 1984 and
1988), Obama was the first African American to be nominated by a major party.
Alaska governor Sarah Palin, the running mate of Obama’s opponent, Arizona
senator John McCain, was the first woman on the Republican presidential ticket.
Obama inherited many of the problems that had plagued earlier administrations,
including the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, growing nuclear threats by
North Korea and Iran, failing domestic and international economies, declining
Social Security revenues, and issues with health care. Early in his presidency he
began to develop plans to withdraw troops from Iraq, close the Guantánamo
Bay detention camp, end the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy to allow gays and
lesbians to serve openly in the military, shore up the American economy with
a massive stimulus, reduce the emission of “greenhouse gases” believed to cause
global warming by the institution of a “cap-and-trade” system, and improve the
availability and affordability of health care; by early 2010 most of these plans
remained unfulfilled. In November 2009 the Obama administration settled a
thirteen-year-old civil suit claiming that the federal government had misman-
aged trust funds and cheated Native American tribes out of royalties for lands it
had leased on their behalf for more than a century. While less than the highest
estimated losses, the $3.4 billion sum exceeds all previous settlements received by
Native Americans. The decision to award Obama the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize,
which he accepted with “deep gratitude and great humility,” led to both positive
and negative responses at home and abroad. Obama’s administration has met