War and Empire: The American

¶ … War and Empire: The American Way of Life by Paul Atwood

In "Cold War / Hot War: Savage Wars of Peace," chapter 10 of War and Empire: The American Way of Life, Paul Atwood describes the state of American political strategy in the time period following World War II. Most Americans believe that the Cold War was rooted in an ideological struggle between democracy and communism, which was based upon the idea that communism involved significant human rights abuses. However, Atwood makes it clear that the Cold War was not about ideological differences based on human rights, but about the United States wanting to maintain dominance in Asia after the end of World War II. "Washtington overthrew legitimately elected governments, rigged elections, assassinated or abetted the murder of political figures and propping up criminal dictatorships that in moral terms were equivalent to anything to be found in the communist camp" (Atwood, p.174). Atwood maintains that these actions underscore the fact that the fight for global leadership in Asia was not based upon morality.

Atwood begins with an explanation of how American propaganda set the stage for war against emerging communist countries, or at least countries in which America could suggest there was a threat of communism. "American propaganda blamed the rebellion of Europe's colonies on communism too, though the real reason for global de-colonization was imperial tyranny in the first place, and the collapse of European power after World War II" (Atwood, p.174). However, the United States was able to establish communism as a fearful talking point, which would justify the U.S. using military might against countries even if they had not aggressed towards the United States and posed no direct military threat to the United States. The first example of this occurred in Korea. After China's communist revolution, it became clear that Korea was about to complete its own communist revolution. This was accompanied by, although unrelated to, the fact that Russia had demonstrated that it had its own nuclear capabilities, after World War II. Therefore, it engaged in a war in Korea, with North Korea and South Korea standing in as proxies for the United States and the Soviet Union. This marked a shift in American foreign policy, such that Truman's presidency became "an imperial presidency" (Atwood, p. 175). It also led to the creation of a secret side of American government, which was responsible for collecting domestic and international information on enemies. This large government required a huge amount of resources, which Americans were unwilling to commit without a concrete danger. Korea became the first identifiable danger. Of course, the Korean conflict was only the first of hot-spot conflicts in the Cold War. "To police the world, to risk nuclear war, to eradicate the creed of communism, all in the name of national defense, the new national security priesthood would wage bloody war in Korea and Vietnam, overthrow the democratically elected governments of Iran, Guatemala, and Chile, and assassinate the elected president of Congo, nearly come to nuclear war over Cuba, foster civil wars throughout Africa, topple the regime in Indonesia and enable reigns of terror by right-wing death squads throughout Central America" (Atwood, p.177). Atwood cites numerous examples, beginning with the treatment of combatants (tattooing them with anti-Communist slogans that would prevent them from reassimilating into their societies after the war) and non-combatants (bombing civilian targets) of ways that the United States violated the human rights principles it said it was protecting in Korea, and then highlights how those violations occurred in later wars, particularly Vietnam, where the United States and Russia used foreign lands, generally occupied by brown-skinned people, as a staging area in their battle for world dominance.