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As World War II concluded,
the United States emerged as the most powerful nation on the planet. The great
Nazi evil had been slain and the world had been saved. But there were storm
clouds on the horizon. The United States had allied itself with a bloodthirsty
Soviet regime to defeat the Germans and the Truman Administration now concluded
that our old comrades were now our new enemy.
In 1947, President Truman
signed the National Security Act, a sweeping piece of legislation that gave
birth to the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency.
These two agencies would serve as the primary tools to deal with the perceived communist
threat that materialized following the end of World War II, and would mark a
significant, fundamental shift in US foreign policy.
The war to be waged against
the spread of communism would be different that those fought in the past. This
was to be a covert war, cloaked in secrecy and justified in the name of
national security. In order to prosecute this new war, the United States
employed the services of an old enemy…the Nazis. In a rather unusual twist,
Nazis were hired as spies to provide intelligence on our new enemy, the
Soviets. The new war had begun.
In 1953 the Central
Intelligence Agency engaged in its first major covert operation. Mohammad
Mosaddegh was democratically elected as Iran’s Prime Minister in 1951. Rumors
had surfaced that Mosaddegh was getting cozy with the communists. Accordingly,
when Mosaddegh nationalized the Iranian oil industry in 1953, red flags went up
in the United States. The British had controlled Iranian oil since 1913 through
the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, later to be named British Petroleum. On August
19,1953, the Central Intelligence Agency orchestrated a coup which overthrew
Mohammed Mosaddegh and installed Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. The Shah provided
the US with access to Iranian oil and spent billions on military hardware over
the next 25 years.
The year 1954 proved to be a
busy one for the new national security apparatus. Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, the
democratically elected leader of Guatemala, was suspected of harboring
communist sympathies. When he nationalized 1.5 million acres of Guatemalan land
and redistributed it to the country’s peasants, alarm bells were set off in the
United States. It seems the United Fruit Company, later to be known as Chiquita
Brands International, owned a good portion of this nationalized land. To thwart
the perceived communist threat, the Central Intelligence Agency overthrew
Arbenz and installed Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas. The land was returned to the
United Fruit Company and military dictators ruled the country for the next 30
years. Once again, the United States created a great market for military sales
in order to repel the continuing communist threat. That same year, the
Vietnamese won their independence from the French and the Central Intelligence
Agency arrived to assure the communists, led by Ho Chi Minh, would not overtake
the country. A puppet regime, led by Ngo Dinh Diem, was installed to halt the
communist advance. This proved ineffective and the covert operation continued
to expand.
On April 17, 1961, Cuban
exiles trained by the CIA stormed the Southern Coast of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs
in an effort to overthrow the communist government of Fidel Castro. President
Kennedy did not follow-up the ground assault with US air support and the
mission proved to be an embarrassing failure. There were, however, subsequent
efforts to depose Castro. The CIA organized a small department known as
“Executive Action”, whose task was to discredit and/or assassinate those who
posed a perceived security risk to the United States. Members of the Mafia were
recruited for this group and several unsuccessful attempts were made to
assassinate Fidel Castro.
Back to Vietnam…President
Kennedy deployed the Green Berets to assist with a deteriorating situation and
by 1963 the United States had 15,000 Americans in Vietnam, deemed to be
“advisors”. In 1964 President Johnson claimed that renewed hostile actions
against United States ships in the Gulf of Tonkin had required a military
response. Official documents released years later, along with witness testimony,
now reveals that President Johnson’s statement was inaccurate. In 1965 American
troops landed in South Vietnam to mark the beginning of a land war that would
continue to escalate until U.S. involvement officially ended in 1973, as a
result of the Case-Church Amendment passed by Congress.
In 1973, a covert operation
was launched in Chile to overthrow President Salvador Allende; the 80’s brought
us the covert action in Central America and the Iran-Contra scandal; the 90’s
Iraq, ten years later Iraq part II, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya; and the hits
just keep coming.
The United States has been
involved in countless military interventions since 1947, both covert and overt;
however, the Congress has not approved a single declaration of war. Regardless
of one’s perception as to the prudence of American foreign policy since 1947,
it runs counter to the non-interventionist principals laid out by Thomas Paine
in his work “Common Sense” and Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution
which grants Congress the power to declare war. Additionally, it fails to heed
the advice of President Jefferson, given in his 1804 inaugural address
regarding entangling alliances. Jefferson proclaimed the United States should
have “peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling
alliances with none.”
Perhaps the most
illuminating explanation for the shift in U.S. foreign policy since 1947 comes
from The Doolittle Report of 1954. This report was sought and secured by
President Eisenhower in July of 1954 to report on the CIA’s covert activities
and make prudent recommendations. The report began with the following overview
regarding the communist threat: “It
is now clear that we are facing an implacable enemy whose avowed objective is
world domination by whatever means and at whatever cost. There are no rules in
such a game…if the United States is to survive, longstanding American concepts
of “fair play” must be reconsidered. We must develop effective espionage and
counterespionage services and must learn to subvert, sabotage and destroy our
enemies by more clever, more sophisticated and more effective methods than
those used against us. It may become necessary that the American people be made
acquainted with, understand and support this fundamentally repugnant
philosophy.”
United States foreign policy
took a giant step away from it’s non-interventionist roots during the Wilson
Administration, embracing the idea that the United States should be the
conscience for the world and model for all other nations to emulate. By 1947
this idea of Wilsonian Democracy had become the foundation of U.S. foreign
policy. The National Security Act enabled vast expansion of this philosophy, utilizing
the communist threat as the rationale for deviation from the Constitution of
the United States. It’s the same argument we hear today: When national security
is at risk, we must take whatever steps are necessary to turn back these
threats. In the past the threat was communism; today, it’s terrorism. Fear has
been utilized as a motivating factor to convince the American people that they
must be willing give up liberty in order to secure their safety. Once again,
this rationale runs counter to the advice of our founders. Benjamin Franklin
issued a rather stern warning that would behoove Americans to revisit today: “They
that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve
neither liberty nor safety.” If the United States continues down this road of
sabotage, subversion and destruction, we shall surely receive that which we
deserve.