Cold War Dbq Essay

Other factors that have led the United States to take foreign policy decisions that favor it were the desire for control, power, and capitalist diffusion during the Cold War. In Latin America, as previously explained, the “School of the Americas” and other policies were imposed in order to have access to local power, which would favor the US in the Cold War. According to Terrence Dillon the US couldn’t afford to lose against communism in America. Therefore, the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine were imposed and this reoriented US foreign policy to possible interventions in far away conflicts. Specific examples lie in in Latino dictators like Pinochet and Batista (Source 5). In this case, Dillon makes the audience realize how The United States, at the expense of “not losing to communism in America” amplified the scope of conflicts in different countries in Latin America.

In other words, The United States imposed policies for its own benefit, though it left countries unstable and in bad conditions at the expense of “fighting communism”.

This is evident in Colombia’s Violencia period: “But instead of improving the prospects for peace, the United States “is about to put Colombia´s fragile democracy at greater risk by escalating the new Violencia… It is the people of Colombia who will pay the price for the inability of the United States to face the fact that its ´war´ on drugs can only be won at home”(Source 1). It is clear with this example that the US pushed the limits, forcing violence in Colombia and nurturing it, leaving Colombia in a whole political mess. Colombia, by that time was really lost. Its way had been destroyed by the US; nothing was clear for Colombia anymore. Looking at a general scope, The United States played the role of “Father” to countries in Latin America with the purpose of gaining control of capitalism over communism in this area at the expense of making some countries politically and socially

unstable.
Although the evidence is there, crystal clear, Americans still believe the cause for war is the fight for human rights and democracy in these different countries. Dillon says, “In the US, the average citizen isn’t doing any well, but contractors are. Thirty-one percent of taxes go to the “National Security Fund” and many people approve it”(Source 5). Terrence Dillon explained that the average American citizen invests more money to war efforts instead of investing it in infrastructure, healthcare, or education. He showed that their convictions and justifications for American foreign policy were strong (Source 5). What keeps the average American citizen from realizing the truth about American interventionism is the on-going and non-stopping cycle of the Military-Industrial Complex. The Military-Industrial Complex is like a cycle. It keeps going thanks to the relationships that develop between government entities and weapon manufacturers like Helliburton and McDouglas. This system works when the large CEOs and rich business men owners of companies like Helliburton or McDouglas bring financial support for campaigns of politicians and endorsements that give them votes with the indirect requirement that the politicians should act in favor of these companies. So what the company owners do is sell weaponry to the government every time a new product gets into the market. The role of the “manipulated” politicians in this case is to get rid of the past machinery by giving it to allies as gifts and buying these weapon manufacturers the new weapons. And politicians don’t stop because then, support from big companies and favoritism for them would begin to decrease and basically they would run out of power. Also, in order for the average citizen to approve the “gifting” of this machinery, politicians start to sell fear to people. They even sell poverty, child abuse, abuse of human rights in order for people to “accept” different ways of interventionism in other countries and the gifting of weapons as well. Just like in the case of the French-Vietnamese War, when the US gave support to France by financing most of the war effort. Politicians do this in order to satisfy the industry and in that way the Military-Industrial Complex is financed.