Even with the advent of WWI and WWII, the US did not end its portrayal of the Soviet Union as the evil empire. Certainly this thought was put on the back burner as another enemy took over the spotlight. In 1917, the US had allowed the cruise ship the USS Lusitania to embark on its voyage to England. On board were hundreds of passengers, and with them, thousands of tons of armament destined for the British government to be used against Germany. The German government did everything it could to warn people that the ship would be seen as a warship due to its cargo, and that it would be attacked if it left. They even took out a one-page ad in the New York newspapers. Nevertheless, when the U-boats sank her, the US government pointed the finger at Germany and rallied Americans against this new enemy.
In WWII the US did the same. In February, 1941, the US sent its Pacific fleet to a small island territory half-way to a warlike country that had recently been the subject of an embargo that threatened it very existence. Japan realized right away that the West Coast of the US would be left defenseless if it took out the overreached fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor. Ten months later, Japan had achieved its goal and had destroyed nearly every boat on Oahu. At the same time, the US achieved its goal of fighting a new enemy with the full consent of the US population.
After WWII the US continued to use the Soviet Union and the threat of the spread of Communism to fight wars in Korea and Vietnam. The military industrial complex was in full force and money flowed as it never had before. But even the greatest of blank checks have to end sometime, and with the end of the Soviet Union, the US suddenly found itself without its bogeyman.
Enter the terrorist. It was imperative that the US find an enemy that would allow it to continue its hegemonic foreign policy. Unfortunately, the US had grown into a superpower of extreme stature, and there was nary a country out there that could claim to be a legitimate rival. This would not do. Without an outside threat to the "American way of life," the population would start wondering why its government was so aggressive against other nations. After all, if a country can't be a threat to America, then what reason is there to topple the country's regime??
Fortunately for the US, it had a new enemy in the wings before the Soviet Union became nothing more than a chapter in the history of mankind. In the early 1980s the US formed and funded a group of terrorists known as the mujahideen. These were well-financed terrorists who battled the Soviet Union for nearly ten years throughout the 80s. With the end of the Afghan War against the Soviet Union, many of these mujahideen disbanded and went home.
However, a select few stayed on with continued funding from the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence agency, as well as the US. Some of these groups would later form the terrorist organization known as al Qaeda. Throughout the 1990s the US could rely on al Qaeda to perform random terrorist attacks on US installations around the world, and even inside the United States. The US had traded a carte blanche in the name of the Soviet Union, for one equally as blank in the name of Al Qaeda. With the 9/11 attacks al Qaeda rose to the same illogical level of hatred as the Soviet Union in the 20th Century.
Ever since 9/11 the American government has been able to continue perhaps the most bellicose and hegemonic foreign policies in its existence. Today the US is engaged in a lost war in Afghanistan and another lost cause in Iraq. Eventually the US will have to leave both countries with its tail between its legs, but the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on them will have already been paid out to the same military industrial complex. As the new millennium continues, the American government can rest assured that its current bogeyman will be able to carry on as our chosen enemy for decades to come. It would be foolhardy, to say the least, for the US to actually attempt to capture Osama Bin Laden and his henchmen and bring them to justice. That would bring an end to the current American enemy, and the US would be floundering once again in search of a new enemy to hate.
It's unfortunate that the American people seem to relish being in constant fear, but such is the case. Knowing this, the American government never ceases to find those bogeymen who best fill the hatred bill. For the foreseeable future, it shall remain the faceless and nameless al Qaeda. Until Americans realize that no other group nor nation can destroy it, and that destruction will obviously only come from within, the American government will continue to supply them with false enemies which they will use to promote their horrible and bellicose foreign policy beneath the public radar.
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