Who won the Cold War?


When I was a kid, there was this thing called the Cold War. The world was split between two competing ideologies that went out of their way to offer contrasts with one another. We were The Free World, and they were Behind The Iron Curtain. We had Free Speech, and they had jailed writers. We had Freedom of Religion, and they were Godless Communists who told you what to believe. We earnestly believed that every American who'd ever fought in Uniform had fought For Freedom, and if he died fighting, it was a noble sacrifice for a Great Cause. G.I. Joe might as well have been Martin Luther King. We believed Others might fight because they loved their country, especially the British or French, but just about every other army in the world was of brainwashed conscripts kept on rabbit food. And in any event, love of country was a lesser thing than fighting 'for freedom' which was the lofty motivation of every American who'd ever killed a stranger on command. Our side, which was conveniently called 'U.S.' in case we forgot who to cheer for, also harped constantly on the Commies about Human Rights. Freedom, of course, meant you could not be picked up by government agents and whisked off to some secret torture camp in Romania. You had rights. They couldn't do anything to you without a public trial (unless you were Black.) In ONE respect the two opposites mirrored each other exactly. We had their civilian population as hostage to our nuclear weapons, and they had our civilian population as hostage to their nuclear weapons. This ingenious compromise (hey, world leaders were Smart Guys, right? so anything that incomprehensible had to be genius...) was called Mutually Assured Destruction, or 'MAD' for short.

Then the Cold War ended. Our leaders gloated as the Soviet Union fell apart. Freedom Reigned Supreme, and the good guys had kicked serious ass by just spending money (giving it to defense contractors) faster than the Russians could match, for forty years. The Russians were big losers, and the defense contractors were the big winners. That might help explain how the weapons business has spread its tentacles into virtually every city or town. Almost anywhere in America, in any room full of respectable people with jobs, you can bet at least two or three of them work in the defense business, owe their careers to it, and will vociferously defend every last dollar that has ever been spent on defense, and darkly hint that They, doing Their Job are the only thing keeping you safe from the Enemy Du Jour.

But now that the Cold War is over, it is harder to recognize our side. We used to criticize the Soviets for occupying Afghanistan and committing war crimes there. Now our side occupies Afghanistan and commits war crimes there. We used to criticize the Soviets for violating human rights, and now our side asserts that neither the Geneva Conventions nor any other law apply to 'terror suspects,' or to anyone the President/military/CIA claims is a terror suspect. (If they are being held secretly, then they _must_ be terror suspects.) The Russians used to be the main trading partner of Red China, and so were partially responsible for human rights abuses there. Today our side is the main trading partner of Red China, and is billions of dollars in debt to Red China, and never mentions China's human rights abuses. We used to criticize the Soviets for having a vast secret police/torture infrastructure, and today our side are using the very same sites for the very same purpose.

I say 'our side,' but is it really? Who is really on our side? Is the United States Government really on our side? What has the U.S. Government become? What have We the People become?