A Mirror Image: Comparing two wars

The Cold War and The War on Terror are extremely similar. A great way to see the similarities is by looking at the political cartoons for each war.

In August of 1964 The Gulf of Tonkin incident happened, where allegedly Northern Vietnamese torpedo boats had attacked an American destroyer, the U.S.S. Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin. This event outraged the U.S. and resulted in congress passing the Gulf of Tonkin resolution which gave President Johnson the authority to declare war on any country trying to spread communism. 

 This event was incredibly similar to the Iraq war resolution. Before the Iraq war resolution, president Bush declared that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In response, through the Iraq war resolution, Congress granted Bush the power to declare war on any country trying to spread terrorism. 


Although these cartoons are depicting the War on Terror, they can be used just as well to describe the Cold War. Both the War on Terror and the Cold war were begun by the U.S. lacking a good reason with evidence that we really need to fight a war. Terrorism like Communism are both non-tangible ideas, you cannot fight a war against either one. Also we fought both the wars in civilian areas searching for the Vietcong in Southern Vietnam and Al-Qaida in Iraq. Many civilian's homes were searched through and destroyed due to the search and destroy tactics employed in both wars.

What many people do not consider is the home front during both wars. The situation in both the Cold War and The War on Terror is identical. During the cold war there was a lot of McCarthyism and Communist trials. People don't realize that this sort of thinking still occurs today. There are many ongoing trials searching for terrorists that belong to the Al-Qaida group. Airport security has become impeccable very thorough due to the September 11th attack. Like the communist trials, if airport workers suspect anything about you, they can give you a full pat down or have you walk through an x-ray machine to make sure you are not a terrorist.