The Korean War, Cold War, and Vietnam war were mainly about fighting communism. Would you say WWII was also?
WW11 was not about Communism. I am not sure that Korea or Vietnam were about Communism either. The Chinese were not involved in the Korean war until after the UN came in. The same thing was true in Vietnam. I would say that in each case it was a fight against the old power structure that was not meeting the needs of the people. Others took advantage of the situation to make these into "political" wars.
WWII was about two things: Stopping Hitler, and saving England. Later on, other motivations crept in, but those were the main battle. The side show is to get revenge on Japan for attacking us. The side show turned into a very costly war.
Okay, I didn't think WWII was about that, but I am pretty sure Vietnam and Korea were.
No, only if you look to the right wingers for justification reasons.
Vietnam was justified in the end as a fight against communism, but we got involved there to protect Firestone Rubber plantations and economic interests. You can prove that to yourself by going back an looking at Kennedy's papers. Later on, when the war was going awful, it was justified as a "fight" against communism, if we didn't fight them there, we would fight them on our own soil. Nonsense then, and nonsense now. Right wingers try to make all wars they fight for economic interest as wars vital to the core existance of America.
Korea was not a fight against Communism. We got into the war because the Cold War had started between USSR and USA, and Truman wanted to show the US could contain the USSR expansion. It was the USSR expansion he feared, not communism. He wanted to keep Japan in the US sphere of influence, and he may have been right on that account. The rightwingers shouted the enemy was communism, but in fact it was the USSR becoming powerful and rivialing the US that was the crux of the start of the war. We heard the communists were coming for many years, and in election years, it still rings up. Wars are seldom fought for ideology, they are fought for economic power, economic reasons, and economic influence. Often, wars are stoked by cries that are of ideology, but when you look, it is those vested with economic gain possibilities (esp war industries) that are doing the shouting. It was true in WWII, Korean War, and Vietnam, and now true in Iraq: make no mistake, the oil and oil dollars are a powerful motive. Saving IRAQ for democracy, from Terrorists, and from developing weapons of mass destruction are Right Wingers again looking for a wrapping for their economic interests.
Now make no mistake, those interests well may be in the long term national interests, but the cry one hears are for the weak minded looking for a moral justification for killing our own soldiers and the peoples of the other side. As a rule, no one country likes to kill other folks unless they can be labeled as evil....the current term du jur is "terrorist", or "insurgent".
You will find a lot of history books that will agree with you: Communism was the evil doer, and we had to stand up to it in Korea, Vietnam, and communism's child, terrorism, is the reason we are in Iraq.
Good luck with your assignment. Looking back and learning from history is really exciting.
http://www.johndclare.net/EC5.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War
There are numerous other commentaries.
Thanks for the enlightening comments, but I think going with my history book is the safest route.