Posted on 09/13/2001 2:24:38 PM PDT by danielmryan
The following editorial has been produced by the Ayn Rand Institute's MediaLink department. Visit MediaLink at http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/.
Released: September 12, 2001
Fifty Years of Appeasement Led to Black Tuesday
By Leonard Peikoff
Fifty years of increasing American appeasement in the Mideast have led to fifty years of increasing contempt in the Muslim world for the U.S. The inevitable climax was the tens of thousands of deaths on September 11, 2001—the blackest day in our history, so far. The Palestinians, among others, responded by dancing in the streets and handing out candy.
Fifty years ago, Truman and Eisenhower ceded to the Arabs the West's property rights in oil—although that oil properly belonged to those in the West whose science and technology made its discovery and use possible.
This capitulation was not practical, but philosophical. The Arab dictators were denouncing the wealthy egoistic West. They were crying that the masses of their poor needed our sacrifice; that oil, like all property, is owned collectively, by virtue of birth; and that they knew all this by means of ineffable or otherworldly emotion. Our Presidents had no answer. Implicitly, they were ashamed of the Declaration of Independence. They did not dare to answer aloud that Americans, rightfully, were motivated by the selfish desire to pursue personal happiness in a rich, secular, individualist society.
The Arabs embodied in extreme form every idea—selfless duty, anti-materialism, faith or feeling above science, the supremacy of the group—which our universities and churches, and our own political Establishment, had long been preaching as the essence of virtue. When two groups, our leadership and theirs, accept the same basic ideas, the most consistent wins.
After property came liberty. The Iranian dictator Khomeini threatened with death a British author—and with destruction his American publisher—if they exercised their right to free speech. He explained that the book in question offended the religion of his people. The Bush Administration looked the other way.
After liberty came American life itself—as in Iran's support of the massacre of our soldiers in Saudi Arabia, and the Afghanistan-based assault on our embassies in East Africa. Again, the American response was unbridled appeasement: a Realpolitikisch desire not to "jeopardize relations" with the aggressor country, covered up by a purely rhetorical vow to punish the guilty, along with an occasional pretend bombing. By now, the world knows that we are indeed a paper tiger.
We have not only appeased terrorists, we have actively created them. The Reagan Administration—holding that Islamic fundamentalists were our ideological allies in the fight against the atheistic Soviets—poured money and expertise into Afghanistan to create an ever-growing band of terrorists recruited from all over the Mideast. Most of these terrorists knew what to do with their American training; their goal was not to save Afghanistan.
The final guarantee of American impotence is the bipartisan proclamation that a terrorist is an individual alone responsible for his actions, and that "we must try each before a court of law." This is tantamount, while under a Nazi aerial bombardment, to seeking out and trying the pilots involved while ignoring Hitler and Germany.
Terrorists exist only through the sanction and support of the governments behind them. Their lethal behavior is that of the regimes that make them possible. Their killings are not crimes, but acts of war. The only proper response to such acts is war in self-defense.
We do not need more evidence to "pinpoint" the perpetrators of any one of these atrocities, including the latest and most egregious—we already have total certainty with regard to the governments primarily responsible for the repeated slaughter of Americans in recent years. We must now use our unsurpassed military to destroy all branches of the Iranian and Afghani governments, regardless of the suffering and death this will bring to the many innocents caught in the line of fire. We must wipe out the terrorist training camps or sanctuaries, and eliminate any retaliatory military capability—and thereby terrorize and paralyze all the tyrannies watching, who will now know what is in store for them if they choose in any form to attack the U.S. That will be the end of the terrorists.
Our missiles and occupation troops, however, will be effective only if they are preceded by our President's morally righteous statement that we intend hereafter to defend by every means possible each American's right to his property, his liberty, and his secure enjoyment of life here on earth.
To those who oppose war, I ask: If not now, when? How many more corpses are necessary before this country should take action?
The choice today is mass death in the United States or mass death in the terrorist nations. President Bush must decide whether it is his duty to save Americans or the governments who seek to kill them.
Leonard Peikoff is the founder of the Ayn Rand Institute in Marina del Rey, California. The Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. Send Feedback
Another "rabid" bulletin from the ARI.
The choice today is mass death in the United States or mass death in the terrorist nations. President Bush must decide whether it is his duty to save Americans or the governments who seek to kill them."
More common sense from Mr. Piekoff.
L
The relevence of your comments to the article escapes me. As a frequent reader of your comments, I know you can do better than this.
Well, its kinda like getting lectured by Clinton.
Objectivist Ayn claimed the right
To fiddle with young men at night
Her husband supine
Said he didn't mind
He kind of enjoyed the quiet.
parsy.
Exactly correct.
If the terrorist nation is Iraq, the choice has already been made in the last 10 years of "undeclared" war. A Declaration of War against iraq may be no more than a recognition of the status quo, followed up by a blank check for a new offensive.
We do not need more evidence to "pinpoint" the perpetrators of any one of these atrocities, including the latest and most egregious—we already have total certainty with regard to the governments primarily responsible for the repeated slaughter of Americans in recent years. We must now use our unsurpassed military to destroy all branches of the Iranian and Afghani governments, regardless of the suffering and death this will bring to the many innocents caught in the line of fire. We must wipe out the terrorist training camps or sanctuaries, and eliminate any retaliatory military capability—and thereby terrorize and paralyze all the tyrannies watching, who will now know what is in store for them if they choose in any form to attack the U.S. That will be the end of the terrorists.
Our missiles and occupation troops, however, will be effective only.... etc.
I more-or-less agreed with everything up to the "Occupation Troops" idea.
From what "base camp" does Peikoff intend to prosecute a Ground War against the Hindu Kush and Zagros-Elburz Mountains??
I don't believe such an idea is militarily realistic. If we intend to erase Iran and Afghanistan as functioning nation-States, we should gear up Incirlik and Diego Garcia for a sustained bombardment campaign of all State infrastructure in the target region. Personally, I can't imagine a rational "staging area" for a ground war. I don't believe such an idea is militarily realistic. We certainly aren't going to prosecute a Normandy-style amphibious invasion from the Arabian Sea -- we haven't the military capacity.
If Peikoff wants to send in the ground troops, this is the question that has to be answered -- from where?? If that question cannot be intelligently answered, then "Bombs Away" is -- IMHO -- the only realistic alternative.
I take it retribution will be organized on free market lines. Can I buy shares in the enterprise?
Better wait. I am sure the Antipopes at the LP and Mises Institutes will counter this bull with some of their own.
Honest question... how?? See my #12.
This War is about Revenge, not conquest. Raw, unadulterated, ferocious revenge (of which I am a whole-hearted supporter)... not a land-grab.
But if people do want to turn this into a land-grab, I really want to know their answer to the question -- from where?? I'm not asking these questions from any weakness of resolve. I'm asking because, imagining for a moment that the crap really hits the fan, and my 18-year old youngest brother is called to serve (for example)... from where do we stage the Ground War??
The Infantry should never be sent out on a logistical shoe-string and a prayer.
Maybe they were celebrating their property rights or self-actualizing.
The only question I have is who are the most childish. Libertarians or liberals. It is difficult to determine.
I'm certainly not a fan of stealing.
And I would have to ask anyone in favor of keeping the oil, who would trust a President who as part of "defense" steals the property of another nation and then says out of the other side of his mouth that he will defend the life, liberty and property of his own countrymen? Hogwash. He'll do no such thing. If he can rationalize bad actions abroad, it won't take much arm-twisting to get him to rationalize them at home.
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