It Is Time to Declare War

Ayn Rand Institute ^ | Sept. 20, 2001 | Leonard Peikoff

[Nachum]

I heard an associate of Leonard Peikoff's on KABC radio in Los Angeles who argues to not only destroy Iran's government, but every Islamic government in the middle east. This would include Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Afganistan. He also advocated the use of nuclear weapons.

[Free the USA]

this was a good article when it was first posted a week ago.

[general_re]

Hmmm, some dissent in the ranks - this is almost the polar opposite of the arguments I've seen from the Lew Rockwell crowd...

[Nachum]

Ah, did not see it. Sorry about the double posting. It seemed worthy of posting again though, with the radio coverage of the Ayn Rand Institute.

[clintonh8r]

We should press the strategic advantage while we still have it. These people want to destroy us. Our response should be appropriate to their stated goals.

[onyx]

Thanks for posting this factual and decidedly excellent advice from the patriotic Ayn Rand Institute.

If we are to win this war, we must grant the Muslim nations their wish, by bombing all of them back into the 12th century. Praise Allah and go to hell.

[The Westerner]

"Iran, however, is the only major country in the region ruled by zealots dedicated not to material gain (such as more wealth or territory), but to the triumph by any means, however violent, of Islamic fundamentalism. This is why Iran manufactures the most terrorists.

What Germany was to Nazism in the 1940s, Iran is to terrorism today. Whatever other countries it strikes, therefore, the U.S. can put an end to the Jihad-mongers only by taking out Iran."

I posted this article when it first was published in the Washington Post. If we can take out Bin Laden, will that be enough? Time will tell.

Peikoff is talking about something that no one in Washington wants to hear it seems. Iran is the most dangerous and capable enemy of the United States in the mideast. It was disheartening to read that we were considering bringing Iran into our coalition. It makes the United States appear weak when we try to befriend countries whose sworn goal is to wipe us off the face of the earth.

In a related story posted on FR this week, people in the streets of Iran were interviewed stating that the clerics are missing a golden opportunity to join with the West. I bet the ordinary citizens would love to see an end to the Ayatollahs' rule of Iran. We would be doing them a favor to liberate them.

[gcruse]

Fifty years ago, Truman and Eisenhower surrendered the West's
property rights in oil, although that oil rightfully belonged to
those in the West whose science, technology, and capital
made its discovery and use possible.

A guy discovers oil on my property.  Then insists
he owns it.  I don't quite understand the logic of that.
Am I missing something?  Do we own the
Athabasca tar sands in Alberta if we figured
out how to oil from it?

[Congressman Billybob]

I agree that we should declare war, and point out chapter and verse that we haven't done that yet, (See below.) However, we should not be the first to use nuclear weapons. And in dealing with nations that support terrorism, assassination is a better method than bombing or invasion. It saves American lives, and it causes less harm and therefore adverse reaction from enemy civilians.

How many lives would have been saved had we succeeded in killing Hitler, or if his own people had succeeded in their afforts to kill him? And, in a declared war, all weapons and tactics are on the table including assassination, as witness our shoot-down of Admiral Yamamoto, architect of Pearl Harbor.

The (More er Less) Honorable Billybob,
cyberCongressman from Western Carolina

Click here for Billybob's latest, "Bush is DEAD Wrong." The next, "The ONE Commandment," will be posted after al Qua'da and Taliban are gone, or in about 48 hours.

Click here and go to "ALCU Watch" for "The Law of War," a detailed legal discussion of how the US declares war, both historically and in this instance.

[x]

The Ayatollah Peikoff has spoken! Destroy the infidels! So let it be written, so let it be done!

There's a real problem with Randianism. They talk radical individualism, but relish collective crusades with all the gunfire and bloodshed as much as any self-sacrificing altruist. Maybe, as with locusts and Vulcans, it's a seven year thing. As with Wilson or Clinton, the idea is that we need to set the world right once and for all, but a love of what one is supposed to reject is visible underneath all the rhetoric. Randianism, like other hyperrational ideologies, looks to be incompatible with human nature, in so far as what is undeniably human and emotional and irrational appears even in its mad mullah, Pope Leonard I.

We have to fight, and that means doing damage. But the Ayatollah Peikoff isn't any good guide to what our war aims should be.

[parsifal]

I'm sure Lenny P. would support a draft to accomplish these goals. No doubt, he will not wait to be drafted but will volunteer for service.

[parsifal]

Yeah! What you said! BTW, can you translate this gem [from above] for me. I am confused:

"The obvious implication is that the struggle against terrorism is ultimately a struggle of ideas, which can be dealt with only by intellectual and philosophical means. But this fact does not depreciate the crucial role of our armed forces. On the contrary, it increases their effectiveness, by pointing them to the right target."

Does this mean our soldiers should be trained in Objectivist theory? Is the military now tasked with correcting the epistemological errors of the Iranian mullahs? Helfen mir.

[The Westerner]

If I've leased the land from you, discovered the oil, built the wells, the refineries and the pipelines to the shipping operations, how does all of that belong to you? Now if you don't believe you have to honor the lease, then I see your reasoning. You just kick me off your land and take whatever I've left behind. Basically, the Westerners made a mistake thinking the Arabs believed in the rule of law.

[zog]

--you have to remember. It's not only 'the saudis' but their american business partners in this whole being hostage to foreign oil deal with our foreign policies. We're going to continue to eat it from the middle east until those americans with their oil business there have little say at the highest levels of government.

And if anyone thinks I'm being hypocritical because I still drive and use gas, I do hereby state I would pay double at the pump right now for my gasoline if I could be assured directly at the pump that not one drop came from the islamic countries. I want my money spent and re-spent inside CONUS, not shipped to the middle east were it goes to buy advanced weaponry for the islamics. The deal is, we have no choice the way it is set up right now. You couldn't, as an end user consumer, boycott or have a free market choice if you wanted to, we're STUCK with those bozos for the next buncha years.

And waiting in the wings is china, the next big public policy economic mistake that will finally bingo with people. And it won't be any little tiny wussy coupla buildings hit either, nope, try hundreds of thousands if not millions dead.

Short term profits, 'free trade" with the enemy= a few more millionaires and a lot more long term national in-security.

IMO. obviously.

[Nachum]

I sympathize with your sentiment. My only observation is that our whole economy is dependant on oil as well. Our goods and many services would also cost much more. It would certainly have a large negative effect on the economy. Maybe even catastrophic.

[Twodees]

You don't find many Randian objectivists writing for LR.com. Peikoff and his bunch are atheists and are now livid over being attacked by religious fanatics. They despise Christians, too. Actually they despise everyone except their fellow objectivists. I doubt that there are more than a few thousand of them nationwide anyway.

Most of Lew's regular writers are Christians, some old line Southern conservatives, some small 'l' libertarians. The objectivists despise LR.com too.

[imperator2]

First step is to capture amnd isolate all Arab oil fields. Once they are under American control, the supply of oil will not be interrupted.

[Twodees]

Yep, Lenny's still waiting for ol' Ayn to rise from the dead and smite the dimwits who dare to reject her novels. Objectivists just kill me. The very first thing they suggest to anyone is that they read "Atlas Shrugged".

L. Ron Hubbard's Scientiologists could show them how to build a pseudo religion around a fiction writer.

[parsifal]

I've read a few things Lenny has written over the years and the boy seems kind of high strung to me. He reminds me of another supercillious little twit, Sidney Blumenthal. Have you ever read "It Always Starts With Ayn Rand.?"

[gcruse]

1913: A survey of the Athabasca country was conducted by Sydney C. Ells of the Mines Branch. He saw the
      potential for using asphalt reserves as a road-surfacing material. Sydney Ells visited 10 plant sites in the United
      States in 1913, and discovered that a plant in California separated bitumen from the sand with hot water.

   I ask you again.  Do we own the Athabasca Tar Sands in Alberta, Canada?