Observe the terms in which the war in Vietnam is discussed. There are no
stated goals, no intellectual issues. But there are, apparently, two opposing
sides which are designate, not by any specific ideological concepts, but by images, which is appropriate to the primitive epistemology of savages:
the "hawks" and the "doves." But the "hawks" are cooing apologetically, and the
"doves" are snarling heir heads off.
The same groups that coined the term "isolationist" in World War II--to
designate anyone who held that the internal affairs of other countries are not
the responsibility of the United States--these same groups are screaming that
the United States has no right to interfere in the internal affairs of
Vietnam.
Nobody has proposed a goal which, if achieved, would terminate that
war--except President Johnson, who has offered a billion dollars as the price of
piece; not a billion dollars paid to us, but a billion dollars
paid by us for the economic development of Vietname; which means that
we are fighting for the privelage of turning every American taxpayer into a serf
laboring part of his time for the benefit of his Vietnamese masters. But,
demonstrating that irrationality is not a monopoly of the United States, North
Vietnam has rejected that offer.
No, there is no proper solution for the war in Vietnam: it is a war we
should never have entered. To continue it, is senseless--to withdraw from it,
would be one more act of appeasement on our long, shameful record. The ultimate
result of appeasement is a world war, as demonstrated by World War II; in
today's context, it may mean a nuclear world war.
That we let ourselves be trapped into a situation of this kind, is the
consequence of fifty years of a suicidal foreign policy. One cannot correct a
consequence without correcting its cause; if such disasters could be solved
"pragmatically," i.e., out of context, on the spur and range of the moment, a
nation would not need any foreign policy. And this is an example of why
we do need a policy based on long-range principles, i.e., an ideology. But a revision of our foreign policy, from its basic
premises on up, is what today's anti-ideologists dare not contemplate. The
worse its results, the louder our public leaders proclaim that our foreign
policy is bipartisan.
("The Wreckage of the Consensus", Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal, pp 225-226)
This is from a lecture that Ayn Rand gave at Ford Hall Forum in Boston on April 16, 1967.
Everything she said about Vietnam applies equally to Iraq today.
