09-13-2001, 11:03 AM
People, individual people, seem to be able to live their lives immune to the effects of their own immorality. For them, karma has been suspended and what has gone around needn't come back around. Stalin was at least the second most heinous bastard of the past century (and arguably in first place), yet he lived his life to the fullest length and died in bed.
But large groups of people, like countries, do not seem to be able to escape the fate they form with their behavior. For this reason it was not only gratifying, but probably inevitable that the Axis lost the Second World War.
I think that morality, not expeditiousness and short-term advantage, should guide our decisions in the international arena. Sometimes the steps required by this philosophy are scary, even if they are right. Imagine the moral courage required if England and France had decided to follow their declaration of war upon Germany when that country invaded Poland from the West, with an identical declaration of war upon the USSR when that country invaded Poland from the East.
It would have been for moral reason that we should have thrown our support to Mao in the 1930s, not Chang, who was clearly no more than the principle warlord who'd placed himself in position as supreme exploiter. How different would the situation have been in China if Mao held fealty to the West instead of the Soviets at the conclusion of the great revolution.
Had we followed our pledge given to Ho Chi Min in 1944 by the OSS (predecessor of our CIA) to exclude France from post-war reoccupation of Indo China in exchange for Viet Minh attacks upon Japanese occupation forces, the people of Vietnam would have enjoyed popular self-government beginning in 1945. The cost would have been the alienation of the French who began separate negotiations with the Soviets and dropped out of NATO anyway. Benefits are obvious.
We clearly should not support regional leaders of dubious nature. Local potentates who are clearly despicable should be actively opposed. If we do anything else, history will come back to bite us in the ass.
But large groups of people, like countries, do not seem to be able to escape the fate they form with their behavior. For this reason it was not only gratifying, but probably inevitable that the Axis lost the Second World War.
I think that morality, not expeditiousness and short-term advantage, should guide our decisions in the international arena. Sometimes the steps required by this philosophy are scary, even if they are right. Imagine the moral courage required if England and France had decided to follow their declaration of war upon Germany when that country invaded Poland from the West, with an identical declaration of war upon the USSR when that country invaded Poland from the East.
It would have been for moral reason that we should have thrown our support to Mao in the 1930s, not Chang, who was clearly no more than the principle warlord who'd placed himself in position as supreme exploiter. How different would the situation have been in China if Mao held fealty to the West instead of the Soviets at the conclusion of the great revolution.
Had we followed our pledge given to Ho Chi Min in 1944 by the OSS (predecessor of our CIA) to exclude France from post-war reoccupation of Indo China in exchange for Viet Minh attacks upon Japanese occupation forces, the people of Vietnam would have enjoyed popular self-government beginning in 1945. The cost would have been the alienation of the French who began separate negotiations with the Soviets and dropped out of NATO anyway. Benefits are obvious.
We clearly should not support regional leaders of dubious nature. Local potentates who are clearly despicable should be actively opposed. If we do anything else, history will come back to bite us in the ass.