[andyfox]

No, it's not a narcissistic outlook. The government that was murdering its own citizens was the government of South Vietnam, the government we were defending. We aided a despotic and tyrannical government. My government lied to us, telling us we were defending freedom and democracy in a place where there was no freedom nor democracy.

Precisely because the world is full of bastards, precisely because Communists and Facists and other absolutists have ignored the welfare of people in order to "remake" society--this is the reason I want my country and its government to act in accord with its principles. Otherwise what difference would it make who won? If we act like Communists (or worse than Communists, as we did in Vietnam), we become unworthy of victory.

Lyndon Johnson campaigned as the peace candidate. Richard Nixon claimed he had a secret plan to end the war. They lied to us, murdering hundred of thousands of people deliberately and wantonly. Stalin and Mao and Ho Chi Minh didn't ask for my vote. Johnson and Nixon did. I have no say-so in whether or not Kim Jong-Il stays in power or exercises his power in accord with what I see as good and moral. Living in a democracy, I do have a say in whether or not George Bush stays in power or exercises his power in accord with what I see as good and moral.

It doesn't take much courage to criticize a Stalin or much perspicacity to recognize the evil of a Hitler. It does take both to recognize, and call out, when your own government is perpetrating the very evils we assume are only the province of the Stalins and the Hitlers. That's precisely what our government did in Vietnam. Chomsky was instrumental in revealing the nature of that evil.