VIETNAM
623
exist
anywhere
in the area in question. Indeed our "imperial" presence
would merely increase disaffection and distrust for us throughout the
world, including those parts where we are not already actively hated.
Worse, it would obviously increase the chance of an eventual confronta–
tion with China or with an Asian bloc led and in the end dominated
by China.
Why then don't we simply follow the wise practice of the French
and clear out of Vietnam
r
No doubt we will "open the door" to further
extensions of "Communist" power. So what? It isn't at all clear that even
if the whole of Southeast Asia should go "Communist" this would im–
prove the situation of China as a world power or as a threat to the
integrity or peace of the United States. On the contrary, it might well
make trouble for the Chinese while freeing us of a terrible drain on
resources, including our
human
resources. Here again a lesson can be
learned from the French. Can we afford indefinitely the cost of saving
the world from Communism, especially in areas that don't clearly want
to be saved from it?
But suppose we do lltay and fight it out for a "negotiated peace."
What would be-the result? A "free society"? Who believes it? I, at any
rate, do not. In the present world context, the statement "the creation
of a world in which free societies can exist should be the goal of any
international policy," is of doubtful relevance to the tenns on which
genuine political decisions must be made.
If
by a "free society" one means
a constitutional republic of the sort we Americans enjoy then I am bound
to say that over a large part of the globe, perhaps regrettably, such a goal
cannot
be
implemented, even
if
the United States government were to
extend and to escalate its military operations a thousand times. Through–
out most of Asia and Mrica such a fonn of political organization is
evidently out of the question; the people are unprepared for it and few
of their leaders, on any side, seem dedicated to it. What then? Shall we
cling to a goal which makes sense at home mainly because of our rather
special social and economic circumstances? Elsewhere it seems more like
escapism than a significant policy. But what if we do not so restrict the
notion of a "free society?" Is it not
conceivable
that governments calling
themselves "Marxist" or even "Communist" might actually do better, so
far as the negotiable aspirations of the inhabitants are concerned, than
alternative setups of the sort we have sponsored in South Vietnam? Is
the answer
to
this question foregone? No one has shown it to be so. How
then can I not echo the cry: "Yankee, go home!"
And the same goes regarding the Dominican Republic.
