1969 – Total Innocence is Absent on Both Sides

Total Innocence is Absent on Both Sides

Recently I wrote a letter to this newspaper stating that Communist nations are not “per se” aggressive; I still adhere to this contention. Unquestionably some Communist governments are aggressive, just as some fascist and some constitutional monarchical governments were. The capture of the Pueblo by the North Korean government is an act of aggression because North Korea could have escorted the ship from its territorial limits, if the ship was within them. Since it did not, one should infer that their object was to provoke the United States. Their reason might be to test our will to come to the aid of South Korea in the event of invasion, or it might be a definite plan of allied Oriental Communist nations to keep us embroiled in a logistically divided longterm Asian land war.

In a world community, as in a local community, there will be a violation of laws. Like local crime, international agression must be minimized. Incarceration of an individual criminal serves that purpose by incapacitating and perhaps even rehabilitating him as well as deterring others. Obviously a nation cannot be incarcerated, but the same derivitive goals are desirable.

Various methods might be used in the place of incarceration. The first, economic boycott, lacks efficacy, although hopefully one day an authoritative United Nations capable of effective penal powers will deal with wrongdoer nations. The second is military action by the United Nations or by a sovereign government. Because of the absence of total innocence on both sides, it is doubtful that the United Nations will commit their forces. If we honestly deem North Korea guilty of aggression, or alternatively of unreasonable punishment in relation to a United States violation, and negotiation does not result in redress, our alternatives will be restraint or invation. Invasion might be playing into the hands of the aggressor. Inaction might be buying time only to necessitate a later invasion. The proper course for the present should be restraint while evincing military strength with the hope that the North Koreans will act and act not through fear but through reasonability. Only as a last resort should we commit ourselves militarily and then only in order to obtain release of the prisoners. In that event, we should take swift and positive military action.