Peace Must be Such That Freedom can Flourish and Justice Prevail

From a speech by Ronald Reagan, to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Chicago, Illinois, August 18, 1980.

"Over & over they told us for nearly 10 years that we were the aggressors bent on imperialistic conquest. They had a battle plan. It was to win on the city streets of America & in our news media what they could not win on the field of battle."

World peace must be our number one priority. It is the first task of statecraft to preserve peace so that brave men need not die in battle. But it must not be peace at any price; it must not be a peace of humiliation and gradual surrender. Nor can it be the kind of peace imposed on Czechoslovakia by Soviet tanks just 12 years ago this month. And certainly it isn't the peace that has come came to Southeast Asia with our signing of the Paris Peace accords.

Peace must be such that freedom can flourish and justice prevail. Tens of thousands of boat people have shown us there is no freedom in the so-called peace in Vietnam. The hill people of Laos know poison gas not justice, and, in Cambodia, there is only the peace of the grave for at least one-third of the population slaughtered by the Communists.

For too long, we have lived with the "VietNam Syndrome." Much of that syndrome was has been created by the North Vietnamese aggressors who now threaten the peaceful people of Thailand. Over & over they told us for nearly 10 years that we were the aggressors bent on imperialistic conquest. They had a battle plan. It was to win on the city streets of America & in our news media what they could not win on the field of battle. As the years dragged on, we were told that peace would come if we would simply stop interfering.

It is time we recognized that ours was, in truth, a noble cause. A small country newly free from colonial rule sought our help in establishing self-rule and the means of self defense against a totalitarian neighbor bent on conquest. We dishonor the memory of 50,000 young Americans who died in that cause when we give way to feelings of guilt as if we were doing something shameful, and we have been shabby in our treatment of those who returned. They fought as well and as bravely as any Americans have ever fought in any war. They deserve our gratitude & our respect.

There is a lesson for all of us in Vietnam; if war does come, we must have the means & the determination to prevail or we will not have what it takes to secure the peace. And while we are at it, let us tell those who fought in that war that we will never again ask young men to fight & possibly die in a war our government is afraid to let them win.

(Reagan, In His Own Hand, p. 481.)

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Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 03/17/03 09:54:31 AM
Categorized as Most Notable & Ronald Reagan & Speeches and Suchlike.