PRODOS: This is a dark, dark day.
PEIKOFF: Well, thank you for having me. It's certainly the blackest day in history, as far as I'm concerned, in my life.
PRODOS: What does one say? I've heard the commentators saying we'll improve our intelligence efforts; we'll track these people down, but all of that . . .
PEIKOFF: It's nonsense. All of that is total nonsense. The criminal is totally known, and has been known for many decades. So, if you want a philosophic perspective, you have to take a long-range view of this. This is not a problem that started this week, or last month, or five years ago. This particular problem started in the late '40s and the early '50s under Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower.
PRODOS: Right.
PEIKOFF: It was focused at that time on the oil that was properly owned by Western companies. And these Mideast companies countries, one after the other, seized the oil, nationalized it, on the claim that although they hadn't discovered it, it belonged to their collective and it was necessary for their poor. It was under the altruist-collectivist slogan.
PRODOS: That was the pretext that they used, was it?
PEIKOFF: Yes, that was the pretext that they used. The Americans, of course, were terrified to oppose any of this -- and the British -- to say such a selfish thing as, "This is our property. We discovered it. We created the technology, and you go to hell." So they capitulated totally. They appeased. They turned the other way.
There was a case, you know, where three countries, Britain, France, and Israel, had the courage to fly over -- I believe it was Egypt; I can't remember now -- one of these countries to command, to retake the oil, and America issued a shameful statement that this was an outrage, and forced these planes to turn back.
That was the foundation, at that time, that American property can be seized American or Western property can be seized by these Mideast countries, totally with impunity -- and those countries expected to be met with a hundred percent appeasement.
Step two in this drama: you jump to the old President Bush, the worst President, in my view, in American history . . .
PRODOS: Really?
PEIKOFF: . . . the father of the current one, who said to the Mideast countries, in essence, "It's not enough for you to take our property; it is okay for you to take over the liberty of the West." And the example, there, was the Ayatollah Khomeini who put the death decree on [Salman] Rushdie, because he disagreed ideologically with his viewpoint.
Rushdie, of course, was a British subject, but his publisher was an American, and it happens to be my publisher. The publisher was barricaded and was virtually bankrupted by the need for security. The government of America did zero, nothing.
PRODOS: Why?
PEIKOFF: They looked the other way; they said that there was no issue here at all. I, at the time, made a big campaign to say, if this Khomeini gets away with this without any response from the American government, you are saying to the countries of the Mideast, "You've taken our property without any response from us. You can now take any citizen and threaten his liberty, his sacred right of free expression, without any consequence."
What do you think is coming next? And, of course, what followed on that, in due course, was a massive assault on American life, as such. It was on property, on liberty, on life. With rights being the foundation of both liberty and property.
And so . . .
PRODOS: Dr. Leonard Peikoff, I'm just curious, here, that these thugs, like those who threatened Salman Rushdie and made the publisher's life hell, they seem to be very perceptive on these precedents that are set. I mean, how does that work?
PEIKOFF: Well, I think, any bully detects fear. They detect uncertainty. They have an uncanny ability to do so, just in terms of the antenna that they develop. Plus, I mean, it doesn't take many brains. If the Americans are going around saying, "Well, of course, we don't mean to be selfish; we'll do anything. We're always open to a deal."
You know, when the Chinese call us a "Paper Tiger," they know. They see our foreign policy. Any moron in the world knows that if any country came to the United States and said, "We want the entire West Coast," the Bush administration or his predecessor would say, "Well, look, we can't give you three states, but we'll give you Oregon. Let's try to, you know, make a deal and have peace."
The United States is a prostitute in terms of international relations. They submit to anything. This was true with Soviet Russia. It is true, now, with Communist China. And it was true all the way through the dealings with the Mideast. But that's what we're now talking about. Anybody knows that our policy is just so shamefully written in blood, and has been for decades -- our policy of appeasement.
Now, you take the number of cases where American lives were lost - I wouldn't even bother with the attack on the plane over Lockerbie, because everybody knows about that. But the arch example here is the U.S. soldiers in Saudi Arabia who were massacred. It was known that this was done from Iran by terrorists trained in Iran. There were front page stories in the New York Times, that this was known; what the source was; and that it was done with the complicity of the Iranian government, but that the Clinton administration did not want to have trouble with Iran because they were trying to kiss up to him, and that therefore this was going to be pushed to the back burner and nothing would be done.
This was known at the time; it was a front-page New York Times story. I had a radio show on it when I was on the air.
PRODOS: This reminds me so much, Dr. Peikoff, of the Elian issue. I remember reading some of the verdicts that came down from Janet Reno -- actually from the judges who heard the case -- about whether the father had the right to take the boy back or not. And one of the things that they kept invoking was that somehow their decision could be overridden by foreign affairs.
PEIKOFF: Yes, by a foreign policy that consisted of Clinton having made a deal with Castro. But I want to get back here for a minute, just to finish my train of thought. Another arch example was the embassies in Africa which were attacked, and our response was this utterly meaningless Clinton's response pinprick dropping of a few bombs. Basically, it's like putting holes in the desert. Utterly meaningless.
Now, at the same time, I want you to get what is developing here. There's a continuous, progressive assault on America, on life, liberty and property -- and add to that the fact that it's not really the indigenous goons and terrorists that these countries cook up by themselves.
America -- during the Afghan war when the Soviet Union was occupying Afghanistan, and there were the right-wing maniacs from Afghanistan who were opposing them -- America poured, under Reagan, billions of dollars and countless expertise into building up the Afghan terrorists on the right, on the religious right. Reagan said, in so many words, "These are our allies because they're anti-Communist, just the way we are."
If you trace bin Laden and all this sudden rise in terrorism, they go back to Afghanistan, where the schools were established, the logistics was taught and the money was poured in by the Reagan administration. We not only told the terrorist countries of the world, "Do whatever you want; we will do nothing," on top of that we poured in the money and created the terrorists to do it. So, it can hardly be a surprise that these people are doing now the worst atrocities in the world.
But this is not the worst thing. The worst thing, having told these governments it's wide open; you can use our money and expertise to train these people, and you, the Iranian government, and you, the Afghanistan government, can get away with murder. We knowing this -- we now, when we have a crime like the first bombing of the World Trade Tower, or the embassies in Africa, we now decide that the only way to go about this is by collecting forensic evidence, not jumping to conclusions and treating it as a crime of discreet individuals and we have to find that Mr. Smith wearing a black tie with such-and-such fingerprints could be seen -- this is fantastic!
This is exactly like being at war with Nazi Germany, and somebody blows up an installation in the United States, and we say, "Well, we don't want to jump to conclusions. We have to find out the fingerprints of the guy who dropped it and show that it was this member of the SS and not that member of the SS."
We are at war, here. This is not an individual; this is not bin Laden. This is a war by Afghanistan, Iran, and the other terrorist-sponsoring countries, against the United States. These terrorists, including bin Laden, couldn't get anything. They couldn't get started without the complicity, the sanctuary, the assistance, and the sanction that they get from the governments of these countries. I just heard a Clinton advisor saying, "We mustn't leap to conclusions." That is the most immoral, vicious statement that anyone could make, because, after sixty years, if this mentality still does not know how to come to conclusions -- if he thinks that on the basis of this much evidence, coming to a conclusion is "leaping" -- then I would say that that man is mentally retarded and should be put in a mental institution.
PRODOS: But why is he saying that? Does he believe it? Or was it just a cynical exercise?
PEIKOFF: No, he doesn't believe it. He is saying that because he doesn't want trouble, because he's a pragmatist, because he doesn't want to count anybody guilty, because Christianity has taught him not to cast the first stone, not to cast moral judgments, because he's a pragmatist who just wants to gloss everything over and hope for the future. It's the same mentality as "Aprés moi, le deluge." "Let me get through the crisis, and after me, let them worry about it."
Now, there's only one proper response. Once I get this in, I'll have finished my declaration. There's only one proper response. You have to pick out the worst of the terrorist-sponsoring governments, not individual terrorists -- to hell with bin Laden -- and declare war on it. And then, by declaring war, you go there and bomb out the government; destroy the government, the civil authority, and take over those countries. And the two that have to be done are Afghanistan and Iran. Neither alone is enough. That combination will absolutely end terrorism and the threat of terrorism in this country.
It will cost us very little, because if we credibly threaten this, they would lay down their arms right now. The point is that nobody believes the United States, now. Nobody. Therefore, what we need is to take the strongest armament that we possess and tell those countries: "You've got seven days to get rid of the military, to disarm entirely, have the government resign, to have a peaceful pro-Western government installed, to uproot all the terrorists and jail them; raze and destroy all your terrorist training facilities -- seven days. If at that time it's not done, your capital is going to be blown back into the Stone Age, both Tehran, Kabul." If that's not enough, turn the whole country back to the Stone Age.
And believe me, if we dropped one bomb with that degree of righteousness, that's the end. Every single person in the Mideast would bow down and say, "Leave the United States alone." That includes the Palestinians. It would be the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because the Palestinians only get their supply from this stream of terrorists. That's my solution. That's the only solution, and any other solution, in my opinion, is simply immoral.
PRODOS: Right. Well that's very interesting, Dr. Peikoff. That sort of sheds some light on those snickering lads at Notturno's Café in Lygon Street today in Melbourne. It makes me think that what they were actually snickering about was -- when they saw these Trade Center towers falling, they didn't think about the thousands of people that were dying -- what they thought about was, "Those guys are weaklings." Is that what these terrorists think of America?
PEIKOFF: Well, there is a tremendous hatred of America, not for any of the alleged grievances they have, but because America is the last bastion of individualism, of the right to happiness, of secularism, of all the things they hate. These people are brought up as thorough collectivists. They are nothing, apart from their group, their race, their ethnic tribe. They are brought up that this life is nothing, and that the goal -- the highest mission, according to their religion -- is a suicide, a martyrdom, so that they can then go to heaven and join their god. They are brought up as the worst of what used to be the medieval period in the United States -- in the West.
PRODOS: Right.
PEIKOFF: If you took a Christian from the ninth and tenth century, and you brought him to the United States, he would think it's the most immoral, evil country, that he could dream of. All this money, all this pursuit of pleasure, this scorn for religion, which is really endemic to the United States, the enjoyment of this life on earth -- he would think that's a total crime, and that is the mentality that rules in the Arab Mideast world.
And therefore, on philosophic grounds, they hate the United States worse than anything, because of what it stands for.
PRODOS: Is there anybody that doesn't hate the United States?
PEIKOFF: Yes, I don't think the British hate the United States. I don't even think the French or Italians do. You know, there's some rivalry. The French, on a superficial level, want to be the leaders, but they don't hate the United States. Western Europe does not hate the United States.
What hates the United States is the truly backward, and that means the profoundly religious, collectivist dictatorial areas of the world, and that's the Russians, and then, everything going east, including the Mideast.
PRODOS: Right. What do you suppose countries like Afghanistan and Iran make of these anti-capitalist demonstrations rampaging throughout the West today?
PEIKOFF: They think it's wonderful.
PRODOS: Do they gain strength from that, and courage?
PEIKOFF: Yes, absolutely, absolutely. All these leftist demonstrations, trying to tear down the West, are simply playing absolutely into the hands of the terrorists. They are giving them moral support. They are saying, "The same hatred of the United States and its institutions which you have, we within the United States have." They're brothers together. They are complicit. They are confederates. They are accessories before the crime, of the Mideast terrorists. And I say that, without any hesitation, about any anti-American leftist, or any ecologist movement that wants to see the industrial revolution torn down, and have us brought back to the sands of Egypt as our standard of living.
PRODOS: Yes. You've mentioned earlier, the problem with focusing on forensic evidence and trying to track down supposedly responsible individuals. You are opposed to that. It's funny, because when I heard the Clinton, former Clinton advisor, on radio saying those things, a funny thing happened in my brain when he said that. I kind of went all fuzzy. Something, I felt, was very wrong about that, but I found it hard to really find an argument against it. It just seemed so fair.
PEIKOFF: Well, the argument against it is, when a domestic citizen of your country commits the crime, he is still considered to be a citizen of the country, innocent until proven guilty. But when you retaliate against a foreign country; when an individual is known to be acting with the protection, and under the sanction of the foreign government, then the enemy is the foreign government, and that means that it's the entire country that it controls. And therefore, you don't properly focus on the particular agent of that government which committed the crime; you focus on the government that is the mastermind of the crime.
Here's the difference. If a guy walks down the street in front of your house and lobs poison gas into your house, and he's a free individual, you call the police and go after him. But if down the street there's an entire mob run by the Mafia, and they send out one hit man, rather than another, you don't look for the fingerprints of which hit man it is; you have to blow up the nest. And that is exactly the difference.
PRODOS: Right, right. Well, I suppose it works in the other direction, the positive direction, as well, because, for example, if a university's turning out really good students, then you want to invest your money. You might not invest it in a particular student. You may invest in the cause, you know, the effect that is created, the university.
PEIKOFF: That is so hypothetical that it's hard for me to follow, because the concept of a university turning out good students is virtually a self-contradiction.
PRODOS: Why is that? You think they're so bad, today?
PEIKOFF: Oh, I mean, they're so corrupt. Where do you think all the anti-Americanism is coming from, if not from the universities. They are the educators of the whole world, including the Mideast. I'd say, Harvard is more responsible for the terrorism, than any other institution in the world.
PRODOS: Harvard?
PEIKOFF: Harvard University, yes. It's the example and the pacesetter of American education, to which all these people come -- their intellectuals come. They get utterly brainwashed, and then they go home and say, "You see, our primitive Islamic traditional collectivism is the latest word in the highest culture, as evidenced by Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Berkeley, Stanford, et cetera. You know, most of the world hates America, and at the same time, we're the highest, the greatest power. And if the intellectuals of America spread the gospel of anti-Americanism and of altruism and collectivism, they're the ones responsible for the fact that the primitives around the world are righteous about it, instead of feeling guilty and repressing it the way they did a hundred years ago.
PRODOS: Well, you know, I meet a lot of Americans here in Melbourne, traveling through. Actually, fans often come and visit me over here, which is wonderful. Please keep doing it. And, I must say, I love Americans, and I can understand the problems you're outlining, Dr. Peikoff, but I feel that Americans can still win this war.
PEIKOFF: Oh, Americans can, if only Americans had a say. But, you see, in America, there's a total split between the intellectuals and the public. The public has good instincts. The public still basically sets the framework of America, but the intellectuals hate it with a passion; the main reason being -- if you've read any of my books -- is that the intellectuals, for a long, long time now, have been educated in Germany.
And, Germany -- especially the philosophy of Kant and Hegel and Marx -- has impregnated the intellectuals with the idea of self-sacrifice, service, statism -- you know, the whole welfare state was started by Bismark. The whole concept of socialism was started by Fichte; the whole concept of Communism, by Marx; of Nazism -- every form of corrupt ethics and politics goes back to 19th century Germany. The whole essence of American education, from the mid-19th century on, was to send graduate students to Germany.
And that's what completely subverted the American Revolution. You should read my first book, called The Ominous Parallels. I don't mean to give myself a plug here, but I cased it out step-by-step, in that book: the Germanization and, therefore, the destruction of America. It's a study of the parallels between America today, and Germany before Hitler.
PRODOS: You've got to give us something positive, Leonard.
PEIKOFF: Well, I'll give you another book. I'll give you a positive book of mine, called Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, which is the answer to what's going on today.
PRODOS: So, everyone should read that? Is that going to solve these problems?
PEIKOFF: I'd be happy if they read it.
PRODOS: Okay, you got it from the top, folks. At a more practical level, is there any solution in the next week, in the next month.
PEIKOFF: There's no solution in the next week. There's no solution, until you have enough of an educational change in this country, so that there's a vocal group advocating the right solutions, who can be heard - who can be heard on the media, who write books, who write articles, who create a different intellectual atmosphere.
PRODOS: Maybe that's happening already.
PEIKOFF: You can't short-circuit the educational process. The question is this: Can you educate enough decent young people to save the country, before the current establishment has been totally eviscerated and taken over by the barbarians? That's the question. It's like, ancient Rome is falling; Attila is knocking at the door. Is there going to be any kind of moral and intellectual renaissance, or are we going to just roll over, that's the end -- the way it was in the ancient world? That's the question. It's an issue of timing.
PRODOS: Okay, as you've been listening to the commentaries on the current tragedy, Dr. Peikoff, using some philosophical detection and your insight, do you get any clues that someone's got the right idea? Does George Bush have the right idea?
PEIKOFF: Oh, George Bush. If he can make such a statement as, "We're going to find the folks that did this," leaving aside the Texas hominess of finding the "folks," which I find offensive, we know the folks who did this. The folks who did this are the governments of Afghanistan and Iran, as a starter, as I've explained. There's nobody to look for. There's no need to call in the FBI or the CIA. There's a need to call in the military, that's it, and have an immediate military response, which should be there now.
There should be no criminal investigation, looking for the culprit. So, for him to make that statement is simply to show that he's the son of his father, worse than which I could not say about any human being.
PRODOS: So, if you don't see an ultimatum given to Afghanistan and to Iran very soon, then America is in for more problems. And, of course, if America is going down the hole, we're all going to go.
PEIKOFF: Yes. If there is not that kind of response, believe me, this country is going to be assaulted in every direction, across the country. And you're quite right. If they start and make a beachhead in this country, Western Europe and Australia and Israel and Taiwan -- any place left is going to go, because this world will not survive, the West will not survive, without America. And if they can get away with causing the American government to close down its airports, evacuate its government, empty the White House -- I mean, Disneyland is closed because they're terrified that they're going to become a symbol. If this is the response of the United States: close down everything, send out some FBI agents, so maybe two years from now they'll find one agent of bin Laden - or it may even be bin Laden himself. Suppose they caught him; there'd be 4,000 others waiting to take his place. He'd become a martyr and a saint.
PRODOS: So you're saying, "Keep Disneyland open. Keep people, the streets, the traffic moving. But send out the jets."
PEIKOFF: Yes, first send out the jets. And then you don't have to worry about what are they going to do to Disneyland or any place else.
PRODOS: Fantastic.
PEIKOFF: You don't even have to monitor the borders anymore, because the moral climate will be such that they will feel guilty, themselves. But it's not enough to send out bombers; you have to make a moral statement to the world. Bush would have to go on television and say, "That's it. This is what America stands for. You people are the exact opposite. We're not tolerating it any more. We're not tolerating your religious, self-sacrificial exaltation of martyrdom and of destruction of us. These are our principles. This is the Declaration of Independence. And if we don't get total capitulation in the next, as I said, I'm not going to repeat, seven days, this is what's going to happen." And then he's going to have to actually drop some bombs, because they won't believe him. But once he does that, that will be the end.
PRODOS: Right.
PEIKOFF: But, if he doesn't do that, it's going to be the end of us, one way or the other.
PRODOS: Dr. Leonard Peikoff, thank you very much for joining us on Prodos.com.
PEIKOFF: Thank you for having me.
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