MARINA DEL REY, CA -- On the eve of the 60th anniversary marking the start of World War II, the U.S. has yet to learn that war's lesson, said a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute.
     "Just as the free countries of Europe appeased Hitler in the 1930s, American foreign policymakers today are appeasing China by agreeing that Taiwan should not declare its independence," said Robert Tracinski. "Today's pattern is parallel to that of 1930s Europe: strident moral certainty on the part of dictators met by mealy-mouthed compromise on the part of free nations."
     Tracinski noted that World War II was caused by the free European nations' continued moral weakness. They allowed the remilitarization of the Rhineland and the annexation of the Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia, in the face of Hitler's strident moralizing, emboldening the dictator into further aggression.
     "The truth is that the nations best representing freedom and individual rights lost the certainty of their own moral convictions," said Tracinski. "They were unable to muster the moral confidence necessary to act in defense of their own freedom. The result was a world war and 57 million dead, including 293,000 American servicemen."
     Tracinski said the United States's persistent lack of moral certainty is fueling several other potential American foreign policy disasters.
     "In Iraq, where a nationalist dictator is attempting to develop weapons of mass destruction, we have done everything but take action to stop him," he said. "North Korea is building missiles and developing nuclear weapons to use against our allies in Asia; our response has been to appease them with money and aid."