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All these arguments eventually hinge on the question of proportion: whether the toll in death and pain is proportionate to the possible gains. The most vocal critics of U.S. policy answer no, but for various reasons. Scarcely anyone argues that a favorable outcome in Viet Nam is essential to American survival. On the other hand, few would agree with the position at the opposite extreme—taken by U Thant, among others—that Viet Nam is completely unimportant to U.S. interests. Chicago Professor Hans Morgenthau, a strong critic of U.S. participation in Viet Nam, defines that what is moral is what is dictated by "the national interest, rightly understood." The essence of the debate is about a right understanding of the national interest.
The liberal Roman Catholic magazine Commonweal echoes a widespread opinion when it admits that the outcome of the war will make a difference but maintains that it can not be "the decisive difference needed to justify a war that will last longer than any America has ever fought, employ more U.S. troops than in Korea, cost more than all the aid we have ever given to developing nations . . . kill and maim far more Vietnamese than a Communist regime would have liquidated . . . The evil outweighs the good." The difficulty in this position is that it involves all kinds of intangible calculations, judgments and prophecies. Who can really balance the destruction of war against the slaughter of political enemies that would result from a Communist take over? Who can really count future casualties in Viet Nam and weigh them against the casualties of another war that might have to be fought later in Thailand? These are agonizing questions, on which decent men can reach different conclusions. Even, says Professor Ramsey, if the conflict in South Viet Nam itself were to destroy "more values than there is hope of gaining, one must not forget that there are more values and securities and freedoms" to be reckoned with beyond Viet Nam—in Asia and elsewhere in the world.
Path of Love
This is acknowledged in principle by many of the critics, who concede that one cannot rule out the need for violence in the fight for justice and who can even visualize hypothetical future wars or revolutions (for example in Latin America) against unjust or tyrannical regimes; yet they feel that this does not apply to Viet Nam. The evil represented by Communism simply is not as clear or overwhelming in the minds of most people today as was the evil of Nazism. Britain's Oestreicher allows that "tyranny is not peace" and believes that the use of violence against tyranny may be moral (for instance, the Hungarian uprising), but at the same time condemns the Vietnamese war as unjust. The Archbishop of Canterbury defends the U.S. right to be in Viet Nam because it is there "with the right motive, withstanding Communist aggression," but refuses to concede that any modern war can be just.