Freud believed the death instinct sometimes gets turned outward, and then we hurt and offend others and go to war (the opposite of suicide). Rochlin, another psychoanalyst, believes aggression is our way of recovering lost pride. Given the common human need to feel powerful and to think highly of ourselves, any threat to our self-esteem is taken as a hostile attack. When our pride is hurt, we often attempt to restore our status and self-esteem by hurting the person who offended us. Communism in its original meaning is a social theory and political movement for the direct and communal control of society towards the common benefits of all members. South Vietnam was fighting for its life against a brutal campaign of terror and armed attack inspired, directed, supplied, and controlled by the Communist regime in Hanoi. This flagrant aggression had been going on for years, but the pace has quickened and the threat had become acute. The war in Vietnam was a new kind of war, a fact that was poorly understood in most parts of the world. …
