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Washington, D.C. -- July 18, 2003
Thank you. Mr. Speaker and Mr. Vice-President,
honorable members of Congress, I'm deeply touched by that warm and
generous welcome. That's more than I deserve and more than I'm used
to, quite frankly.
And let me begin by thanking you most sincerely for voting to award
me the Congressional Gold Medal. But you, like me, know who the real
heroes are: those brave service men and women, yours and ours, who
fought the war and risk their lives still. And our tribute to them
should be measured in this way, by showing them and their families
that they did not strive or die in vain, but that through their
sacrifice future generations can live in greater peace, prosperity
and hope.
Let me also express my gratitude to President Bush. Through the
troubled times since September the 11th changed our world, we have
been allies and friends. Thank you, Mr. President, for your
leadership.
Mr. Speaker, sir, my thrill on receiving this award was only a
little diminished on being told that the first Congressional Gold
Medal was awarded to George Washington for what Congress called his
'wise and spirited conduct' in getting rid of the British out of
Boston. On our way down here, Senator Frist was kind enough to show
me the fireplace where, in 1814, the British had burnt the Congress
Library. I know this is kind of late, but sorry.
Actually, you know, my middle son was studying 18th century history
and the American War of Independence, and he said to me the other
day, 'You know Lord North Dad? He was the British prime minister who
lost us America. So just think, however many mistakes you'll make,
you'll never make one that bad.'
Members of Congress, I feel a most urgent sense of mission about
today's world. September the 11th was not an isolated event, but a
tragic prologue, Iraq another act, and many further struggles will
be set upon this stage before it's over.
There never has been a time when the power of America was so
necessary or so misunderstood, or when, except in the most general
sense, a study of history provides so little instruction for our
present day.
We were all reared on battles between great warriors, between great
nations, between powerful forces and ideologies that dominated
entire continents. And these were struggles for conquest, for land,
or money, and the wars were fought by massed armies. And the leaders
were openly acknowledged, the outcomes decisive.
Today, none of us expect our soldiers to fight a war on our own
territory. The immediate threat is not conflict between the world's
most powerful nations. And why? Because we all have too much to
lose. Because technology, communication, trade and travel are
bringing us ever closer together. Because in the last 50 years,
countries like yours and mine have tripled their growth and standard
of living. Because even those powers like Russia or China or India
can see the horizon, the future wealth, clearly and know they are on
a steady road toward it. And because all nations that are free value
that freedom, will defend it absolutely, but have no wish to trample
on the freedom of others.
We are bound together as never before. And this coming together
provides us with unprecedented opportunity but also makes us
uniquely vulnerable. And the threat comes because in another part of
our globe there is shadow and darkness, where not all the world is
free, where many millions suffer under brutal dictatorship, where a
third of our planet lives in a poverty beyond anything even the
poorest in our societies can imagine, and where a fanatical strain
of religious extremism has arisen, that is a mutation of the true
and peaceful faith of Islam.
And because in the combination of these afflictions a new and deadly
virus has emerged. The virus is terrorism whose intent to inflict
destruction is unconstrained by human feeling and whose capacity to
inflict it is enlarged by technology.
This is a battle that can't be fought or won only by armies. We are
so much more powerful in all conventional ways than the terrorists,
yet even in all our might, we are taught humility. In the end, it is
not our power alone that will defeat this evil. Our ultimate weapon
is not our guns, but our beliefs.
There is a myth that though we love freedom, others don't; that our
attachment to freedom is a product of our culture; that freedom,
democracy, human rights, the rule of law are American values, or
Western values; that Afghan women were content under the lash of the
Taliban; that Saddam was somehow beloved by his people; that
Milosevic was Serbia's savior.
Members of Congress, ours are not Western values, they are the
universal values of the human spirit. And anywhere, any time
ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the
same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of
law, not the rule of the secret police.
The spread of freedom is the best security for the free. It is our
last line of defense and our first line of attack. And just as the
terrorist seeks to divide humanity in hate, so we have to unify it
around an idea. And that idea is liberty. We must find the strength
to fight for this idea and the compassion to make it universal.
Abraham Lincoln said, 'Those that deny freedom to others deserve it
not for themselves.' And it is this sense of justice that makes
moral the love of liberty.
"In some cases where our security is under direct threat, we will
have recourse to arms. In others, it will be by force of reason. But
in all cases, to the same end: that the liberty we seek is not for
some but for all, for that is the only true path to victory in this
struggle. But first we must explain the danger.
Our new world rests on order. The danger is disorder. And in today's
world, it can now spread like contagion. The terrorists and the
states that support them don't have large armies or precision
weapons; they don't need them. Their weapon is chaos.
The purpose of terrorism is not the single act of wanton
destruction. It is the reaction it seeks to provoke: economic
collapse, the backlash, the hatred, the division, the elimination of
tolerance, until societies cease to reconcile their differences and
become defined by them. Kashmir, the Middle East, Chechnya,
Indonesia, Africa - barely a continent or nation is unscathed.
The risk is that terrorism and states developing weapons of mass
destruction come together. And when people say, 'That risk is
fanciful,' I say we know the Taliban supported al-Qaeda. We know
Iraq under Saddam gave haven to and supported terrorists. We know
there are states in the Middle East now actively funding and helping
people, who regard it as God's will in the act of suicide to take as
many innocent lives with them on their way to God's judgment.
Some of these states are desperately trying to acquire nuclear
weapons. We know that companies and individuals with expertise sell
it to the highest bidder, and we know that at least one state, North
Korea, lets its people starve while spending billions of dollars on
developing nuclear weapons and exporting the technology abroad.
This isn't fantasy, it is 21st-century reality, and it confronts us
now. Can we be sure that terrorism and weapons of mass destruction
will join together? Let us say one thing: If we are wrong, we will
have destroyed a threat that at its least is responsible for inhuman
carnage and suffering. That is something I am confident history will
forgive.
But if our critics are wrong, if we are right, as I believe with
every fiber of instinct and conviction I have that we are, and we do
not act, then we will have hesitated in the face of this menace when
we should have given leadership. That is something history will not
forgive.
But precisely because the threat is new, it isn't obvious. It turns
upside-down our concepts of how we should act and when, and it
crosses the frontiers of many nations. So just as it redefines our
notions of security, so it must refine our notions of diplomacy.
There is no more dangerous theory in international politics than
that we need to balance the power of America with other competitive
powers; different poles around which nations gather.
Such a theory may have made sense in 19th-century Europe. It was
perforce the position in the Cold War. Today, it is an anachronism
to be discarded like traditional theories of security. And it is
dangerous because it is not rivalry but partnership we need; a
common will and a shared purpose in the face of a common threat.
And I believe any alliance must start with America and Europe. If
Europe and America are together, the others will work with us. If we
split, the rest will play around, play us off and nothing but
mischief will be the result of it.
You may think after recent disagreements it can't be done, but the
debate in Europe is open. Iraq showed that when, never forget, many
European nations supported our action.
And it shows it still when those that didn't agreed Resolution 1483
in the United Nations for Iraq's reconstruction. Today, German
soldiers lead in Afghanistan, French soldiers lead in the Congo
where they stand between peace and a return to genocide.
So we should not minimize the differences, but we should not let
them confound us either. You know, people ask me after the past
months when, let's say, things were a trifle strained in Europe,
'Why do you persist in wanting Britain at the center of Europe?' And
I say, 'Well, maybe if the UK were a group of islands 20 miles off
Manhattan, I might feel differently. But actually, we're 20 miles
off Calais and joined by a tunnel.'
We are part of Europe, and we want to be. But we also want to be
part of changing Europe. Europe has one potential for weakness. For
reasons that are obvious, we spent roughly a thousand years killing
each other in large numbers.
The political culture of Europe is inevitably rightly based on
compromise. Compromise is a fine thing except when based on an
illusion. And I don't believe you can compromise with this new form
of terrorism.
But Europe has a strength. It is a formidable political achievement.
Think of the past and think of the unity today. Think of it
preparing to reach out even to Turkey - a nation of vastly different
culture, tradition, religion - and welcome it in. But my real point
is this: now Europe is at the point of transformation. Next year, 10
new countries will join. Romania and Bulgaria will follow. Why will
these new European members transform Europe? Because their scars are
recent, their memories strong, their relationship with freedom still
one of passion, not comfortable familiarity.
They believe in the trans-Atlantic alliance. They support economic
reform. They want a Europe of nations, not a super state. They are
our allies and they are yours. So don't give up on Europe. Work with
it.
To be a serious partner, Europe must take on and defeat the
anti-Americanism that sometimes passes for its political discourse.
And what America must do is show that this is a partnership built on
persuasion, not command. Then the other great nations of our world
and the small will gather around in one place, not many. And our
understanding of this threat will become theirs. And the United
Nations can then become what it should be: an instrument of action
as well as debate. |
