Bush Plays the Palace. A smashing London performance.

NRO ^ | November 19, 2003, 1:24 p.m. | Clifford May

[.cnI redruM]

President Bush's "Three Pillars" speech at Whitehall Palace today may have been the most significant of his presidency. What's more, he was almost as eloquent as Tony Blair. It must be something in the British water — or tea.

Politically, his message was bad news for the neo-isolationist Right and the post-humanitarian Left. Bush made it clear that he believes freedom is the predicate for peace. He said plainly that he will not shy away from using "force when necessary in the defense of freedom." He added:

[W]e cannot turn a blind eye to oppression just because the oppression is not in our own backyard. No longer should we think tyranny is benign because it is temporarily convenient. Tyranny is never benign to its victims, and our great democracies should oppose tyranny wherever it is found.

He reiterated the core insight of his administration, an idea that has yet to sink in with many people in Europe — and with many in the U.S. as well:

The greatest threat of our age is nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons in the hands of terrorists, and the dictators who aid them. The evil is in plain sight. The danger only increases with denial. Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies. We will face these threats with open eyes, and we will defeat them.

Bush paid homage to two predecessors: Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat who, like Bush, believed that democracies have a right to defend themselves and an obligation to defend one another. He echoed President Reagan who stood up to the intellectual elites who insisted on a moral equivalence between the free world and the Soviet Empire.

When he alluded to Europe's past mistakes — Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler at Munich, which led to the Blitz and Auschwitz — Bush also was paying tribute to Winston Churchill and, in a way, to Tony Blair. He spoke out specifically against the stunning reemergence of European antisemitism.

He called for what one might term a muscular multilateralism. He said that a U.N. that ignores oppression and aggression, that issues resolutions but shows no resolve, cannot play a serious role in world affairs.

There were no apologies in this speech. And Bush's message of "no retreat" in Iraq could not have been more forcefully stated. Note, in particular, these passages:

Whatever has come before, we now have only two options: to keep our word, or to break our word. The failure of democracy in Iraq would throw its people back into misery and turn that country over to terrorists who wish to destroy us. ...We did not charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq and pay a bitter cost of casualties, and liberate 25 million people, only to retreat before a band of thugs and assassins. Let's hope that folks at State, the Pentagon, the CIA, and Congress were listening — and that they remember who signs their paychecks.

The Democratic presidential candidates also should be asked to agree or disagree. And let's understand that those who say they want no retreat but do want a turnover of Iraq to the U.N. are, in fact, advocating both retreat and defeat. No one can really believe that what the world's only superpower won't do, Kofi Annan's blue helmets will do.

Nor did Bush shy away from putting a moral frame around his policies. Americans, he said without embarrassment, "are a religious people." He reminded his audience that Britain's opposition to slavery sprang from religious conviction. Had realists favoring stability been in charge, slave ships would still be plying the Atlantic today. (He didn't quite say that — but I do.)

Bush did not back off his new paradigm of the Arab-Israeli conflict. As he first said in his June 24, 2002, speech, the Palestinians can have a state — or they can have terrorism and corruption. But they can't have both, not with U.S. support, anyway. He asked the Europeans to stop pretending that Yasser Arafat is anything but a terrorist and an obstacle to peace.

One more thing: Bush's timing is getting better. His jokes were well-delivered. And for the first time that I've seen, his facial expressions synchronized to what he was saying. All in all, a jolly good performance.

[Eurotwit]

I think you agree with me that freerepublic really needs a debate to define the conservative cause.

Cheers.

[Wolfstar]

Ridiculous!

[My2Cents]

Major dittos.

[JohnGalt]

I would like to agree with you, but I went and checked the homepage, just to be sure of course, and no mention of the 'Global Democratic Revolution' could be found.


Best to you and God's Speed Liberty to your homeland,

[JohnGalt]

Proclaiming your support for the Global Democratic Revolution sounds more like French liberalism or certainly Trotsky if you don't want to go back 200 years; certainly, that rhetoric has no place in American politics let alone American conservative politics.

[Southack]

"I guess I just don't fear cave dwellers the way some of you all do. At the least I understand how the John Birch Society filled its ranks in the 1950s, only the Soviet Union and Communism was an actual thing to fear. I suppose myself and other Americans are just made of stiffer stock."

No, it's just that most Americans have recognized that the "cave dwellers" finally figured out how to hijack and fly our own planes into our own buildings. Then they figured out how to make (possibly in their caves) and deliver anthrax through our own postal system. Then they figured out that they could send snipers to our Capitol and suicide bombers into our warships, hospitals, and embassies.

Once these Americans realized that the world's "cave dwellers" weren't going to be content to remain passively inside their caves, they apparently decided to start doing *something* about it.

Which is lucky for the cave dwellers. Had it been me in charge, I would have nuked entire continents. Then I would have unleashed chemical and biological weapons upon the survivors. I would have wanted to reset the entire planet and start all over with just our own continent. After all, I was pretty pissed off on 9/11/2001. Lucky for our enemies and those unfortunate enough to be near them, cooler heads than mine prevailed here in the U.S.

Instead, we'll compassionately use very limited force in very limited areas such as Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, Liberia, and possibly Cuba to ensure that your "cave dwellers" figure out that the U.S. is serious and that their own survival interests favor peace.

Of course, we may just be one or two successful large-scale terrorist attacks against us away - for people like me to come into power, and a far less compassionate solution being applied globally.

And that's what appeasers and terrorists should fear; someone far less compassionate than Bush or Cheney being in charge while the U.S. is being attacked.

GWB is a much better man than people like me, after all, and they would be wise to be thankful for that fact.

[JohnGalt]

I always figured Al Gore would have been loonier than Bush, for that I am thankful that Bush won in 2000.


Actually, 9/11 was the result of a disarmed public, an incompetent trillion dollar central intelligence aparatus, socialized air lines, lax immigration laws that let the barbarians in the front door, and a cultural problem that only began to be correct with the brave defense of the herd by Todd Beamer and crew.

But rather than hold the gubmint accountible, the Congress blamed the whole thing on minimum wage baggage handlers, debt issued $200 billion to attack a secular nation 10,000 miles away fought by teenage girls, and the American people, thus far went along with it.

9/11 changed nothing, indeed.

[Quix]

AMEN!

[Don Corleone]

So sending teenage girls from West Virginia to act as human bait in a $200 billion debt financed nation-building project is the 'brave thing' to do?

She voluntered you dolt! Something you were probably not brave enough to do. Riding on a girls skirt I would say!

[pattycake]

Bush's speech was perfect. He never appologized for what we are doing in Iraq, he laid out all the facts and how anyone can deny that what we did to free 25M Iraqi's and promote democracy for peace in the Middle East is wrong, well I just don't get it.

[jackbill]

I'm proud of the President also even though I'm not an American!

You sound a lot more American than a lot of folks over here. Welcome home - as long as you promise not to vote for a Kennedy.

[Redleg Duke]

Have you any idea of how pathetic that sounded?

[Redleg Duke]

Sounds like your right brain has withered...what did you forget?

[Redleg Duke]

Funny how you try to hide behind "Other Americans".

[Pietro]

"I think you agree with me that freerepublic really needs a debate to define the conservative cause."

Actually, that debate takes place daily, however, you shouldn't confuse libertarians with conservatives, the two are quite distinct and have very little in common.

Many libertarians post on FR. They are convinced that the GOP and the dims are actually in collusion to destroy the nation. They hate W.

They are currently trying to decide which state they should all move to in order to establish utopia.

Frankly, I'm hoping they settle on Uzbekistan.

[edchambers]

ok.... i don't like the US's imperialism.. i dont like the fact that we r the worlds 911..

heavy sigh, isolationists, pacifists,liberals and terrorists just don't get it .Wake up and smell the napalm this nation was born in conflict and has managed to find one somewhere in almost every generation since.Hell, if ya leave us alone too long we'll even fight each other.We are the descendants of the survivors of these conflicts so I guess you could say it's in our blood.We've tried isolationism,free trade,diplomacy and charity and we get the short end of the stick every time. But God help you if you give us a reason to fight.This has nothing to do with imperialism and everything to do with taking the fight to our enemy's who coincidentally attacked us first and have stupidly given US an excuse to do exactly what we do best.

[ridesthemiles]

Outstanding.......

[Southack]

"Actually, 9/11 was the result of a disarmed public, an incompetent trillion dollar central intelligence aparatus, socialized air lines, lax immigration laws that let the barbarians in the front door... the Congress blamed the whole thing on minimum wage baggage handlers, debt issued $200 billion to attack a secular nation 10,000 miles away fought by teenage girls, and the American people, thus far went along with it."

Thinking like that confuses the side effects with the disease.

9/11's fault was due to the terrorists.

Getting past that core point, the terrorists felt emboldened because they hadn't seen sufficient violence.

The less they saw of such deterrence, the less they became deterred. They got away with Somalia, the WTC in '93, the Murrah Building in '95, the USS Cole in '9x, the U.S. embassies in Africa in '98, and then Boom, they struck again on 9/11/01. They had grown bolder.

Fixing our immigration problems wouldn't have stopped them. Nor would a better airport security system, even if privatized. In fact, Bin Laden first tried to *buy* a jet to do the ramming. It's still sitting on the ground in Africa, buried in sand and unflyable due to a lack of maintenance. Such jets can be flown *directly* into the U.S. from a foreign land, too.

Nor can we defend every nook and cranny in the U.S., or every U.S. tourist who travels abroad.

But what we can do is smash little pipsqueaks here and there. We can take away their little fiefdoms in Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Liberia, and elsewhere.

And we don't have to do such things with conventional forces. Sure, that would be the nice, civilized thing to do, and that's probably *how* we'll handle these rats, but it isn't our only option.

If we want them gone, then gone they will be. Boom.

And if knocking a government or two out of power won't deter them, then we'll up the ante. In truth, we can escalate the violence to levels from which their civilizations and people can *not* survive in even the most primitive form or fashion.

What these people are...are amatuers. They have the equivilent of spears against a space-faring, nuclear-armed, chemical-warhead-possessing, biological innovator of a nation that can eradicate them with a pollitically incorrect push of a button, if we are so provoked.

The whole *concept* of using violence against such a nation, especially such weak and feeble violence as four passenger planes and a few anthrax envelopes, to achieve any goal whatsoever is irrational on its very face.

Should they actually succeed in provoking us to any large extent, then there is no question that they will bring about their own immediate extinction.

And other than that, they will be deterred.

[JohnGalt]

That would be you, Herr Keyboard Patriot.

"Please, cave dwellers, don't hurt me!"

[JohnGalt]

There are lots of Marxists on this site who think because they support Republicans they are conservatives, even as they cheer on the Global Democratic Revolution like a typical Red from the 30s.


Most of us real conservatives on this board support W.