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  hroughout our history, the United States has generally been saved from self-destructive folly by our enemies. We are, after all, the first people in human history to believe that peace is the normal condition of mankind, and thus we have never been prepared for our enemies' attack. We were torpedoed into the First World War on the North Atlantic. We were providentially bombed into the Second World War in the Pacific. We were roused from our dreams of peace by Stalin and forced into the Cold War. And we were dragged, kicking and screaming, into the Gulf War by Saddam. All these enemies of freedom convinced themselves that we were too soft to fight, too self-indulgent, too comfortable, too isolationist, and too weak to be able to threaten them. We were seen as ready to be had, and so they sought to intimidate us, to confront us with a devastating fait accompli, knowing, even as far back as the second decade of the twentieth century, that America was their ultimate enemy, and they had to deal with us, or perish. The same thing has happened again, and we should not be dazzled by the scores of blithering heads with their efforts to cloud what is a very clear picture. We do not know precisely who did this vile thing, but we do know why they did it. They did it because their dreams of power and glory, or of revenge and havoc, cannot be fulfilled so long as we stand. They are not, as one journalist put it to me a few minutes ago, "sending a message." They are killing us. And they are killing us because we are in their way, all over the world. We are in their way in the Middle East, where we stubbornly stand with Israel. We are in their way in Africa, where we refuse to accept their racist attacks against the Jews. We are in their way in Asia, where we insist on defending the freedom of Taiwan, and we are in their way in Europe, where we insist that the free countries of the West be able to defend themselves against missile attack. That is why they hate us, and that is why they are killing us. While we sort through the ashes and the debris, and mourn our friends (the wonderful Barbara Olson died on the airplane that was supposed to take her to Los Angeles, but instead was hijacked and blasted into the Pentagon), the first order of business is to show these animals that we are not intimidated. Show them, not tell them. The Middle East is the first place to start. Arafat's people were overjoyed at the news of our dead, so he is no longer acceptable in civilized society. Never again. Those dancing, jubilant Palestinians were carrying out the wishes of their leaders, and we don't welcome those who celebrate mass murder of Americans. Their disgusting revelry shows, once and for all, that they do not distinguish between us and the Israelis. They want us all dead. That being the case, we have to make it clear that no one can drive a wedge between us and the only free people in the Middle East. And we are not going to be satisfied with some defensive wall to protect Israel from these killers. We must take the battle to them, together. If they kill us together, they will have to fight us together. Again, moving our embassy to Jerusalem will further demonstrate our resolve. It does not seem possible that this well-planned, well-organized assault could be carried out by a small terrorist group. I cannot imagine that there is no government behind it. It is implausible to suggest, as so many have, that a single Sheikh, bin Laden, or whoever, could have done it all. It reeks of an official intelligence service. Now that we have been attacked, our allies will suddenly grasp their own peril. They have lived in a fool's paradise ever since the fall of Communism, believing that they could denounce us when it served their domestic political ambitions, confident that we would defend them against any and all threats. Now they will fear that we may draw inward, and leave them to their own devices. I promise you that we are now receiving information from our allies, information that they kept to themselves before this morning, information that will help us identify the criminals who organized the massacre. And I can also promise you that we have received offers of assistance, of every imaginable sort, from allies who in public have long been very sympathetic to our enemies' cause. This is different. This is war against the lone bulwark of the free world, and none of them can risk our defeat. They are ready to join the battle, if we will lead. Will we? |
