    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2002, Book I)]
    [June 1, 2002]
    [Pages 917-922]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Commencement Address at the United States Military Academy in

    West Point, New York
    June 1, 2002

        Thank you very much, General Lennox. Mr. Secretary, Governor
    Pataki, Members of the United States
    Congress, Academy staff and faculty, distinguished guests, proud family
    members, and graduates: I want to thank you for your welcome. Laura and
    I are especially honored to visit this great institution in your
    bicentennial year.
        In every corner of America, the words ``West Point'' command
    immediate respect. This place where the Hudson River bends is more than
    a fine institution of learning. The United States Military Academy is
    the guardian of values that have shaped the soldiers who have shaped the
    history of the world.
        A few of you have followed in the path of the perfect West Point
    graduate Robert E. Lee, who never received a single demerit in 4 years.
    Some of you followed in the path of the imperfect graduate Ulysses S.
    Grant, who had his fair share of demerits and said the happiest day of
    his life was ``the day I left West Point.'' [Laughter] During my college
    years, I guess you could say I was--[laughter]--during my college years,
    I guess you could say I was a Grant man. [Laughter]
        You walk in the tradition of Eisenhower and MacArthur, Patton and
    Bradley--the commanders who saved a civilization. And

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    you walk in the tradition of second lieutenants who did the same by
    fighting and dying on distant battlefields.
        Graduates of this Academy have brought creativity and courage to
    every field of endeavor. West Point produced the chief engineer of the
    Panama Canal, the mind behind the Manhattan Project, the first American
    to walk in space. This fine institution gave us the man they say
    invented baseball and other young men over the years who perfected the
    game of football. You know this, but many in America don't--George C.
    Marshall, a VMI graduate, is said to have given this order: ``I want an
    officer for a secret and dangerous mission. I want a West Point football
    player.''
        As you leave here today, I know there's one thing you'll never miss
    about this place: being a plebe. [Laughter] But even a plebe at West
    Point is made to feel he or she has some standing in the world.
    [Laughter] I'm told that plebes, when asked whom they outrank, are
    required to answer this: ``Sir, the Superintendent's dog--[laughter]--
    the Commandant's cat, and all the admirals in the whole damn Navy.'' I
    probably won't be sharing that with the Secretary of the Navy.
    [Laughter]
        West Point is guided by tradition, and in honor of the ``Golden
    Children of the Corps,'' I will observe one of the traditions you
    cherish most. As the Commander in Chief, I hereby grant amnesty to all
    cadets who are on restriction for minor conduct offenses. [Applause]
    Those of you in the end zone might have cheered a little early--
    [laughter]--because, you see, I'm going to let General Lennox define exactly what ``minor'' means.
    [Laughter]
        Every West Point class is commissioned to the Armed Forces. Some
    West Point classes are also commissioned by history to take part in a
    great new calling for their country. Speaking here to the class of 1942,
    6 months after Pearl Harbor, General Marshall said, ``We're determined
    that before the Sun sets on this terrible struggle, our flag will be
    recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand
    and of overwhelming power on the other.'' Officers graduating that year
    helped fulfill that mission, defeating Japan and Germany and then
    reconstructing those nations as allies. West Point graduates of the
    1940s saw the rise of a deadly new challenge--the challenge of imperial
    communism--and opposed it from Korea to Berlin to Vietnam, and in the
    cold war from beginning to end. And as the Sun set on their struggle,
    many of those West Point officers lived to see a world transformed.
        History has also issued its call to your generation. In your last
    year, America was attacked by a ruthless and resourceful enemy. You
    graduate from this Academy in a time of war, taking your place in an
    American military that is powerful and is honorable. Our war on terror
    is only begun, but in Afghanistan it was begun well.
        I am proud of the men and women who have fought on my orders.
    America is profoundly grateful for all who serve the cause of freedom
    and for all who have given their lives in its defense. This Nation
    respects and trusts our military, and we are confident in your victories
    to come.
        This war will take many turns we cannot predict. Yet, I am certain
    of this: Wherever we carry it, the American flag will stand not only for
    our power but for freedom. Our Nation's cause has always been larger
    than our Nation's defense. We fight, as we always fight, for a just
    peace, a peace that favors human liberty. We will defend the peace
    against threats from terrorists and tyrants. We will preserve the peace
    by building good relations among the great powers. And we will extend
    the peace by encouraging free and open societies on every continent.
        Building this just peace is America's opportunity and America's
    duty. From this day forward, it is your challenge as well, and we will
    meet this challenge together. You will wear the uniform of a great and
    unique country. America has no empire to

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    extend or utopia to establish. We wish for others only what we wish for
    ourselves, safety from violence, the rewards of liberty, and the hope
    for a better life.
        In defending the peace, we face a threat with no precedent. Enemies
    in the past needed great armies and great industrial capabilities to
    endanger the American people and our Nation. The attacks of September
    the 11th required a few hundred thousand dollars in the hands of a few
    dozen evil and deluded men. All of the chaos and suffering they caused
    came at much less than the cost of a single tank. The dangers have not
    passed. This Government and the American people are on watch. We are
    ready, because we know the terrorists have more money and more men and
    more plans.
        The gravest danger to freedom lies at the perilous crossroads of
    radicalism and technology. When the spread of chemical and biological
    and nuclear weapons, along with ballistic missile technology--when that
    occurs, even weak states and small groups could attain a catastrophic
    power to strike great nations. Our enemies have declared this very
    intention and have been caught seeking these terrible weapons. They want
    the capability to blackmail us or to harm us or to harm our friends, and
    we will oppose them with all our power.
        For much of the last century, America's defense relied on the cold
    war doctrines of deterrence and containment. In some cases, those
    strategies still apply, but new threats also require new thinking.
    Deterrence--the promise of massive retaliation against nations--means
    nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to
    defend. Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators with
    weapons of mass destruction can deliver those weapons on missiles or
    secretly provide them to terrorist allies. We cannot defend America and
    our friends by hoping for the best. We cannot put our faith in the word
    of tyrants who solemnly sign nonproliferation treaties and then
    systemically break them. If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we
    will have waited too long.
        Homeland defense and missile defense are part of stronger security;
    they're essential priorities for America. Yet, the war on terror will
    not be won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy,
    disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge. In
    the world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of
    action, and this Nation will act.
        Our security will require the best intelligence to reveal threats
    hidden in caves and growing in laboratories. Our security will require
    modernizing domestic agencies such as the FBI, so they're prepared to
    act and act quickly against danger. Our security will require
    transforming the military you will lead, a military that must be ready
    to strike at a moment's notice in any dark corner of the world. And our
    security will require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute,
    to be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty
    and to defend our lives.
        The work ahead is difficult. The choices we will face are complex.
    We must uncover terror cells in 60 or more countries, using every tool
    of finance, intelligence, and law enforcement. Along with our friends
    and allies, we must oppose proliferation and confront regimes that
    sponsor terror, as each case requires. Some nations need military
    training to fight terror, and we'll provide it. Other nations oppose
    terror but tolerate the hatred that leads to terror, and that must
    change. We will send diplomats where they are needed, and we will send
    you, our soldiers, where you're needed.
        All nations that decide for aggression and terror will pay a price.
    We will not leave the safety of America and the peace of the planet at
    the mercy of a few mad terrorists and tyrants. We will lift this dark
    threat from our country and from the world.
        Because the war on terror will require resolve and patience, it will
    also require

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    firm moral purpose. In this way our struggle is similar to the cold war.
    Now, as then, our enemies are totalitarians, holding a creed of power
    with no place for human dignity. Now, as then, they seek to impose a
    joyless conformity, to control every life and all of life.
        America confronted imperial communism in many different ways,
    diplomatic, economic, and military. Yet, moral clarity was essential to
    our victory in the cold war. When leaders like John F. Kennedy and
    Ronald Reagan refused to gloss over the brutality of tyrants, they gave
    hope to prisoners and dissidents and exiles and rallied free nations to
    a great cause.
        Some worry that it is somehow undiplomatic or impolite to speak the
    language of right and wrong. I disagree. Different circumstances require
    different methods but not different moralities. Moral truth is the same
    in every culture, in every time, and in every place. Targeting innocent
    civilians for murder is always and everywhere wrong. Brutality against
    women is always and everywhere wrong. There can be no neutrality between
    justice and cruelty, between the innocent and the guilty. We are in a
    conflict between good and evil, and America will call evil by its name.
    By confronting evil and lawless regimes, we do not create a problem; we
    reveal a problem. And we will lead the world in opposing it.
        As we defend the peace, we also have an historic opportunity to
    preserve the peace. We have our best chance since the rise of the
    nation-state in the 17th century to build a world where the great powers
    compete in peace instead of prepare for war. The history of the last
    century, in particular, was dominated by a series of destructive
    national rivalries that left battlefields and graveyards across the
    Earth. Germany fought France, the Axis fought the Allies, and then the
    East fought the West, in proxy wars and tense standoffs, against a
    backdrop of nuclear Armageddon.
        Competition between great nations is inevitable, but armed conflict
    in our world is not. More and more, civilized nations find ourselves on
    the same side, united by common dangers of terrorist violence and chaos.
    America has and intends to keep military strengths beyond challenge,
    thereby making the destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless and
    limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace.
        Today, the great powers are also increasingly united by common
    values, instead of divided by conflicting ideologies. The United States,
    Japan, and our Pacific friends, and now all of Europe, share a deep
    commitment to human freedom, embodied in strong alliances such as NATO.
    And the tide of liberty is rising in many other nations.
        Generations of West Point officers planned and practiced for battles
    with Soviet Russia. I've just returned from a new Russia, now a country
    reaching toward democracy and our partner in the war against terror.
    Even in China, leaders are discovering that economic freedom is the only
    lasting source of national wealth. In time, they will find that social
    and political freedom is the only true source of national greatness.
        When the great powers share common values, we are better able to
    confront serious regional conflicts together, better able to cooperate
    in preventing the spread of violence or economic chaos. In the past,
    great power rivals took sides in difficult regional problems, making
    divisions deeper and more complicated. Today, from the Middle East to
    South Asia, we are gathering broad international coalitions to increase
    the pressure for peace. We must build strong and great power relations
    when times are good to help manage crisis when times are bad. America
    needs partners to preserve the peace, and we will work with every nation
    that shares this noble goal.
        And finally, America stands for more than the absence of war. We
    have a great

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    opportunity to extend a just peace by replacing poverty, repression, and
    resentment around the world with hope of a better day. Through most of
    history, poverty was persistent, inescapable, and almost universal. In
    the last few decades, we've seen nations from Chile to South Korea build
    modern economies and freer societies, lifting millions of people out of
    despair and want. And there's no mystery to this achievement.
        The 20th century ended with a single surviving model of human
    progress, based on nonnegotiable demands of human dignity, the rule of
    law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women, and private
    property and free speech and equal justice and religious tolerance.
    America cannot impose this vision, yet we can support and reward
    governments that make the right choices for their own people. In our
    development aid, in our diplomatic efforts, in our international
    broadcasting, and in our educational assistance, the United States will
    promote moderation and tolerance and human rights. And we will defend
    the peace that makes all progress possible.
        When it comes to the common rights and needs of men and women, there
    is no clash of civilizations. The requirements of freedom apply fully to
    Africa and Latin America and the entire Islamic world. The peoples of
    the Islamic nations want and deserve the same freedoms and opportunities
    as people in every nation. And their governments should listen to their
    hopes.
        A truly strong nation will permit legal avenues of dissent for all
    groups that pursue their aspirations without violence. An advancing
    nation will pursue economic reform, to unleash the great entrepreneurial
    energy of its people. A thriving nation will respect the rights of
    women, because no society can prosper while denying opportunity to half
    its citizens. Mothers and fathers and children across the Islamic world
    and all the world share the same fears and aspirations: In poverty, they
    struggle; in tyranny, they suffer; and as we saw in Afghanistan, in
    liberation, they celebrate.
        America has a greater objective than controlling threats and
    containing resentment. We will work for a just and peaceful world beyond
    the war on terror.
        The bicentennial class of West Point now enters this drama. With all
    in the United States Army, you will stand between your fellow citizens
    and grave danger. You will help establish a peace that allows millions
    around the world to live in liberty and to grow in prosperity. You will
    face times of calm and times of crisis, and every test will find you
    prepared, because you're the men and women of West Point. You leave here
    marked by the character of this Academy, carrying with you the highest
    ideals of our Nation.
        Toward the end of his life, Dwight Eisenhower recalled the first day
    he stood on the plain at West Point. ``The feeling came over me,'' he
    said, ``that the expression `the United States of America' would now and
    henceforth mean something different than it had ever before. From here
    on, it would be the Nation I would be serving, not myself.''
        Today, your last day at West Point, you begin a life of service in a
    career unlike any other. You've answered a calling to hardship and
    purpose, to risk and honor. At the end of every day, you will know that
    you have faithfully done your duty. May you always bring to that duty
    the high standards of this great American institution. May you always be
    worthy of the long gray line that stretches two centuries behind you. On
    behalf of the Nation, I congratulate each one of you for the commission
    you've earned, for the credit you bring to the United States of America.
        May God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:13 a.m. in Michie Stadium. In his
    remarks, he referred to Lt. Gen. William J. Lennox, Jr., USA,
    Superintendent, West Point Military Academy;

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    Secretary of the Army Thomas E. White; and Gov. George E. Pataki of New
    York.