[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2007, Book II)]
[August 22, 2007]
[Pages 1099-1107]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks at the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention in Kansas
City, Missouri
August 22, 2007
Thank you all. Please be seated. It's good to be with you again. I
understand you haven't had much of a problem attracting speakers.
[Laughter]
I thank you for inviting me. I can understand why people want to
come here. See, it's an honor to stand with the men and women of the
Veterans of Foreign Wars. The VFW is one of our Nation's finest
organizations. You belong to an elite group of Americans. You belong to
a group of people who have defended America overseas. You have fought in
places from Normandy to Iwo Jima to Pusan to Khe Sahn to Kuwait to
Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. You brought security to the
American people. You brought hope to millions across the world.
As members of this proud organization, you are advocates for the
rights of our military veterans, a model of community service, and a
strong and important voice for a strong national defense. I thank you
for your service. I thank you for what you've done for the United States
of America.
I stand before you as a wartime President. I wish I didn't have to
say that, but an enemy that attacked us on September the 11th, 2001,
declared war on the United States of America. And war is what we're
engaged in. The struggle has been called a clash of civilizations. In
truth, it's a struggle for civilization. We fight for a free way of life
against a new barbarism, an ideology whose followers have killed
thousands on American soil and seek to kill again on even a greater
scale.
We fight for the possibility that decent men and women across the
broader Middle East can realize their destiny and raise up societies
based on freedom and justice and personal dignity. And as long as I'm
Commander in Chief, we will fight to win. I'm confident that we will
prevail. I'm confident we'll prevail because we have the greatest force
for human liberation the world has ever known, the men and women of the
United States Armed Forces.
For those of you who wear the uniform, nothing makes me more proud
to say that I am your Commander in Chief. Thank you for volunteering in
the service of the United States of America.
Now, I know some people doubt the universal appeal of liberty or
worry that the Middle East isn't ready for it. Others believe that
America's presence is destabilizing and that if the United States would
just leave a place like Iraq, those who kill our troops or target
civilians would no longer threaten us. Today I'm going to address these
arguments. I'm going to describe why helping the young democracies of
the Middle East stand up to violent Islamic extremists is the only
realistic path to a safer world for the American people. I'm going to
try to provide some historical perspective to show there is a precedent
for the hard and necessary work we're doing and why I have such
confidence in the fact that we'll be successful.
Before I do so, I want to thank the national commander-in-chief of
the VFW and his wife Nancy. It's been a joy to work with Gary and the staff. As
Gary said, ``We don't necessarily agree a hundred percent of the time.''
I remember the old Lieutenant Governor of Texas, a Democrat, and I was a
Republican Governor. He said, ``Governor, if we agreed 100 percent of
the time, one of us wouldn't be necessary.'' [Laughter]
But here's what we do agree on: We agree our veterans deserve the
full support of the United States Government. We agree that those who--
[applause]. That's why in this budget I submitted there's $87 billion
for the veterans. It's the highest
[[Page 1100]]
level of support ever for the veterans in American history. We agree
that health care for our veterans is a top priority, and that's why
we've increased health care spending for our veterans by 83 percent
since I was sworn in as your President. We agree that a troop coming out
of Iraq or Afghanistan deserves the best health care, not only as an
active duty citizen but as a military guy, but as--also as a veteran--
and you're going to get the best health care we can possibly provide. We
agree our homeless vets ought to have shelter, and that's what we're
providing. In other words, we agree the veterans deserve the full
support of our Government, and that's what you're going to get as George
W. Bush as your President.
I want to thank Bob Wallace, the
executive director. He spends a lot of time in the Oval Office. I'm
always checking the silverware drawer. [Laughter] He's going to be
bringing in George Lisicki here soon. He's
going to be the national commander-in-chief for my next year in office.
And I'm looking forward to working with George, and I'm looking forward
to working with Wallace, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
They're going to find an openminded President dedicated to doing what's
right.
I appreciate the fact--[applause]. I appreciate Linda
Meader, the national president of the Ladies
Auxiliary--she brought old Dave with her--
Virginia Carman, the incoming president.
I want to thank Deputy Secretary of the Veterans Affairs Gordon
Mansfield for joining us today. I
appreciate the United States Senator from the State of Missouri, strong
supporter of the military and strong supporter of the veterans, Kit
Bond. Two Members of the Congress have
kindly showed up today. I'm proud they're both here: Congressman Emanuel
Cleaver--no finer man, no more decent a fellow than Emanuel Cleaver--is
with us and a great Congressman from right around the corner here,
Congressman Sam Graves. Thank you all for coming.
Lieutenant General Jack Stultz,
commanding general, U.S. Army Reserve Command, is with us today.
General, thanks for coming. Lieutenant General Bill Caldwell, commanding general, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas,
is with us today as well. General Caldwell, thank you for your service.
Thank you all for letting me come by. I want to open today's speech
with a story that begins on a sunny morning, when thousands of Americans
were murdered in a surprise attack and our Nation was propelled into a
conflict that would take us to every corner of the globe.
The enemy who attacked us despises freedom and harbors resentment at
the slights he believes America and the Western nations have inflicted
on his people. He fights to establish his rule over an entire region.
And over time, he turns to a strategy of suicide attacks destined to
create so much carnage that the American people will tire of the
violence and give up the fight.
If this story sounds familiar, it is, except for one thing. The
enemy I have just described is not Al Qaida, and the attack is not 9/11,
and the empire is not the radical caliphate envisioned by Usama bin
Laden. Instead, what I've described is the
war machine of Imperial Japan in the 1940s, its surprise attack on Pearl
Harbor, and its attempt to impose its empire throughout East Asia.
Ultimately, the United States prevailed in World War II, and we have
fought two more land wars in Asia. And many in this hall were veterans
of those campaigns. Yet even the most optimistic among you probably
would not have foreseen that the Japanese would transform themselves
into one of America's strongest and most steadfast allies, or that the
South Koreans would recover from enemy invasion to raise up one of the
world's most powerful economies, or that Asia would pull itself out of
poverty
[[Page 1101]]
and hopelessness as it embraced markets and freedom.
The lesson from Asia's development is that the heart's desire for
liberty will not be denied. Once people even get a small taste of
liberty, they're not going to rest until they're free. Today's dynamic
and hopeful Asia--a region that brings us countless benefits--would not
have been possible without America's presence and perseverance. And it
would not have been possible without the veterans in this hall today,
and I thank you for your service.
There are many differences between the wars we fought in the Far
East and the war on terror we're fighting today. But one important
similarity is, at their core, they're ideological struggles. The
militarists of Japan and the Communists in Korea and Vietnam were driven
by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of humanity. They killed
Americans because we stood in the way of their attempt to force their
ideology on others.
Today, the names and places have changed, but the fundamental
character of the struggle has not changed. Like our enemies in the past,
the terrorists who wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places
seek to spread a political vision of their own, a harsh plan for life
that crushes freedom, tolerance, and dissent. Like our enemies in the
past, they kill Americans because we stand in their way of imposing this
ideology across a vital region of the world. This enemy is dangerous,
this enemy is determined, and this enemy will be defeated.
We're still in the early hours of the current ideological struggle,
but we do know how the others ended, and that knowledge helps guide our
efforts today. The ideals and interests that led America to help the
Japanese turn defeat into democracy are the same that lead us to remain
engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The defense strategy that refused to hand the South Koreans over to
a totalitarian neighbor helped raise up a Asian Tiger that is the model
for developing countries across the world, including the Middle East.
The result of American sacrifice and perseverance in Asia is a freer,
more prosperous, and stable continent, whose people want to live in
peace with America, not attack America.
At the outset of World War II, there were only two democracies in
the Far East, Australia and New Zealand. Today, most of the nations in
Asia are free, and its democracies reflect the diversity of the region.
Some of these nations have constitutional monarchies, some have
parliaments, and some have presidents. Some are Christian, some are
Muslim, some are Hindu, and some are Buddhist. Yet for all their
differences, the free nations of Asia all share one thing in common:
Their governments derive their authority from the consent of the
governed, and they desire to live in peace with their neighbors.
Along the way to this freer and more hopeful Asia, there were a lot
of doubters. Many times in the decades that followed World War II,
American policy in Asia was dismissed as hopeless and naive. And when we
listen to the criticism of the difficult work that our generation is
undertaking in the Middle East today, we can hear the echoes of the same
arguments made about the Far East years ago.
In the aftermath of Japan's surrender, many thought it naive to help
the Japanese transform themselves into a democracy. Then, as now, the
critics argued that some people were simply not fit for freedom.
Some said Japanese culture was inherently incompatible with
democracy. Joseph Grew, a former United States Ambassador to Japan who
served as Harry Truman's Under Secretary of State, told the President
flatly that--and I quote--``democracy in Japan would never work.'' He
wasn't alone in that belief. A lot of Americans believed that, and so
did the Japanese--a lot of Japanese believed the same thing: Democracy
simply wouldn't work.
[[Page 1102]]
Other critics said that Americans were imposing their ideals on the
Japanese. For example, Japan's Vice Prime Minister asserted that
allowing Japanese women to vote would ``retard the progress of Japanese
politics.'' It's interesting what General MacArthur wrote in his
memoirs. He wrote: ``There was much criticism of my support for the
enfranchisement of women. Many Americans, as well as many other so-
called experts, expressed the view that Japanese women were too steeped
in the tradition of subservience to their husbands to act with any
degree of political independence.'' That's what General MacArthur
observed. In the end, Japanese women were given the vote; 39 women won
parliamentary seats in Japan's first free election. Today, Japan's
Minister of Defense is a woman, and just last
month, a record number of women were elected to Japan's Upper House.
Other critics argued that democracy--[applause].
There are other critics, believe it or not, that argue that
democracy could not succeed in Japan because the national religion,
Shinto, was too fanatical and rooted in the Emperor. Senator Richard
Russell denounced the Japanese faith and said that if we did not put the
Emperor on trial, ``any steps we may take to create democracy are doomed
to failure.'' The State Department's man in Tokyo put it bluntly: ``The
Emperor system must disappear if Japan is ever really to be
democratic.''
Those who said Shinto was incompatible with democracy were mistaken.
And fortunately, Americans and Japanese leaders recognized it at the
time, because instead of suppressing the Shinto faith, American
authorities worked with the Japanese to institute religious freedom for
all faiths. Instead of abolishing the imperial throne, Americans and
Japanese worked together to find a place for the Emperor in the
democratic political system.
And the result of all these steps was that every Japanese citizen
gained freedom of religion, and the Emperor remained on his throne, and
Japanese democracy grew stronger because it embraced a cherished part of
Japanese culture. And today, in defiance of the critics and the doubters
and the skeptics, Japan retains its religions and cultural traditions
and stands as one of the world's greatest free societies.
You know, the experts sometimes get it wrong. It's an interesting
observation, one historian put it, he said,
``Had these erstwhile experts''--he was talking about people criticizing
the efforts to help Japan realize the blessings of a free society--he
said, ``Had these erstwhile experts had their way, the very notion of
inducing a democratic revolution would have died of ridicule at an early
stage.''
Instead, I think it's important to look at what happened. A
democratic Japan has brought peace and prosperity to its people. Its
foreign trade and investment have helped jump-start the economies of
others in the region. The alliance between our two nations is the
linchpin for freedom and stability throughout the Pacific. And I want
you to listen carefully to this final point: Japan has transformed from
America's enemy in the ideological struggle of the 20th century to one
of America's strongest allies in the ideological struggle of the 21st
century.
Critics also complained when America intervened to save South Korea
from Communist invasion. Then, as now, the critics argued that the war
was futile, that we should never have sent our troops in, or they argued
that America's intervention was divisive here at home.
After the North Koreans crossed the 38th Parallel in 1950, President
Harry Truman came to the defense of the South, and he found himself
attacked from all sides. From the left, I.F. Stone wrote a book
suggesting that the South Koreans were the real aggressors and that we
had entered the war on a false pretext. From the right, Republicans
vacillated. Initially, the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate
endorsed Harry Truman's action,
[[Page 1103]]
saying, ``I welcome the indication of a more definite policy.'' He went
on to say, ``I strongly hope that having adopted it, the President may
maintain it intact,'' then later said, ``It was a mistake originally to
go into Korea because it meant a land war.''
Throughout the war, the Republicans really never had a clear
position. They never could decide whether they wanted the United States
to withdraw from the war in Korea or expand the war to the Chinese
mainland. Others complained that our troops weren't getting the support
from the Government. One Republican Senator said the effort was just
``bluff and bluster.'' He rejected calls to come together in a time of
war on the grounds that, ``We will not allow the cloak of national unity
to be wrapped around horrible blunders.''
Many in the press agreed. One columnist in the Washington Post said,
``The fact is that the conduct of the Korean war has been shot through
with errors great and small.'' A colleague wrote that, ``Korea is an
open wound. It's bleeding, and there's no cure for it in sight.'' He
said that the American people could not understand ``why Americans are
doing about 95 percent of the fighting in Korea.''
Many of these criticisms were offered as reasons for abandoning our
commitments in Korea. And while it's true the Korean war had its share
of challenges, the United States never broke its word.
Today, we see the result of a sacrifice of people in this room in
the stark contrast of life on the Korean Peninsula. Without Americans'
intervention during the war and our willingness to stick with the South
Koreans after the war, millions of South Koreans would now be living
under a brutal and repressive regime. The Soviets and Chinese Communists
would have learned the lesson that aggression pays. The world would be
facing a more dangerous situation. The world would be less peaceful.
Instead, South Korea is a strong, democratic ally of the United
States of America. South Korean troops are serving side by side with
American forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq. And America can count on the
free people of South Korea to be lasting partners in the ideological
struggle we're facing in the beginning of the 21st century.
For those of you who served in Korea, thank you for your sacrifice,
and thank you for your service.
Finally, there's Vietnam. This is a complex and painful subject for
many Americans. The tragedy of Vietnam is too large to be contained in
one speech. So I'm going to limit myself to one argument that has
particular significance today. Then, as now, people argued the real
problem was America's presence and that if we would just withdraw, the
killing would end.
The argument that America's presence in Indochina was dangerous had
a long pedigree. In 1955, long before the United States had entered the
war, Graham Greene wrote a novel called ``The Quiet American.'' It was
set in Saigon, and the main character was a young Government agent named
Alden Pyle. He was a symbol of American purpose and patriotism and
dangerous naivete. Another character describes Alden this way: ``I never
knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused.''
After America entered the Vietnam war, the Graham Greene argument
gathered some steam. As a matter of fact, many argued that if we pulled
out, there would be no consequences for the Vietnamese people.
In 1972, one antiwar Senator put it this way: ``What earthly
difference does it make to nomadic tribes or uneducated subsistence
farmers in Vietnam or Cambodia or Laos whether they have a military
dictator, a royal prince, or a socialist commissar in some distant
capital that they've never seen and may never heard of?'' A
columnist for the New York Times wrote
in a similar vein in 1975, just as Cambodia and Vietnam were falling to
the Communists: ``It's difficult to imagine,'' he said, ``how their
[[Page 1104]]
lives could be anything but better with the Americans gone.'' A headline
on that story, dated Phnom Penh, summed up the argument: ``Indochina
Without Americans: For Most, a Better Life.''
The world would learn just how costly these misimpressions would be.
In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge began a murderous rule in which hundreds of
thousands of Cambodians died by starvation and torture and execution. In
Vietnam, former allies of the United States and government workers and
intellectuals and businessmen were sent off to prison camps, where tens
of thousands perished. Hundreds of thousands more fled the country on
rickety boats, many of them going to their graves in the South China
Sea.
Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got
into the Vietnam war and how we left. There's no debate in my mind that
the veterans from Vietnam deserve the high praise of the United States
of America. Whatever your position is on that debate, one unmistakable
legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by
millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary
new terms like ``boat people,'' ``reeducation camps,'' and ``killing
fields.''
There was another price to our withdrawal from Vietnam, and we can
hear it in the words of the enemy we face in today's struggle, those who
came to our soil and killed thousands of citizens on September the 11th,
2001. In an interview with a Pakistani newspaper after the 9/11 attacks,
Usama bin Laden declared that ``the American
people had risen against their Government's war in Vietnam, and they
must do the same today.''
His number-two man, Zawahiri, has
also invoked Vietnam. In a letter to Al Qaida's chief of operations in
Iraq, Zawahiri pointed--and I quote--to ``the aftermath of the collapse
of the American power in Vietnam and how they ran and left their
agents.''
Zawahiri later returned to this
theme, declaring that the Americans, quote, ``know better than others
that there is no hope in victory. The Vietnam specter is closing every
outlet.'' Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam
carried no price to American credibility, but the terrorists see it
differently.
We must listen to the words of the enemy. We must listen to what
they say. Bin Laden has declared that ``the
war [in Iraq] is for you or us to win. If we win it, it means your
disgrace and defeat forever.'' Iraq is one of several fronts in the war
on terror, but it's the central front. It's the central front for the
enemy that attacked us and wants to attack us again, and it's the
central front for the United States. And to withdraw without getting the
job done would be devastating.
If we were to abandon the Iraqi people, the terrorists would be
emboldened. They would use their victory to gain new recruits. As we saw
on September the 11th, a terrorist safe haven on the other side of the
world can bring death and destruction to the streets of our own cities.
Unlike in Vietnam, if we withdraw before the job is done, this enemy
would follow us home. And that is why, for the security of the United
States of America, we must defeat them overseas so we do not face them
in the United States of America.
Recently, two men who were on the opposite sides of the debate over the
Vietnam war came together to write an article. One was a member of
President Nixon's foreign policy team and the other was a fierce critic
of the Nixon administration's policies. Together, they wrote that the
consequences of an American defeat in Iraq would be disastrous.
Here's what they said: ``Defeat would produce an explosion of euphoria
among all the forces of Islamic extremism, throwing the entire Middle
East into even greater upheaval. The likely human and strategic costs
are appalling to contemplate. Perhaps that is why so much of the current
debate seeks to ignore these consequences.'' I believe these men are
right.
[[Page 1105]]
In Iraq, our moral obligations and our strategic interests are one.
So we pursue the extremists wherever we find them, and we stand with the
Iraqis at this difficult hour, because the shadow of terror will never
be lifted from our world and the American people will never be safe
until the people of the Middle East know the freedom that our Creator
meant for all.
I recognize that history cannot predict the future with absolute
certainty. I understand that. But history does remind us that there are
lessons applicable to our time. And we can learn something from history.
In Asia, we saw freedom triumph over violent ideologies after the
sacrifice of tens of thousands of American lives, and that freedom has
yielded peace for generations.
The American military graveyards across Europe attest to the
terrible human cost in the fight against nazism. They also attest to the
triumph of a continent that today is whole, free, and at peace. The
advance of freedom in these lands should give us confidence that the
hard work we are doing in the Middle East can have the same results
we've seen in Asia and elsewhere, if we show the same perseverance and
the same sense of purpose.
In a world where the terrorists are willing to act on their twisted
beliefs with sickening acts of barbarism, we must put faith in the
timeless truths about human nature that have made us free.
Across the Middle East, millions of ordinary citizens are tired of
war; they're tired of dictatorship and corruption; they're tired of
despair. They want societies where they're treated with dignity and
respect, where their children have the hope for a better life. They want
nations where their faiths are honored and they can worship in freedom.
And that is why millions of Iraqis and Afghans turned out to the
polls; millions turned out to the polls. And that's why their leaders
have stepped forward at the risk of assassination. And that's why tens
of thousands are joining the security forces of their nations. These men
and women are taking great risks to build a free and peaceful Middle
East, and for the sake of our own security, we must not abandon them.
There is one group of people who understand the stakes, understand
as well as any expert, anybody in America--those are the men and women
who wear the uniform. Through nearly 6 years of war, they have performed
magnificently. Day after day, hour after hour, they keep the pressure on
the enemy that would do our citizens harm. They've overthrown two of the
most brutal tyrannies of the world and liberated more than 50 million
citizens.
In Iraq, our troops are taking the fight to the extremists and
radicals and murderers all throughout the country. Our troops have
killed or captured an average of more than 1,500 Al Qaida terrorists and
other extremists every month since January of this year. We're in the
fight. Today, our troops are carrying out a surge that is helping bring
former Sunni insurgents into the fight against the extremists and
radicals, into the fight against Al Qaida, into the fight against the
enemy that would do us harm. They're clearing out the terrorists out of
population centers; they're giving families in liberated Iraqi cities a
look at a decent and hopeful life.
Our troops are seeing this progress that is being made on the
ground. And as they take the initiative from the enemy, they have a
question: Will their elected leaders in Washington pull the rug out from
under them just as they're gaining momentum and changing the dynamic on
the ground in Iraq? Here's my answer: We'll support our troops, we'll
support our commanders, and we will give them everything they need to
succeed.
Despite the mistakes that have been made, despite the problems we
have encountered, seeing the Iraqis through as they build their
democracy is critical to keeping the American people safe from the
[[Page 1106]]
terrorists who wants to attack us. It is critical work to lay the
foundation for peace that veterans have done before you all.
A free Iraq is not going to be perfect. A free Iraq will not make
decisions as quickly as the country did under the dictatorship. Many are
frustrated by the pace of progress in Baghdad, and I can understand
this. As I noted yesterday, the Iraqi Government is distributing oil
revenues across its Provinces despite not having an oil revenue law on
its books, that the Parliament has passed about 60 pieces of
legislation.
Prime Minister Maliki is a good guy, a
good man with a difficult job, and I support him. And it's not up to the
politicians in Washington, DC, to say whether he will remain in his
position; that is up to the Iraqi people, who now live in a democracy
and not a dictatorship. A free Iraq is not going to transform the Middle
East overnight. But a free Iraq will be a massive defeat for Al Qaida,
it will be an example that provides hope for millions throughout the
Middle East, it will be a friend of the United States, and it's going to
be an important ally in the ideological struggle of the 21st century.
Prevailing in this struggle is essential to our future as a nation.
And the question now that comes before us is this: Will today's
generation of Americans resist the allure of retreat, and will we do in
the Middle East what the veterans in this room did in Asia?
The journey is not going to be easy, as the veterans fully
understand. At the outset of the war in the Pacific, there were those
who argued that freedom had seen its day and that the future belonged to
the hard men in Tokyo. A year and a half before the attack on Pearl
Harbor, Japan's Foreign Minister gave a hint of things to come during an
interview with a New York newspaper. He said, ``In the battle between
democracy and totalitarianism, the latter adversary will without
question win and will control the world. The era of democracy is
finished, the democratic system bankrupt.''
In fact, the war machines of Imperial Japan would be brought down,
brought down by good folks who only months before had been students and
farmers and bank clerks and factory hands. Some are in the room today.
Others here have been inspired by their fathers and grandfathers and
uncles and cousins.
That generation of Americans taught the tyrants a telling lesson:
There is no power like the power of freedom and no soldier as strong as
a soldier who fights for a free future for his children. And when
America's work on the battlefield was done, the victorious children of
democracy would help our defeated enemies rebuild and bring the taste of
freedom to millions.
We can do the same for the Middle East. Today, the violent Islamic
extremists who fight us in Iraq are as certain of their cause as the
Nazis or the Imperial Japanese or the Soviet Communists were of theirs.
They are destined for the same fate.
The greatest weapon in the arsenal of democracy is the desire for
liberty written into the human heart by our Creator. So long as we
remain true to our ideals, we will defeat the extremists in Iraq and
Afghanistan. We will help those countries' people stand up functioning
democracies in the heart of the broader Middle East. And when that hard
work is done and the critics of today recede from memory, the cause of
freedom will be stronger, a vital region will be brighter, and the
American people will be safer.
Thank you, and God bless.
Note: The President spoke at 9:46 a.m. at the Kansas City Convention and
Entertainment Center. In his remarks, he referred to Gary Kurpius,
outgoing commander-in-chief, and George J. Lisicki, incoming commander-
in-chief, Veterans of Foreign Wars; Robert E. Wallace, executive
director, Veterans of Foreign Wars Washington Office; Usama bin
[[Page 1107]]
Laden, leader of the Al Qaida terrorist organization; Minister of
Defense Yuriko Koike of Japan; and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of
Iraq.