[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 42, Number 1 (Monday, January 9, 2006)]
[Pages 9-12]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to the United States University Presidents Summit on 
International Education

January 5, 2006

    Thank you all. Madam Secretary, it's your building--you can give my 
speech if you want to. [Laughter]
    But first, our Nation sends our deepest sympathies to Ariel Sharon. 
He lies immobilized in an Israeli hospital. We pray for his recovery. 
He's a good man, a strong man, a man who cared deeply about the security 
of the Israeli people and a man who had a vision for peace. May God 
bless him.
    Madam Secretary, thanks for having me. I'm here to let the good 
folks know here how strongly I support the National Security Language 
Initiative. I've had a little problem with the language in the past, 
so--[laughter]--if you've got room in the initiative for me, let me 
know. [Laughter] Condi said, ``Come on by. We've got a bunch of 
university presidents here.'' And I said, ``Great, just so long as we 
don't have to compare transcripts.'' [Laughter] She's the Ph.D.; I'm the 
President. [Laughter]
    She's a heck of a Secretary of State, though. And Don Rumsfeld is a 
heck of a Secretary of the Defense, and I want to thank you both for 
joining together on this initiative. It's interesting, isn't it, that 
the State Department and the Defense Department are sponsoring a 
language initiative. It says something about the world we live in. I 
felt certain that the Secretary of Education would be here. After all, 
we're talking about education, and I want to thank you for being here, 
Margaret. But I also find it's interesting you're sitting next to John 
Negroponte, who is the Director of National Intelligence.
    In other words, this initiative is a broad-gauged initiative that 
deals with the defense of the country, the diplomacy of the country, the 
intelligence to defend our country, and the education of our people. And 
it's an important initiative, and I'm going to tell you why in a second. 
But thank you for joining your--together to make this happen.
    I want to thank Deputy Secretary of State Bob Zoellick, and I want 
to thank the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator 
Lugar from Indiana. Senator Pat Roberts from Kansas is with us. I think 
you'll find this interesting: He has promoted the advanced study of 
foreign languages through the Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program. 
Thanks for doing that. And I want to thank Congressman Rush Holt for 
being here as well. Thank you for coming, Rush. Thanks for taking time.
    I appreciate all the ambassadors who are here. I'm scanning the 
room. I see a few familiar faces, and thanks for serving. What the heck 
are you doing here? Like, you're supposed to be--[laughter]--the deal 
was overseas. [Laughter]
    We're living in extraordinary times. I wish I could report to you 
the war on terror was over. It's not. There is still an enemy that 
lurks, that wants to hurt us. I hate to report that to the American 
people, but my duty is to lay it out as plainly as I possibly can. And 
that's the truth.
    And so the fundamental question is, how do we win? What do we do? 
Well, in the short term, our strategy is to find them and bring them to 
justice before they hurt us. In other words, we've got to stay on the 
offense. We've got to be unyielding and never give them a, you know, a 
breath of fresh air, never give them a hope that they can succeed. It's 
the only way to do it. We must defeat them in foreign battlefields so 
they don't strike us here at home.
    And that's one of the reasons why the Secretary of Defense is here. 
He wants his young soldiers who are on the frontlines of finding these 
killers to be able to speak their language and be able to listen to the 
people in the communities in which they live. That makes sense, doesn't 
it, to have a language-proficient military--to have people that can go 
into the far reaches of this world and be able to communicate in the 
villages and towns and rural areas and urban centers, to protect the 
American people.
    We need intelligence officers who, when somebody says something in 
Arabic or Farsi or Urdu, knows what they're talking about. That's what 
we need. We need diplomats--when we send them out to help us convince 
governments that we've got to join together and fight these terrorists 
who want to destroy

[[Page 10]]

life and promote an ideology that is so backwards it's hard to believe. 
These diplomats need to speak that language.
    So our short-term strategy is to stay on the offense, and we've got 
to give our troops, our intelligence officers, our diplomats all the 
tools necessary to succeed. That's what people in this country expect of 
our Government. They expect us to be wise about how we use our 
resources, and a good use of resources is to promote this language 
initiative in K through 12, in our universities. And a good use of 
resources is to encourage foreign language speakers from important 
regions of the world to come here and teach us how to speak their 
language.
    You're going to hear a lot about the specifics of the program. What 
I'm trying to suggest to you, that this program is a part of a strategic 
goal, and that is to protect this country in the short term and protect 
it in the long term by spreading freedom. We're facing an ideological 
struggle, and we're going to win. Our ideology is a heck of a lot more 
hopeful than theirs.
    You can't have an ideology that works if you say to half the 
population in a part of the world, ``You have no rights.'' You can't say 
to a group of people, ``My ideology is better than freedom, and if you 
speak out, you're going to get--you'll be tortured.''
    You see, freedom is the ideology that wins. We've got to have 
confidence in that, as we go out. But you can't win in the long run for 
democracy unless you've got the capacity to help spread democracy. You 
see, we've got to convince people of the benefits of a free society. I 
believe everybody desires to be free. But I also know people need to be 
convincing--convinced--I told you I needed to go to language school. 
[Laughter] And you can't convince people unless you can talk to them. 
And I'm not talking to them right now directly; I'm talking through an 
interpreter on some of these Arabic TV stations.
    But we need people in America who can go and say to people, ``Living 
in freedom is not the American way of life; it is a universal way of 
life.'' We're not saying your democracy has to be like yours. We're just 
saying give your people a chance to live in a free society; give women a 
chance to live freely; give young girls a chance to be educated and 
realize their full potential.
    And the best way to do that is to have those of us who understand 
freedom be able to communicate in the language of the people we're 
trying to help. In order to convince people we care about them, we've 
got to understand their culture and show them we care about their 
culture. When somebody comes to me and speaks Texan, I know they 
appreciate the Texas culture. [Laughter] I mean, somebody takes time to 
figure out how to speak Arabic, it means they're interested in somebody 
else's culture. Learning a language--somebody else's language is a kind 
gesture. It's a gesture of interest. It really is a fundamental way to 
reach out to somebody and say, ``I care about you. I want you to know 
that I'm interested in not only how you talk but how you live.''
    In order for this country to be able to convince others, people have 
got to be able to see our true worth in our heart. And when Americans 
learn to speak a language, learn to speak Arabic, those in the Arabic 
region will say, ``Gosh, America is interested in us. They care enough 
to learn how we speak.''
    One of the great programs we've got here in America in terms of 
people understanding how we think and how we act is these scholarships 
we provide to our universities. I know this isn't the topic the 
Secretary assigned me to talk about, but it's one I'm going to talk 
about anyway. We want young kids from around the world coming to our 
universities. It's in our national interest that we solve visa issues 
and make sure that--[applause].
    We have been calibrating the proper balance after September the 
11th, and I fully understand some of your frustrations, particularly 
when you say the balance wasn't actually calibrated well. But we're 
going to get it right, because the more youngsters who come to America 
to get educated, the more likely it is people in the world will 
understand the true nature of America.
    You can't figure out America when you're looking on some of these TV 
stations--you just can't--particularly given the message that they 
spread. Arabic TV does not do our country justice. They put out some 
kind--sometimes put out propaganda that just is--just isn't right. It 
isn't fair, and it doesn't give

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people the impression of what we're about. You bring somebody here to 
college--it doesn't matter what's on TV--they see firsthand the 
compassion of the United States of America. They get to see firsthand 
that we don't discriminate based upon religion. They get to see 
firsthand the multicultural society in which we live, all united under 
the fabric of freedom. That's what they get to see.
    And so I'm working with Condi, and she's working with others, to 
work with you, to make sure these youngsters are able to come to our 
universities. I'll tell you what's really neat, is to sit down with 
leaders from around the world, welcome them in the Oval Office or go to 
their office; they say, ``You know, Mr. President, I went to Texas 
A&M,'' or, ``I went to Stanford''--like President Toledo of Peru. I 
mean, it is--it makes it so much easier to conduct foreign policy and 
diplomacy when you've got that common ground of being able to talk about 
a university experience here in the United States. It makes it so much 
easier to be able to advance the interests of this country when you're 
dealing with a leader who doesn't have a preconceived notion about what 
America is all about, because he spent time studying here in the United 
States.
    We're going to teach our kids how to speak important languages. 
We'll welcome teachers here to help teach our kids how to speak 
languages. But we're also going to advance America's interests around 
the world and defeat this notion about our--you know, our bullying 
concept of freedom, by letting people see what we're about. Let them see 
firsthand the decency of this country.
    And so, Madam Secretary, in front of these presidents, you and I vow 
that we'll find that proper balance between security and letting people 
come to our universities for the good of this country.
    I--there is no doubt in my mind we will win the war on terror. 
There's no doubt in my mind that Afghanistan will remain a democracy and 
serve as an incredible example. For those of you in education, you might 
remember, this was a country that refused to educate young girls. And 
now, young girls in most of Afghanistan are going to school.
    Iraq--we'll succeed in Iraq. It's tough. And the reason it's tough 
is because a handful of killers wants to stop the advance of freedom for 
a reason. Democracy in the heart of the Middle East is a major defeat to 
their ideology and their ambitions.
    And it's hard work. What you're seeing on your TV screen is hard 
work. But we've done, as Condi said, hard work before. We have defeated 
fascism in the past. We defeated communism in the past. And we will 
defeat this ideology of hatred, but it's going to take all the tools at 
our disposal.
    One of the stories I like to share with people is this. I--one of my 
best buddies in international politics is Prime Minister Koizumi of 
Japan. He's an interesting person. Elvis was his favorite singer, for 
example. [Laughter] Every time I meet with him, it strikes me as an 
amazing fact of history that Number 41, President 41, at age 18 fought 
the Japanese, and 43, his son, is sitting down with the Prime Minister 
working on keeping the peace. It's amazing to me. And something happened 
between 41 going into combat and 43 talking to the Prime Minister, 
whether it be about troops in Iraq to help this young democracy flourish 
in the heart of the Middle East, or whether it be dealing with the 
leader of North Korea who is starving his people to death, and how do we 
solve that? What do we do about it?
    And what happened was that the Japanese adopted a Japanese-style 
democracy. It wasn't an American-style democracy; it was Japanese-style 
democracy. And that society, that form of government was able to convert 
an enemy to an ally. And that's what's happening. I live it when I talk 
to the Prime Minister. I see it firsthand. It's a real part of my 
family's life.
    Someday, an American President is going to sit down and thank this 
generation for having the willpower and the determination to see to it 
that democracy has a chance to flourish in a part of the world that is 
desperate for democracy. Someday, somebody is going to say--[applause]--
somebody someday will say, we're able to more likely keep the peace 
because this generation of Americans had confidence in our capacity to 
work with others to spread freedom.

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    And that's what we're facing today, and the stakes are high. It's an 
exciting time to be here in Washington, DC. It's a fantastic opportunity 
to serve our country. And I want to thank those of you who are serving 
it in government, and I want to thank those of you who serve it through 
higher education. There's no greater gift to give a child than the 
chance to succeed and realize his or her dreams. And you're doing that.
    Appreciate you giving me a chance to come by and tell you what's on 
my mind. My God bless our country.

Note: The President spoke at 3:50 p.m. at the Department of State. In 
his remarks, he referred to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel; 
President Alejandro Toledo of Peru; Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of 
Japan; and Chairman Kim Chong-il of North Korea.