| Mr. Speaker, Mr. President Pro Tempore, members of Congress, and fellow Americans: In the normal
course of events, presidents come to this chamber to report on the state of the Union. Tonight, more than ever,
such a report is needed, for we are a nation newly awakened to the danger and the violence that many of the other
peoples of the world have long known as a fact of daily life. Tonight, more than ever, sobered by the touch of
that violence, we are a nation called to work for peace, and justice, in the world. We have seen the courage of passengers who rushed terrorists to save others on the ground. We have seen the endurance of rescuers working past exhaustion. We've seen the unfurling of flags, the lighting of candles, the giving of blood, the saying of prayers in English, Hebrew and Arabic. We have seen the decency of a loving and giving people who have made the grief of strangers their own. And yet, for the struggle that lies before us, one thing more will be needed, and that is: understanding. Our grief has turned to anger, but before anger turns to resolution, we must understand the nature of the evil we face; we must know who the true enemy is that we seek to bring to justice. Therefore, I now come before you to do what a leader must. On September the 11th, an act of war was committed against our country. Americans have known wars, but for the past 136 years they have been wars on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941. Americans have known the casualties of war, but not at the center of a great city on a peaceful morning. Americans have known surprise attacks, but never before on thousands of civilians. All of this was brought upon us in a single day, and night fell on a different world, a world where suddenly, we knew ourselves to have mortal enemies. Americans have many questions tonight. Americans are asking, "Who attacked our country?" The evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al Qaeda. This is the same group indicted for bombing American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and responsible for bombing the USS Cole. The founder of this group, and its leader, is a person named Osama bin Laden. Osama bin Laden rose to power during the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union. In that conflict, we counted him and others like him as friends, because they fought against the Soviets, and we gave many millions of dollars of support to such groups. We did so because of the pressing needs of the time, and yet unwisely, because we gave no consideration to the beliefs of these groups, and of what they might do in the world after they had served our purposes. We have often made use of such groups, in many parts of the world, and in doing so have indirectly committed much evil. Many of the groups we have funded or trained have had no love of freedom or justice. Many of them have used terror against civilian populations, and we have benefited from their crimes. And in many cases, they have eventually turned on us, and come to hate us. Americans are asking "How did Osama bin Laden and the members of his organization come to hate us?" Osama bin Laden first considered us an enemy when we came to the aid of Kuwait, when it was invaded by Iraq. He did not believe it was right for a non-Arab state to occupy and wield power in Arab territory, and so perhaps it was inevitable that enmity would arise between us. Yet, I believe bin Laden was alarmed and angered not by our mere presence in Arab territory, but our agenda. While we proclaimed that we were only coming to the defense of the liberty of a small state threatened by the belligerence of its larger neighbor, he was aware that we were really coming to the defense of American power in the region. And the progress of American power throughout the world concerns many people, because it so often leaves great suffering in its wake. Though we say that we seek the spread of democracy throughout the world, this is only because democracy is often the easiest way to install leadership in a nation that will be favorable to our military and economic interests. We have been happy to support non-democratic regimes willing to serve those interests, no matter now corrupt or repressive they might be. And where a regime is unfriendly and democratic processes don't yield the results we seek, we have supported assassination and military takeover and terrorism against innocent civilians to achieve our ends. These are hard truths to bear, and yet bear them we must. And bear them we shall, for the American people love liberty above all else, and we know that it is only the truth that can set us free. We pride ourselves on our prosperity, and proclaim that it is the result of the hard work and creativity and enterprise of our people. And this is true. However, our prosperity is also built on the misery and the blood of a thousand, thousand innocents. My fellow Americans, I will not be a president that continues this tragic legacy. I will be the president that ends it. I will not forget the wound to our country, and all the forces that led to it. And I will not yield, I will not rest, I will not relent in waging a war to eliminate those forces from our world forever. Americans are asking, "How will we fight and win this war?" We will begin by putting an end to acts of terrorism by the one terrorist that we have the greatest access to: ourselves. We have sponsored terrorism in the world. We have supported regimes that have tortured and killed their own citizens in order to restrict freedom and crush political dissent. We have trained many of these killers and torturers in the tactics of terror, often right here in the United States. We may have financed Osama bin Laden himself, when he was fighting the war in Afghanistan. And we ourselves have directly targeted civilian populations -- innocent men, women, and children, whose lives were just as precious as those who died in the World Trade Center attack -- with weapons of mass destruction. We have, along with many other nations and powers, created a violent and wicked world, and if we are to fight against this evil now, judgment must begin at home. By aiding and abetting murder, we were committing murder, and tonight, the United States of America makes this pledge: We will no longer utilize, finance, or encourage terror, either on our part or by our allies, to accomplish any goal, military, political, or economic. To sacrifice human life to serve any state or corporate agenda, no matter how desperate the need may seem, or how glittering the profit appears, is to follow in the path of fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism, all the way to where it ends in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies. We will seek to make amends for the harm we've done. This will not be easy. The harm has been vast, and its victims are scattered throughout the world. In many cases, it may be impossible to determine who the victims are and how to help them. In some cases, they may hardly exist any more. In other cases, it may not be possible to reach them with any kind of aid. This will be a lengthy campaign unlike any other we have ever undertaken. We can hardly hope for complete success, and yet, that is what we must ever strive for. We will respect the sovereignty and the right to self-determination of every nation. The days when every nation was either with us or against us will be over. And finally, since judgment must begin at home, we will work to enhance the vitality of democracy right here in America. I will immediately meet with Republican and Democratic leaders of Congress to craft legislation that will get big money completely out of our electoral process, and when that bill reaches my desk, I will sign it. I will form a bipartisan committee to explore how we can increase voter turnout, and how we might improve our democratic system to allow even greater representation of a wider variety of viewpoints. I believe we ought to look into instant run-off elections, and proportional representation, in appropriate places. These are measures that many other nations have adopted successfully, and they are only opposed by those already entrenched in power, because they fear to lose it. I promise to veto any bill that seeks to curtail the civil liberties of American citizens. Liberty is what we are fighting for, and if the cost is the loss of liberty at home, then the cost is too high. We won't pay it. We're strong enough that we don't have to. I know from personal experience the hard road of reform. It may take decades, or even generations, before the nations of the world come to accept that we are motivated by anything other than the will to power. We will allow them to judge as they please; our responsibility is to a higher power, and to the ideals of freedom and peace, and to ourselves. Americans are asking, "What is expected of us?" No less than what our founding fathers were called to: revolution. It would be easy, in our grief and anger, to strike out blindly at our attackers, to portray them as the agents of pure evil, and ourselves as the defenders of all that is good. We could find them and destroy them, and believe that we had struck a blow for freedom in the world. But this would be a denial of the whole truth, and in denial, there can be no real healing. Therefore, I call upon patriotic Americans everywhere to join me in accepting our responsibility for the violent world we have created. Certainly, we do not bear sole responsibility, but we bear enough that it will be many generations before we will be able to set it all to rights. And so we had best begin the task now. The advance of human freedom, the great work of our time and the great hope of every time, demands our service. Our nation, this generation, can begin to erase the long shadow of violence from our past and our future. We will amaze the world by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail. Tonight, America rededicates herself to this great work. Tonight, this president becomes his own man. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war in the human heart; tonight, we renounce the old mad pursuit of power and wealth, and turn to the path of justice and peace. For that is the only way we can ever be assured of the rightness of our cause, and the only hope we have to receive the blessing and help of the One who rules the fates of all the nations. Thank you. |