Read President Bush's speech to
Read President Bush's speech to the Bundestag, given yesterday, here. The sweet spot:
The evil that has formed against us has been termed the "new totalitarian threat." The authors of terror are seeking nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Regimes that sponsor terror are developing these weapons and the missiles to deliver them. If these regimes and their terrorist allies were to perfect these capabilities, no inner voice of reason, no hint of conscience would prevent their use.
Wishful thinking might bring comfort, but not security. Call this a strategic challenge; call it, as I do, axis of evil; call it by any name you choose, but let us speak the truth.
Peggy Noonan calls that bit "deft" in her take on the speech. I think she's right. Don't like the words "axis of evil"? Call it what you like. But don't ignore the reality of the threat by poking your head into semantic sand.
The Guardian (U.K.), with typically blinkered prose, reports mainly on the "protests" and "jeers" which supposedly greeted Bush inside and outside of the Reichstag. While making sure to report that at one point during the speech "MPs from the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor movement to the East German communist party, unfurled a banner with the words: "Mr Bush and Mr Schröder, stop your wars," they neglect to mention that "There were shouts of disapproval from other members as the banner was wrestled from them," as reported by the Telegraph (also U.K.). The Telegraph declared the speech "forceful and accomodating" and "a defining speech that won a standing ovation from the Bundestag." On the 21st, the Times of London reminded Europe both of its decline and of the repeated military largesse bestowed upon it by the United States. In the context of declaring the death of NATO, Charles Krauthammer explains the European forgetfulness in today's Washington Post:
"For a continent that for 500 years ruled the world, this impotence is difficult to accept. It helps explain Europe's petulant complaints about American 'arrogance' and 'unilateralism.'"
So true. And, reflecting a point I've made elsewhere on these pages:
"Toward the end of the Cold War, they made the conscious, near-continental decision to radically reduce their military forces and turn inward in order to build 'Europe.' They slashed defense spending and essentially demobilized. It was a perfectly reasonable response to the end of the Soviet threat. [...] should we be hectoring them to reverse that, to divert money from their cherished welfare states to their militaries?"
The truth is, militarily we don't need Europe to fight this war. But their reluctance to voice support for it, and the strong current of anti-American sentiment that repeatedly finds expression through their media and their politicians, is worse that petulant: it's downright ungrateful. Where would Europe be without the intervention of the United States 50 years ago? Certainly not debating about how best to insure universal health care for its citizens, or experimenting with the mono-government of the European Union. France needs to recall that it was only timely work by their intelligence services that prevented an Algerian terrorist group from flying an airliner into the Eiffel Tower in 1994, and stopped a plan to bomb Strasborg cathedral in 2000. Their luck won't hold forever. Germany should remember that a terrorist cell operating out of their country provided personnel and assistance to the September 11 operation. When they crack down on the cells that have heretofore found relatively safe haven within their borders, they, too, will become targets.
As President Bush recited:
"Those who despise human freedom will attack it on every continent. Those who seek missiles and terrible weapons are also familiar with the map of Europe. Like the threats of another era, this threat cannot be appeased and cannot be ignored."
Hopefully, it will not take a European version of September 11 to remind the Continent of its debt to America and its responsibility to its citizenry and the world.
