Senator John Kerry's Remarks at Georgetown University
t r u t h o u t | Address
Thursday 23 January 2003
"Mr. President, Do Not Rush To War"
As our government conducts one war and prepares for another, I come here today to make clear that we can do a better job of making our country safer and stronger. We need a new approach to national security - a bold, progressive internationalism that stands in stark contrast to the too often belligerent and myopic unilateralism of the Bush Administration. I offer this new course at a critical moment for the country that we love, and the world in which we live and lead. Thanks to the work and sacrifice of generations who opposed aggression and defended freedom, for others as well as ourselves, America now stands as the world's foremost power. We should be proud: Not since the age of the Romans have one people achieved such preeminence. But we are not Romans; we do not seek an empire. We are Americans, trustees of a vision and a heritage that commit us to the values of democracy and the universal cause of human rights. So while we can be proud, we must be purposeful and mindful of our principles: And we must be patient - aware that there is no such thing as the end of history. With great power, comes grave responsibility.
We are all of us too aware, since September 11th, of the gravity of the times and the greatness of the stakes. Having won the Cold War, a brief season of content has been succeeded by a new war against terrorism which is an assault on the very progress we have made.
Throughout our history, in peaceful exertion and in armed struggle, we were steadfast - we were right on the central issue of freedom, and we prevailed. And because we prevailed the world is a far better place than it was or would otherwise have been. The world today has a strong democratic core shaped by American ingenuity, sacrifice, and spirit. But on the periphery are many unstable and dangerous places, where terrorists seek to impose a medieval dark age. As we learned so brutally and so personally, we do face a new threat. But we also face a renewed choice - between isolation in a perilous world, which I believe is impossible in any event, and engagement to shape a safer world which is the urgent imperative of our time. A choice between those who think you can build walls to keep the world out, and those who want to tear down the barriers that separate "us" from "them." Between those who want America to go it alone, and those who want America to lead the world toward freedom. The debate over how the United States should conduct itself in the world is not new. After all, what is today's unilateralism but the right's old isolationist impulse in modern guise? At its core is a familiar and beguiling illusion: that America can escape an entangling world...that we can wield our enormous power without incurring obligations to others...and that we can pursue our national interests in arrogant ways that make a mockery of our nation's ideals. I am here today to reject the narrow vision of those who would build walls to keep the world out, or who would prefer to strike out on our own instead of forging coalitions and step by step creating a new world of law and mutual security. I believe the Bush Administration's blustering unilateralism is wrong, and even dangerous, for our country. In practice, it has meant alienating our long-time friends and allies, alarming potential foes and spreading anti-Americanism around the world. Too often they've forgotten that energetic global leadership is a strategic imperative for America, not a favor we do for other countries. Leading the world's most advanced democracies isn't mushy multilateralism -- it amplifies America's voice and extends our reach. Working through global institutions doesn't tie our hands -- it invests US aims with greater legitimacy and dampens the fear and resentment that our preponderant power sometimes inspires in others. In a world growing more, not less interdependent, unilateralism is a formula for isolation and shrinking influence. As much as some in the White House may desire it, America can't opt out of a networked world. We can do better than we are doing today. And those who seek to lead have a duty to offer a clear vision of how we make Americans safer and make America more trusted and respected in the world.
That vision is defined by looking to our best traditions -- to the tough-minded strategy of international engagement and leadership forged by Wilson and Roosevelt in two world wars and championed by Truman and Kennedy in the Cold War. These leaders recognized that America's safety depends on energetic leadership to rally the forces of freedom And they understood that to make the world safe for democracy and individual liberty, we needed to build international institutions dedicated to establishing the rule of law over the law of the jungle. That's why Roosevelt pushed hard for the United Nations and the World Bank and IMF. It's why Truman insisted not only on creating NATO, but also on a Marshall Plan to speed Europe's recovery. It's why Kennedy not only faced down the Soviets during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but also signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and launched the Peace Corps to put American idealism to work in developing countries. He spoke out for an America strong because of its ideals as well as its weapons.
For us today, the past truly is prologue. The same principles and strength of purpose must guide our way. Our task now is to update that tradition, to forge a bold progressive internationalism for the global age. As I said last summer in New York, for Democrats to win America's confidence we must first convince Americans we will keep them safe. You can't do that by avoiding the subjects of national security, foreign policy and military preparedness. Nor can we let our national security agenda be defined by those who reflexively oppose any U.S. military intervention anywhere...who see U.S. power as mostly a malignant force in world politics...who place a higher value on achieving multilateral consensus than necessarily protecting our vital interests. Americans deserve better than a false choice between force without diplomacy and diplomacy without force. I believe they deserve a principled diplomacy...backed by undoubted military might...based on enlightened self-interest, not the zero-sum logic of power politics...a diplomacy that commits America to lead the world toward liberty and prosperity. A bold, progressive internationalism that focuses not just on the immediate and the imminent but insidious dangers that can mount over the next years and decades, dangers that span the spectrum from the denial of democracy, to destructive weapons, endemic poverty and epidemic disease. These are, in the truest sense, not just issues of international order and security, but vital issues of our own national security. So how would this approach, this bold progressive internationalism, differ from the Bush Administration's erratic unilateralism and reluctant engagement? The answer starts by understanding the nature and source of the threat we face.
While we must remain determined to defeat terrorism, it isn't only terrorism we are fighting. It's the beliefs that motivate terrorists. A new ideology of hatred and intolerance has arisen to challenge America and liberal democracy. It seeks a war of Islam - as defined by extremists - against the rest of the world and we must be clear its epicenter is the Greater Middle East.
It's critical that we recognize the conditions that are breeding this virulent new form of anti-American terrorism. If you look at countries stretching from Morocco through the Middle East and beyond...broadly speaking the western Muslim world...what you see is a civilization under extraordinary stress. The region's political and economic crisis is vividly captured in a recent report written by Arab scholars for the United Nations Development Program and the Arab Fund for Social and Economic Development. Let me quote:
"The wave of democracy that transformed governance in most of the world has barely reached the Arab states...The freedom deficit undermines human development and is one of the most painful manifestations of lagging political development."
According to Freedom House, there are no full-fledged democracies among the 16 Arab states of the Middle East and North Africa. The Middle East is not monolithic; there are governments making progress and struggling effectively with change in Jordan, Morocco and Qatar. But Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Syria are among the 10 least free nations in the world. Political and economic participation among Arab women is the lowest in the world and more than half of Arab women are still illiterate. And these countries are among the most economically isolated in the world, with very little trade apart from the oil royalties which flow to those at the very top. Since 1980, the share of world trade held by the 57 member countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference has fallen from 15 percent to just four percent. The same countries attracted only $13.6 billion worth of foreign direct investment in 2001. That is just $600 million - only about 5 % - more than Sweden, which has only 9 million people compared to 1.3 billion people. In 1969, the GDP of South Korea and Egypt were almost identical. Today, South Korea boasts one of the 20 largest economies in the world while Egypt's remains economically frozen almost exactly where it was thirty years before.
A combination of harsh political repression, economic stagnation, lack of education and opportunity, and rapid population growth has proven simply explosive. The streets are full of young people who have no jobs... no prospects... no voice. State-controlled media encourage a culture of self-pity, victimhood and blame-shifting. This is the breeding ground for present and future hostility to the West and our values. From this perspective, it's clear that we need more than a one-dimensional war on terror. Of course we need to hunt down and destroy those who are plotting mass murder against Americans and innocent people from Africa to Asia to Europe. We must drain the swamps of terrorists; but you don't have a prayer of doing so if you leave the poisoned sources to gather and flow again. That means we must help the vast majority people of the greater Middle East build a better future. We need to illuminate an alternative path to a futile Jihad against the world...a path that leads to deeper integration of the greater Middle East into the modern world order.
The Bush Administration has a plan for waging war but no plan for winning the peace. It has invested mightily in the tools of destruction but meagerly in the tools of peaceful construction. It offers the peoples in the greater Middle East retribution and war but little hope for liberty and prosperity.
What America needs today is a smarter, more comprehensive and far-sighted strategy for modernizing the greater Middle East. It should draw on all of our nation's strengths: military might, the world's largest economy, the immense moral prestige of freedom and democracy - and our powerful alliances.
Let me emphasize that last asset in this mission: our alliances. This isn't a task that we should or need to shoulder alone. If anything, our transatlantic partners have a greater interest than we do in an economic and political transformation in the greater Middle East. They are closer to the front lines. More heavily dependent on oil imports. Prime magnets for immigrants seeking jobs. Easier to reach with missiles and just as vulnerable to terrorism. Meanwhile, NATO is searching for a new mission. What better way to revitalize the most successful and enduring alliance in history, then to reorient it around a common threat to the global system that we have built over more than a half-century of struggle and sacrifice? The Administration has tried to focus NATO on the Middle East, but it's high-handed treatment of our European allies, on everything from Iraq to the Kyoto climate change treaty, has strained relations nearly to the breaking point. We can do better. With creative leadership, the U.S. can enlist our allies in a sustained multilateral campaign to build bridges between the community of democracies and the greater Middle East - not just for them, but for us. Here, in my view, is what this strategy should look like...
More at the link below...
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