CCCs
Joined: 07 Jul 2003
Posts: 762
|
|
Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2004 4:28 pm Post subject: Joe Lieberman Understands
|
|
|
Sometimes inspiration and clarity comes from the strangest sources. Joe Lieberman gave a speech a few nights ago describing Iraq's future and the war on terrorism. Here are some key excerpts from his speech:
| Quote: |
| Today I want to discuss the war we are waging against Islamic terrorists in Iraq and around the world, and to argue that it is fundamentally a war of ideas and a war of values, a war of conflicting visions of humans and history, of faith and country. The war on terrorism we are fighting goes to the very heart of America's national purpose and national security. Our core principles of freedom and opportunity are at stake. |
| Quote: |
| the flurry of news bombarding us each day of the ups and downs from all fronts in the war on terrorism, it is easy to forget the larger ideals that it is all about.… may cause people to lose sight of the values we are fighting for in this war – and the values we are fighting against. |
| Quote: |
The terrorists can never defeat us militarily. But they can divide us and defeat us politically if the American people become disappointed and disengaged, because they don't appreciate and support the overriding principles that require us to take military action. The same, of course, is true for our allies in Europe, Asia and throughout the Muslim world. They need to better understand and embrace our purpose and what it means for them.
What we are fighting for in Iraq and around the world is freedom. What we are fighting against is an Islamic terrorist totalitarian movement which is as dire a threat to individual liberty as the fascist and communist totalitarian threats we faced and defeated were in the last century. |
There is no better way to know the enemy than to read their words.
| Quote: |
| The father of the jihadist movement, Sayyed Qutb [KUH-tahb] of Egypt, wrote in 1952, “The death of those who are killed for the cause of God gives more impetus to the cause, which continues to thrive on their blood.” The cause of which he speaks is to “establish a [Muslim] state” that “sets moral values,” “abolish[es] man-made laws” and that would impose, by force if necessary, the Islamic system on “all human beings, whether they be rulers or ruled, black or white, poor or rich, ignorant or learned.” |
| Quote: |
In his “Declaration of the World Islamic Front for Jihad,” issued in February 1998, Bin Laden says that “to kill Americans and their allies, both civil and military, is an individual duty of every Muslim… every Muslim who believes in God and hopes for reward [must] obey God's command to kill the Americans and plunder their possessions wherever he finds them and whenever he can.”
In his November 1998 “Letter to America,” Bin Laden condemned the United States because, he said, like all democracies, it is a “nation who, rather than ruling by the Sharia of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, chooses to invent your own laws as you will and desire.” After September 11th attacks, he gloated triumphantly that “the values of Western civilization… of liberty, human rights, and humanity, have been destroyed.” |
Lieberman continues:
| Quote: |
| The values and ideas which we cherish and which Osama Bin Laden denounces are on the line in the Iraq war. To call the war in Iraq separate and distinct from the larger war on terrorism is inaccurate. Iraq today is a battle – a crucial battle – in the global war on terrorism. |
| Quote: |
At the outset of the Cold War, President Truman made clear that might of arms alone would not be enough to win that war. He stressed the need to bolster the world's economy so prosperity would replace despair, and to share America's industrial and technical knowledge with the world's people so they could lift themselves out of poverty, and into freedom.
We must do the same. We must show the Iraqi people, and people throughout the Islamic world, that democracy can deliver, that opportunity can replace despair, that hope can conquer hatred. We must accelerate the distribution of U.S. reconstruction assistance to Iraq, and we must widen our focus to include not only infrastructure repair, but jobs. Unemployment in Iraq is sky high – and every pair of idle hands there is the terrorists' workshop. To win the war for democracy in Iraq, we must put Iraq back to work.
We must also persistently pursue our allies in Europe, the Middle East and Asia to invest generously in Iraq and thereby enhance their own future security and freedom. They deceive themselves if they believe they can remain non-combatants in the global war against jihadism and for freedom. |
The War in Iraq is a part of the greater war on terror. The United States did not begin this war, but was drawn into it after numerous attacks and threats. Even today, a day after the 9-11 commission said that Iraq was not a co-conspirator in the attacks of 9-11, we get word from Russia that they had passed the United States information that Iraq was planning attacks against the United States. Iraq was a Terror State.
|
|