Tonight Americans and Iraqi's are dying for a world where each people may choose its own path to change.
Why must we take this painful road?
Why must this nation hazard its ease, its interest, and its power for the sake of a people so far away?
We fight because we must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny, and only in such a world will our own freedom be finally secure.
This kind of world will never be built by bombs or bullets, yet the infirmities of man are such that force must often precede reason and the waste of war, the works of peace.
We wish this were not so. But we must deal with the world as it is, if it is ever to be as we wish.
The world as it is in Iraq is not a serene or peaceful place.
Of course, some of the people of Iraq are participating in attack on their own government. But trained men and supplies, orders and arms, flow in a constant stream. This support is the heartbeat of the war.
And it is a war of unparalleled brutality. Simple farmers are the targets of assassination and kidnapping. Women and children are strangled in the night because their men are loyal to the government. And helpless villagers are ravaged by sneak attacks. Large-scale raids are conducted on towns, and terror strikes in the heart of cities.
This is the principle for which our ancestors fought in the valleys of Pennsylvania. It is the principle for which our sons and daughters fight tonight in Iraq.
Iraq is far away from this quiet campus. We have no territory there, nor do we seek any. The war is dirty and brutal and difficult. And some 1700 young men and women, born into an America that is bursting with opportunity and promise, have ended their lives on Iraq's steaming soil.
The confused nature of this conflict cannot mask the fact that it is the new face of an old enemy.
Al Qaeda is helping the forces of violence in almost every continent. The contest in Iraq is part of a wider pattern of aggressive purposes.
Why are these realities our concern? Why are we in Iraq?
We are there because we have a promise to keep. Since 1984 every American President has offered support to the people of Iraq. And I intend to keep that promise.
To dishonor that pledge, to abandon this small and brave nation to its enemies, and to the terror that must follow, would be an unforgivable wrong.
We are also there to strengthen world order. Around the globe from Berlin to Thailand are people whose well being rests in part on the belief that they can count on us if they are attacked. To leave Iraq to its fate would shake the confidence of all these people in the value of an American commitment and in the value of America's word. The result would be increased unrest and instability, even wide war.
We are also there because there are great stakes in the balance. Let no one think for a minute that retreat from Iraq would bring an end to the conflict. The battle would be renewed in one country and then another. The central lesson of our time is that the appetite of aggression is never satisfied. To withdraw from one battlefield means only to prepare for the next. We must say in Iraq-as we did in Europe-in the words of the Bible: "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further."
There are those who say that all our effort there will be futile-that Al Qaeda power is such that it is bound to dominate all of the Middle East. But there is no end to that argument until all of the nations of the Middle East are swallowed up.
There are those who wonder why we have a responsibility there. Well, we have it there for the same reason that we have a responsibility for the defense of Europe. World War II was fought in both Europe and Asia, and when it ended we found ourselves with continued responsibility for the defense of freedom.
Our objective is the independence of Iraq, and its freedom from attack. We want nothing for ourselves-only that the people of Iraq be allowed to guide their own country in their own way.
We will do everything necessary to reach that objective. And we will do only what is absolutely necessary.
In recent months attacks on the people of Iraq were stepped up. Thus, it became necessary for us to increase our response. This is not a change of purpose. It is a change in what we believe that purpose requires.
We do this in order to slow down aggression.
We do this to increase the confidence of the brave people of Iraq who have bravely borne this brutal battle for so many years with so many casualties.
And we do this to convince the leaders of Al Qaeda -and all who seek to share their conquest-of a simple fact:
We will not be defeated.
We will not grow tired.
We will not withdraw, either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement.
We know that air attacks alone will not accomplish all of these purposes. But it is our best and prayerful judgment that they are a necessary part of the surest road to peace.
We hope that peace will come swiftly. But that is in the hands of others besides ourselves. And we must be prepared for a long continued conflict. It will require patience as well as bravery, the will to endure as well as the will to resist.
I wish it were possible to convince others with words of what we now find it necessary to say with guns and planes: Armed hostility is futile. Our resources are equal to the challenge. Because we fight for values and we fight for principles, rather than territory or colonies, our patience and our determination are unending.
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Oh Shit. I have been having trouble with my computer. The damn thing put the words "Iraq" in where it should have been "Vietnam" and "Middle East" should have read "Far East". And Ohhhhhhhhhhh shit. Al Qaeda should have read "China".
Silly me, this was part of a speech given by Lyndon Johnson April 7th, 1965.
Never mind, my mistake.
Sincerely
Joe Muharsky
RD2, United States Navy Black Berets Vietnam
Forward Machine Gunner, PCF 78, DaNang, 1968
Forward Machine Gunner, PCF 94, An Thoi, 1969
U.S.S. Brister, Destroyer Escort #327, Vietnam, 1967
Operation Market Time, Operation Seal Lords, Operation Phoenix
Coxswain and Flotilla Operations Officer, United States Coast Auxiliary 2002-
Recipient:
First "Admiral Zumwalt Humanitarian Award" from "The Swift Boat Sailors Association- 2003
Recipient:
United States Coast Guard "Search and Rescue Team 9" award 2004