My fellow Americans, Tonight we find ourselves at the precipice of a new age in our country's history. For the past several decades a radical, dark and evil ideology has festered and grown across the globe with an ultimate goal of world domination and forced subservience to their twisted thinking. This cancer of humanity under the banner of Islam has attacked and killed innocent people throughout the world seeking only to indiscriminately destroy, injure and generate fear among civilized populations on every continent. The danger is that this medieval ideology now has the benefit of modern technology and they will use it whenever possible to inflict maximum damage. For years the world has treated terrorism as a series of isolated criminal acts and sought to find and prosecute the perpetrators from a law enforcement mentality. On September 11th, 2001, that changed. We no longer had the luxury of watching these acts of terror happen on distant shores. And so, as President, to protect our nation, I made the decision to respond to this evil with military force. Now 4 years after our initial military intervention in both Afghanistan and Iraq, we along with our allies, have liberated 31 million people in Afghanistan and 26 million people in Iraq. The repressive and evil regimes of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein are gone. Today, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, a democratically elected government is in place and functioning for the benefit of their respective citizens.
At this time, I think it's important to try to clear something up right now. Contrary to the popular belief of some delusional members of the Demoncratic party, and some kooky fringe elements of the extreme left, the events of September 11th were not orchestrated by the American Government! To continue, neither Dick Cheney, myself, or our "friends in the oil business", initiated a war in order to enrich ourselves! Anyone who is crazy enough to think that needs to re-evaluate their citizenship. I hear France is nice. Also, while it's true we went into Iraq initially because we feared there were stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, that wasn't a story made up to justify a war. Every intelligence organization in the world said the same thing. The United Nations voted to take action because of the numerous violations of UN sanctions, and the congress, acting on the same intel we all had, authorized military force in Iraq. Even the Clinton administration called for regime change in Iraq. The bottom line is that in a post 9-11 world, wait and see, was not an option.
Having said this, I am now authorizing and calling for a temporary build up of troops in Iraq with the explicit goal of using whatever force is necessary to purge the country of insurgent terrorists and enable the Iraqi government to take charge and control their country. For too long now, we have been trying to conduct a politically correct war, seeking to get positive coverage on the alphabet channel news coverage and in the world press. It's obvious that will never happen. The only option is to win, and win quickly. This can and will be done with overwhelming force. The military comanders on the ground, in theater, will have every military option open to them to secure our people and our victory. There will be casualties. There always are. But like in other world wars, sacrifice is necessary for the greater good. We have the military skill, equipment and professionalism to accomplish this mission and in doing so, will put the Islamo-fascists on the run. We will continue to hunt them down in whatever corner of the world they seek to hide. We will be relentless and will be victorious.
The opponents of this war wish to run from the fight. They think that if we retreat, and put our heads in the sand, the threat will go away. They couldn't be more wrong. We have learned from history, that appeasement never works. This enemy, even more than those we've faced before, are more dangerous than any the civilized world has ever faced. To them death is better than life and is to be celebrated. The more death and pain they can inflict on innocents, the better. They cannot be reasoned with, only eliminated.
The precipice we stand on now, my fellow Americans, is this; are we to cut and run from the fight that has been brought to us, and hope for the best? Or, do we face the greatest challenge of our age and take the fight to the enemy and seek to preserve our great country? I choose to fight now, and leave a safer world for our children.
God's speed to the brave men and women in our military, and God bless America.
