September 10, 2001 speech to Nat'l Press Club - chilling

PatSeg

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Sun Dec-30-07 12:53 AM
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September 10, 2001 speech to Nat'l Press Club - chilling

I know everyone's attention span is very short right now with the Iowa Caucuses right around the corner, but if you clicked on this thread, please read the entire post and let it really sink in. These are the words of a man who really knows and understands the world we live in. I don't have a link - I typed it the old fashioned way, but I thought it was really worth reading and digesting. I can't even imagine the way he felt the next day.

"At the end of the Cold War, when the wall came down, we found ourselves on the brink of extraordinary changes. From that day on, we inherited a profound obligation of leadership, and an an even more profound obligation of leadership, and an even more profound obligation to get it right in the Middle East, in the Balkans, in Europe, and in Asia, in our hemispheres, in our commitments, our treaties, and in our defense policy-missile or otherwise. Now, the spotlight remains on us and is brighter than ever. We're at a pivotal moment when American values and principles have taken center stage like no other time in our history and in the global theater. How we perform on that stage is as much about our honor, our decency, our pride as it is about strategic policy. So before we start raising the starting gun that will begin a new arms race in the world, before we dip into the Social Security trust fund to satisfy the administration's almost theological allegiance to missile defense at the expense of more earth-bound military and international treaties, before we watch China build up its nuclear arsenal and see an arms race in Asia and in the subcontinent, before we squander the best opportunity we've had in a generation to modernize our conventional nuclear forces, let's look at the real threats we face at home and abroad. Lets reengage and rethink and meet our obligations with a strength and resolve that befits our place in the new world.....I don't think our national interests can be further, let alone, achieved in splendid indifference to the rest of the world's views of our policies. Our interests are furthered when we meet our international obligations and we keep our treaties.

We can't forget or simply disregard the responsibilities that flow from our ideals. Are we a nation of our word or not? Do we keep our treaties or don't we? Are we willing to lead the hard way, because leadership isn't easy and requires us convincing others? Diplomacy isn't easy. Multilateral policay initiatives aren't easy. Or are we willing to end four decades of arms control agreements and go it alone-a kind of bully nation, sometimes a little wrong-headed but ready to make unilateral decisions in what we perceive to be our self-interest, and to hell with our treaties, our commitments, and the world? Even the Joint Chiefs of Staff say that a strategic nuclear attack is less likely than a regional conflict a major theater of war, terrorist attacks at home or abroad, or any other number of real issues. We have diverted all that money to address the least likely threat, whil the real threat comes to this country in the hold of ship, the belly of a plane, or smuggled into a city in the middle of the night in a vial in a backpack."

Joe Biden - National Press Conference 09/10/01