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Wednesday, February 02, 20051107405000
Bush's New Order of the Ages
"Second Inaugural Address," spoken by George W. Bush, 2005 Presidential Inauguration, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,144976,00.html, 20 January 2005.
"State of the Union Address," by George W. Bush, The White House, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/02/20050202-11.html, 2 February 2005.
"State of the Union," by Chad M. Shuldt, Clean Cut Kid, http://www.cleancutkid.com/index.php?id=247, 2 February 2005.
"For a Foreign Audience," by Jonathan H. Adler, The Corner, http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/05_01_30_corner-archive.asp#055181, 2 February 2005.
President Bush announces his desire to walk with Egypt and Saudia Arabia.
President Bush's Second Inaugural Address
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
Not the Reagan Doctrine... but Better
The Reagan Doctrine
The All-Consuming Fire
Bush's New Order of the Ages
To promote peace and stability in the broader Middle East, the United States will work with our friends in the region to fight the common threat of terror, while we encourage a higher standard of freedom. Hopeful reform is already taking hold in an arc from Morocco to Jordan to Bahrain. The government of Saudi Arabia can demonstrate its leadership in the region by expanding the role of its people in determining their future. And the great and proud nation of Egypt, which showed the way toward peace in the Middle East, can now show the way toward democracy in the Middle East.
Forcing fellow South Dakota blogger CCK to swivle from
Spreading liberty ... where next ... Pakistan or Saudia Arabia ... something he's all talk
to
I have to say if he can pull this shit off in Egypt and Saudia Arabia, he will have his legacy secure. We'll have to see if he has the guts to risk our friendships there.
Bush's comments on Iran were oddly worded. After referencing them implicitly
Our nation, working with allies and friends, has also confronted the enemy abroad, with measures that are determined, successful, and continuing. The al Qaeda terror network that attacked our country still has leaders -- but many of its top commanders have been removed. There are still governments that sponsor and harbor terrorists -- but their number has declined. There are still regimes seeking weapons of mass destruction -- but no longer without attention and without consequence.
The meat
Today, Iran remains the world's primary state sponsor of terror -- pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve. We are working with European allies to make clear to the Iranian regime that it must give up its uranium enrichment program and any plutonium reprocessing, and end its support for terror. And to the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you.
Is this just a call for the Iranians to rise up? Or something more?
Charles Krauthammer makes the observation that much of the foreign policy part of the speech was aimed more at listeners overseas -- in Riyadh, Cairo, and Tehran -- than at home. He further suggested (quite provocatively) that the speech suggested that should the Iranian people rise up against the mullahs, the U.S. would be there to support them -- even militarily.
Iran has a secular and educated population. It's an Orange Revolution waiting to happen. We should not invade. But if the Iranian people rise up, and welcome us in, so much the better.
President Bush has a revolutionary belief in freedom. To quote again from his Second Inaugural
We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom. Not because history runs on the wheels of inevitability; it is human choices that move events. Not because we consider ourselves a chosen nation; God moves and chooses as He wills. We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul. When our Founders declared a new order of the ages; when soldiers died in wave upon wave for a union based on liberty; when citizens marched in peaceful outrage under the banner "Freedom Now" - they were acting on an ancient hope that is meant to be fulfilled. History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of Liberty.
When the Declaration of Independence was first read in public and the Liberty Bell was sounded in celebration, a witness said, "It rang as if it meant something." In our time it means something still. America, in this young century, proclaims liberty throughout all the world, and to all the inhabitants thereof. Renewed in our strength - tested, but not weary - we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom.
May God bless President Bush, and may He watch over the United States of America
22:30 Posted by Dan tdaxp (Webmaster) in Connectivity, Iran, Iraq | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: inauguration, speeches