Text 3471, 277 rader
Skriven 2006-10-20 23:31:04 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0610203) for Fri, 2006 Oct 20
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Vice President's Remarks at a Rally for the Indiana Air and Army National
Guard
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Vice President
October 20, 2006

Vice President's Remarks at a Rally for the Indiana Air and Army National
Guard
Camp Atterbury
Camp Atterbury, Indiana



11:10 A.M. EDT

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you all very much. General
Umbarger, and Sergeant Major Brown, members of the Guard, and families, let
me thank you for the warm welcome. They tell me I'm the first sitting Vice
President to visit this post, and I count it a privilege. But is it me you
came to see -- or the Colts and Pacers cheerleaders? (Laughter.) Yes, all
right. (Laughter.) No, I got here too late. (Laughter.)

It's always good to see an old friend of mine -- the commander-in-chief of
the Indiana National Guard, Governor Mitch Daniels. (Applause.) We're
joined, as well, today by a good man and friend of mine who flew out with
me this morning, from Washington, Congressman Mike Pence, who does a superb
job for everybody in Indiana. (Applause.)

And I also want to thank the musicians of the 38th Infantry Division Band,
and all the personnel at Camp Atterbury, uniformed and civilian, who've
made it possible for me to visit today. This is a superb military
installation. Not long after the attacks of 9/11, Camp Atterbury was
activated as a joint theater immersion site for training Americans to serve
abroad. It's one of only a handful of such facilities in the United States,
and more than 30,000 soldiers, sailors, and airmen have passed through this
camp in the last five years. Thanks to you, they've gone into the fight
well prepared, and they've achieved great results for the United States. I
want you to be proud of the work you're doing here every day. The
excellence and the commitment shown at Camp Atterbury is one of the reasons
we're going to win the war on terror. (Applause.)

It's been my privilege over the years to work with National Guard
personnel, both as Vice President and during my time as Secretary of
Defense. The citizen soldier is absolutely vital to protecting this nation
and to preserving our freedom. We know this from history, and we know it
from current events. In this time of war we have turned to National Guard
personnel for missions that are difficult and dangerous. You've never let
us down. I want all of you to know that we respect the sacrifices you make,
and we admire your skill and your devotion to duty. I'm honored to be in
your presence, and I bring you gratitude and good wishes from the President
of the United States, George W. Bush. (Applause.)

To serve in the National Guard is to accept a dual mission. You can be
called on to defend the country against enemies abroad, or to protect lives
and property here at home in times of local emergency. These recent months
and years have been a demanding period for Guardsmen and women all across
the country. Since 9/11, more than ten thousand men and women of the
Indiana National Guard have been called to active duty. You've served far
from home -- whether on peacekeeping duty in Bosnia or Kosovo, or ground
operations in Iraq, or training missions in Afghanistan. The assignments
have been varied, but the standard of performance has been high and
unwavering. You've put duty ahead of convenience, and service above
self-interest. And on this visit to Camp Atterbury, I want to thank the
fine units of the Indiana Air and Army National Guard, including the 53rd
Civil Support Team, the 939th Military Police Detachment, the 76th
Infantry, the 113th Engineer Battalion, the 152nd Infantry, the 38th
Infantry -- (applause) -- the 181st Fighter Wing -- (applause) -- the 122nd
Fighter Wing -- (applause) -- the Three Eighty Five Training Support
Brigade -- (applause) -- the 81st Troop Command and the State Area Command.
(Applause.) Don't hold back. (Laughter.)

Hoosiers are without question doing their part to make our nation safer,
and to bring freedom, stability, and peace to a troubled part of the world.
And when the job is done, you can be proud of your service for the rest of
your lives.

Afghanistan and Iraq are critical battlegrounds in a war that began on
September 11th, 2001. From that day to this, America's objectives have been
clear: First, we understand that to win this war, we have to go on the
offensive, and stay on the offensive, until the killers are brought to
justice and the danger is removed. Second, we must defeat the terrorists'
ideology of hatred and resentment by offering a hopeful vision of freedom,
justice, and human rights.

This nation harbors no illusions about the nature of our enemies, or the
beliefs they hold. They seek to impose a dictatorship of fear, under which
every man, woman, and child would live in total obedience to a narrow and
hateful ideology. This ideology rejects tolerance. It denies freedom of
conscience, and demands that women be pushed to the margins of society. We
saw the expression of those beliefs in the rule of the Taliban in
Afghanistan. In that dictatorship, we also saw that beliefs of this kind
can be imposed only through force and intimidation, so those who refuse to
bow to the tyrants are brutalized or killed.

We understand the objectives of the terrorists. They want to seize control
of a country in the Middle East, so they can acquire a base for launching
attacks, and the oil wealth to finance their ambitions. They want to target
and overthrow other governments in the region, and eventually to establish
a totalitarian empire that encompasses the region from Spain, across North
Africa, through the Middle East and South Asia, all the way around to
Indonesia. They have declared, as well, their ultimate aims: to arm
themselves with chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons, to destroy
Israel, to intimidate all Western countries, and to cause great harm here
in the United States.

We are their prime target. They hate us, they hate our country, they hate
the liberties for which we stand. They want to destroy our way of life, so
that freedom no longer has a home and a defender in this world. That leaves
us only one option: to rise to America's defense, to take the fight
directly to the enemy, and to accept no outcome but victory for the cause
of freedom. (Applause.)

We also understand the cruel nature of our enemies. American soldiers take
an oath, strive to protect the innocent, and conduct themselves according
to a code of honor. The terrorists are exactly the opposite. Here at Camp
Atterbury, you have the hard job of training Americans to face enemies who
wear no uniform, have no regard for the laws of warfare, and feel
unconstrained by any standard of morality. These are men without conscience
who kill the innocent with explosive devices -- improvised explosive
devices on roadsides; pretend to be sick or to have a broken-down vehicle
-- they strap bombs to their own bodies.

The terrorists know they cannot beat us in a stand-up fight. They never
have. The only way they can win is if we lose our nerve and abandon our
mission. So they continue committing acts of random horror, believing they
can intimidate the civilized world and break the will of the American
people. They base this view, in part, on the history of the 1980s and
1990s, when they concluded that if they killed enough Americans, they could
change American policy.

In Beirut in 1983, terrorists killed 241 service members. Thereafter, U.S.
forces withdrew from Beirut. In Mogadishu in 1993, terrorists killed 19
American soldiers, and thereafter, United States forces withdrew from
Somalia. The attacks continued: the bombing at the World Trade Center in
New York in 1993; the murders at the Saudi National Guard training facility
in 1995; the attack on the Khobar Towers in 1996; the simultaneous bombings
of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998; and the attack on the USS
Cole in 2000. With each attack, the terrorists grew more confident in
believing they could strike America without paying a price. So they kept at
it, and eventually struck here in the homeland on 9/11, and killed 3,000 of
our fellow citizens.

Osama bin Laden, of course, continues to predict that the people of the
United States simply do not have the stomach to stay in the fight against
terror.

But this nation has learned the lessons of history. We know that terrorist
attacks are not caused by the use of strength, they are invited by the
perception of weakness. We know that if we leave Iraq before the mission is
completed, the enemy is simply going to come after us. Having seen our
interests attacked repeatedly over the years, and knowing the ambitions of
the terrorists, this nation has made a decision: We will engage these
enemies. We will face them far from home, so we do not have to face them on
the streets of our own cities.

The terrorists regard the entire world as a battlefield. That's why al
Qaeda has operatives in Iraq right now. Osama bin Laden calls this conflict
the "third world war," and he knows the stakes as well as we do. If the
terrorists were to succeed, they would return Iraq to the rule of tyrants,
make it a source of instability in the Middle East, and use it as a staging
area for more attacks. The terrorists also know that as freedom takes hold,
the ideologies of hatred and resentment will lose their appeal, and the
advance of liberty, equality, and self government in the broader Middle
East will lead to a much safer world for our children and our
grandchildren.

Our strategic goal in Iraq is a nation that can govern itself, sustain
itself, defend itself, and be an ally in the war on terror. Those of you
who have been on the ground know that we've made progress -- not easily,
but we have made progress. And we can be confident going forward. By voting
in free elections, by ratifying a constitution, by going to the polls with
a voter turnout rate higher than the rate in our country, the Iraqi people
have shown that they value their liberty and are determined to choose their
own destiny.

In the face of challenges, the Iraqi people can know that America is a
nation that keeps its word. We'll continue the work of reconstruction,
continue to strike at the enemy, continue to train Iraqi forces so they can
defend their own country. We will change our tactics as necessary to
achieve the mission, as we have from the beginning. And all Americans can
be certain: Any decisions about troop levels will be driven by the
conditions on the ground and the judgments of our military commanders --
not by artificial time lines set by politicians in Washington, D.C.
(Applause.)

The fight against terror includes a home front -- and at Camp Atterbury you
know the home front is every bit as important as battlefields abroad.
President Bush told Congress after 9/11 that our country would "direct
every resource, every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every
instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every
necessary weapon of war -- to the disruption and to the defeat of the
global terror network." The Congress backed him up in full, authorizing the
President to defeat an enemy that had already slipped into the country and
waged an attack that killed 3,000 of our fellow citizens.

The President also signed the Patriot Act, which is helping us disrupt
terrorist activity, to break up terror cells within the United States, and
to protect the lives of Americans. Another vital step the President took in
the days following 9/11 was to authorize the National Security Agency to
intercept a certain category of terrorist-linked international
communications. The purpose is very simple to state: If people inside the
United States are communicating with al Qaeda, they are talking to the
enemy -- and we need to know about it. (Applause.)

The Terrorist Surveillance Program has on occasion been described as
domestic surveillance or eavesdropping. That is not the case. We are
talking about international communications, one end of which we have reason
to believe is related to al Qaeda or to terrorist networks. It's hard to
think of any category of information that could be more important to the
safety of the United States.

The Terrorist Surveillance Program is fully consistent with the
constitutional responsibilities and the legal authority of the President.
And it's absolutely essential to the security of the United States. In
their report, the 9/11 Commission focused criticism on the nation's
inability to uncover links between terrorists at home and terrorists
overseas. The term that's used is "connecting the dots" -- and the fact is
that one small piece of data might very well make it possible to save
thousands of lives. The task in front of us is still urgent. The enemy that
struck us on 9/11 is weakened and fractured, yet still lethal, still
determined to hit us again. All of you understand this because you
personally are involved in the defense of our country.

As people who know firsthand what this war really entails, you can be
certain of this: The President will not relent in tracking the terrorists
with every legitimate tool at his command. The United States of America
will not let down its guard. (Applause.)

Americans know about the heroism displayed every day in the fight against
terror. We're not the kind of people to take our military for granted. We
feel very deeply when soldiers fall in the line of duty. One of those we
think of is Staff Sergeant Richard Blakley from Avon, Indiana. Early this
year, Sergeant Blakley was hit by sniper fire in Iraq. He survived, and in
fact returned to active duty that very day. When Governor Daniels visited
Iraq last spring, he personally presented Sergeant Blakley with the Purple
Heart. A short time later, this good man was wounded again, but this time
he did not survive. He had served over 17 years in the Indiana National
Guard, had sacrificed much, and had gone directly into the face of the
enemy. As Governor Daniels put it, Sergeant Blakley "literally had nothing
left to prove." But he gave his life for his country. Americans will
remember Richard Blakley, as we remember all of the fallen, and we will
honor their names forever. (Applause.)

The United States of America is, and will remain, a nation that is clear in
its purposes, and a nation that honors its commitments. So we will carry on
in the work that is ours to do. But for all the effort that lies ahead,
this period of testing for our country is also a time of promise. America
has been called by history to defend the innocent, to confront the violent,
and to liberate the oppressed. We're a good country, a generous,
compassionate, idealistic country. We are doing honorable work in a messy
and a dangerous world. By defending ourselves, and by standing with our
friends abroad, we're meeting our responsibilities as freedom's home and
defender, and we are securing the peace that freedom brings.

More than that, ladies and gentlemen, we are showing all of mankind that
the people who wear the uniform of the United States are men and women of
skill and perseverance, of decency and honor. (Applause.)

Standing here today, in the heart of this great nation, I want to thank
each and every one of you for the vital work you do, and for your example
of service and character. You reflect great credit on the state of Indiana,
and on the nation. Your fellow citizens, and your President, are extremely
proud of you.

Thank you very much. (Applause.)

END 11:30 A.M. EDT

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