President Bush Delivers Graduation Speech at West Point
Remarks by the President at 2002 Graduation Exercise of the United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
9:13 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, General Lennox. Mr.
Secretary, Governor Pataki, members of the United States Congress,
Academy staff and faculty, distinguished guests, proud family members,
and graduates: I want to thank you for your welcome. Laura and I are
especially honored to visit this great institution in your bicentennial
year.
In every corner of America, the words "West Point" command
immediate respect. This place where the Hudson River bends is more
than a fine institution of learning. The United States Military
Academy is the guardian of values that have shaped the soldiers who
have shaped the history of the world.
A few of you have followed in the path of the perfect West Point
graduate, Robert E. Lee, who never received a single demerit in four
years. Some of you followed in the path of the imperfect graduate,
Ulysses S. Grant, who had his fair share of demerits, and said the
happiest day of his life was "the day I left West Point." (Laughter.)
During my college years I guess you could say I was -- (laughter.)
During my college years I guess you could say I was a Grant man.
(Laughter.)
You walk in the tradition of Eisenhower and MacArthur, Patton and
Bradley - the commanders who saved a civilization. And you walk in the
tradition of second lieutenants who did the same, by fighting and dying
on distant battlefields.
Graduates of this academy have brought creativity and courage to
every field of endeavor. West Point produced the chief engineer of the
Panama Canal, the mind behind the Manhattan Project, the first American
to walk in space. This fine institution gave us the man they say
invented baseball, and other young men over the years who perfected the
game of football.
You know this, but many in America don't -- George C. Marshall, a
VMI graduate, is said to have given this order: "I want an officer for
a secret and dangerous mission. I want a West Point football player."
(Applause.)
As you leave here today, I know there's one thing you'll never miss
about this place: Being a plebe. (Applause.) But even a plebe at
West Point is made to feel he or she has some standing in the world.
(Laughter.) I'm told that plebes, when asked whom they outrank, are
required to answer this: "Sir, the Superintendent's dog -- (laughter)
-- the Commandant's cat, and all the admirals in the whole damn Navy."
(Applause.) I probably won't be sharing that with the Secretary of the
Navy. (Laughter.)
West Point is guided by tradition, and in honor of the "Golden
Children of the Corps," -- (applause) -- I will observe one of the
traditions you cherish most. As the Commander-in-Chief, I hereby grant
amnesty to all cadets who are on restriction for minor conduct
offenses. (Applause.) Those of you in the end zone might have cheered
a little early. (Laughter.) Because, you see, I'm going to let
General Lennox define exactly what "minor" means. (Laughter.)
Every West Point class is commissioned to the Armed Forces. Some
West Point classes are also commissioned by history, to take part in a
great new calling for their country. Speaking here to the class of
1942 -- six months after Pearl Harbor -- General Marshall said, "We're
determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle, our flag
will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the
one hand, and of overwhelming power on the other." (Applause.)
Officers graduating that year helped fulfill that mission,
defeating Japan and Germany, and then reconstructing those nations as
allies. West Point graduates of the 1940s saw the rise of a deadly new
challenge -- the challenge of imperial communism -- and opposed it from
Korea to Berlin, to Vietnam, and in the Cold War, from beginning to
end. And as the sun set on their struggle, many of those West Point
officers lived to see a world transformed.
History has also issued its call to your generation. In your last
year, America was attacked by a ruthless and resourceful enemy. You
graduate from this Academy in a time of war, taking your place in an
American military that is powerful and is honorable. Our war on terror
is only begun, but in Afghanistan it was begun well. (Applause.)
I am proud of the men and women who have fought on my orders.
America is profoundly grateful for all who serve the cause of freedom,
and for all who have given their lives in its defense. This nation
respects and trusts our military, and we are confident in your
victories to come. (Applause.)
This war will take many turns we cannot predict. Yet I am certain
of this: Wherever we carry it, the American flag will stand not only
for our power, but for freedom. (Applause.) Our nation's cause has
always been larger than our nation's defense. We fight, as we always
fight, for a just peace -- a peace that favors human liberty. We will
defend the peace against threats from terrorists and tyrants. We will
preserve the peace by building good relations among the great powers.
And we will extend the peace by encouraging free and open societies on
every continent.
Building this just peace is America's opportunity, and America's
duty. From this day forward, it is your challenge, as well, and we
will meet this challenge together. (Applause.) You will wear the
uniform of a great and unique country. America has no empire to extend
or utopia to establish. We wish for others only what we wish for
ourselves -- safety from violence, the rewards of liberty, and the hope
for a better life.
In defending the peace, we face a threat with no precedent.
Enemies in the past needed great armies and great industrial
capabilities to endanger the American people and our nation. The
attacks of September the 11th required a few hundred thousand dollars
in the hands of a few dozen evil and deluded men. All of the chaos and
suffering they caused came at much less than the cost of a single
tank. The dangers have not passed. This government and the American
people are on watch, we are ready, because we know the terrorists have
more money and more men and more plans.
The gravest danger to freedom lies at the perilous crossroads of
radicalism and technology. When the spread of chemical and biological
and nuclear weapons, along with ballistic missile technology -- when
that occurs, even weak states and small groups could attain a
catastrophic power to strike great nations. Our enemies have declared
this very intention, and have been caught seeking these terrible
weapons. They want the capability to blackmail us, or to harm us, or
to harm our friends -- and we will oppose them with all our power.
(Applause.)
For much of the last century, America's defense relied on the Cold
War doctrines of deterrence and containment. In some cases, those
strategies still apply. But new threats also require new thinking.
Deterrence -- the promise of massive retaliation against nations --
means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or
citizens to defend. Containment is not possible when unbalanced
dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver those weapons on
missiles or secretly provide them to terrorist allies.
We cannot defend America and our friends by hoping for the best.
We cannot put our faith in the word of tyrants, who solemnly sign
non-proliferation treaties, and then systemically break them. If we
wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long.
(Applause.)
Homeland defense and missile defense are part of stronger security,
and they're essential priorities for America. Yet the war on terror
will not be won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the
enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they
emerge. (Applause.) In the world we have entered, the only path to
safety is the path of action. And this nation will act. (Applause.)
Our security will require the best intelligence, to reveal threats
hidden in caves and growing in laboratories. Our security will require
modernizing domestic agencies such as the FBI, so they're prepared to
act, and act quickly, against danger. Our security will require
transforming the military you will lead -- a military that must be
ready to strike at a moment's notice in any dark corner of the world.
And our security will require all Americans to be forward-looking and
resolute, to be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend
our liberty and to defend our lives. (Applause.)
The work ahead is difficult. The choices we will face are
complex. We must uncover terror cells in 60 or more countries, using
every tool of finance, intelligence and law enforcement. Along with
our friends and allies, we must oppose proliferation and confront
regimes that sponsor terror, as each case requires. Some nations need
military training to fight terror, and we'll provide it. Other nations
oppose terror, but tolerate the hatred that leads to terror -- and that
must change. (Applause.) We will send diplomats where they are
needed, and we will send you, our soldiers, where you're needed.
(Applause.)
All nations that decide for aggression and terror will pay a
price. We will not leave the safety of America and the peace of the
planet at the mercy of a few mad terrorists and tyrants. (Applause.)
We will lift this dark threat from our country and from the world.
Because the war on terror will require resolve and patience, it
will also require firm moral purpose. In this way our struggle is
similar to the Cold War. Now, as then, our enemies are totalitarians,
holding a creed of power with no place for human dignity. Now, as
then, they seek to impose a joyless conformity, to control every life
and all of life.
America confronted imperial communism in many different ways --
diplomatic, economic, and military. Yet moral clarity was essential to
our victory in the Cold War. When leaders like John F. Kennedy and
Ronald Reagan refused to gloss over the brutality of tyrants, they gave
hope to prisoners and dissidents and exiles, and rallied free nations
to a great cause.
Some worry that it is somehow undiplomatic or impolite to speak the
language of right and wrong. I disagree. (Applause.) Different
circumstances require different methods, but not different moralities.
(Applause.) Moral truth is the same in every culture, in every time,
and in every place. Targeting innocent civilians for murder is always
and everywhere wrong. (Applause.) Brutality against women is always
and everywhere wrong. (Applause.) There can be no neutrality between
justice and cruelty, between the innocent and the guilty. We are in a
conflict between good and evil, and America will call evil by its
name. (Applause.) By confronting evil and lawless regimes, we do not
create a problem, we reveal a problem. And we will lead the world in
opposing it. (Applause.)
As we defend the peace, we also have an historic opportunity to
preserve the peace. We have our best chance since the rise of the
nation state in the 17th century to build a world where the great
powers compete in peace instead of prepare for war. The history of the
last century, in particular, was dominated by a series of destructive
national rivalries that left battlefields and graveyards across the
Earth. Germany fought France, the Axis fought the Allies, and then the
East fought the West, in proxy wars and tense standoffs, against a
backdrop of nuclear Armageddon.
Competition between great nations is inevitable, but armed conflict
in our world is not. More and more, civilized nations find ourselves
on the same side -- united by common dangers of terrorist violence and
chaos. America has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond
challenge -- (applause) -- thereby, making the destabilizing arms races
of other eras pointless, and limiting rivalries to trade and other
pursuits of peace.
Today the great powers are also increasingly united by common
values, instead of divided by conflicting ideologies. The United
States, Japan and our Pacific friends, and now all of Europe, share a
deep commitment to human freedom, embodied in strong alliances such as
NATO. And the tide of liberty is rising in many other nations.
Generations of West Point officers planned and practiced for
battles with Soviet Russia. I've just returned from a new Russia, now
a country reaching toward democracy, and our partner in the war against
terror. (Applause.) Even in China, leaders are discovering that
economic freedom is the only lasting source of national wealth. In
time, they will find that social and political freedom is the only true
source of national greatness. (Applause.)
When the great powers share common values, we are better able to
confront serious regional conflicts together, better able to cooperate
in preventing the spread of violence or economic chaos. In the past,
great power rivals took sides in difficult regional problems, making
divisions deeper and more complicated. Today, from the Middle East to
South Asia, we are gathering broad international coalitions to increase
the pressure for peace. We must build strong and great power relations
when times are good; to help manage crisis when times are bad. America
needs partners to preserve the peace, and we will work with every
nation that shares this noble goal. (Applause.)
And finally, America stands for more than the absence of war. We
have a great opportunity to extend a just peace, by replacing poverty,
repression, and resentment around the world with hope of a better day.
Through most of history, poverty was persistent, inescapable, and
almost universal. In the last few decades, we've seen nations from
Chile to South Korea build modern economies and freer societies,
lifting millions of people out of despair and want. And there's no
mystery to this achievement.
The 20th century ended with a single surviving model of human
progress, based on non-negotiable demands of human dignity, the rule of
law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women and private
property and free speech and equal justice and religious tolerance.
America cannot impose this vision -- yet we can support and reward
governments that make the right choices for their own people. In our
development aid, in our diplomatic efforts, in our international
broadcasting, and in our educational assistance, the United States will
promote moderation and tolerance and human rights. And we will defend
the peace that makes all progress possible.
When it comes to the common rights and needs of men and women,
there is no clash of civilizations. The requirements of freedom apply
fully to Africa and Latin America and the entire Islamic world. The
peoples of the Islamic nations want and deserve the same freedoms and
opportunities as people in every nation. And their governments should
listen to their hopes. (Applause.)
A truly strong nation will permit legal avenues of dissent for all
groups that pursue their aspirations without violence. An advancing
nation will pursue economic reform, to unleash the great
entrepreneurial energy of its people. A thriving nation will respect
the rights of women, because no society can prosper while denying
opportunity to half its citizens. Mothers and fathers and children
across the Islamic world, and all the world, share the same fears and
aspirations. In poverty, they struggle. In tyranny, they suffer. And
as we saw in Afghanistan, in liberation they celebrate. (Applause.)
America has a greater objective than controlling threats and
containing resentment. We will work for a just and peaceful world
beyond the war on terror.
The bicentennial class of West Point now enters this drama. With
all in the United States Army, you will stand between your fellow
citizens and grave danger. You will help establish a peace that allows
millions around the world to live in liberty and to grow in
prosperity. You will face times of calm, and times of crisis. And
every test will find you prepared -- because you're the men and women
of West Point. (Applause.) You leave here marked by the character of
this Academy, carrying with you the highest ideals of our nation.
Toward the end of his life, Dwight Eisenhower recalled the first
day he stood on the plain at West Point. "The feeling came over me,"
he said, "that the expression 'the United States of America' would now
and henceforth mean something different than it had ever before. From
here on, it would be the nation I would be serving, not myself."
Today, your last day at West Point, you begin a life of service in
a career unlike any other. You've answered a calling to hardship and
purpose, to risk and honor. At the end of every day you will know that
you have faithfully done your duty. May you always bring to that duty
the high standards of this great American institution. May you always
be worthy of the long gray line that stretches two centuries behind
you.
On behalf of the nation, I congratulate each one of you for the
commission you've earned and for the credit you bring to the United
States of America. May God bless you all. (Applause.)