{"collection":"ame","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/ame/911/bush0921.htm","path":"ame/911/bush0921.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/ame/911/bush0921.htm","text":"President Bush's address 9/21/2001 to a joint session of Congress\nMr. Speaker, Mr. President Pro Tempore, members of Congress, and fellow Americans:\nIn the normal course of events, presidents come to this chamber to report on the state of the Union. Tonight, no such report is needed. It has already been delivered by the American people.\nWe have seen it in the courage of passengers who rushed terrorists to save others on the ground. Passengers like an exceptional man named Todd Beamer. And would you please help me welcome his wife Lisa Beamer here tonight?\nWe have seen the state of our Union in the endurance of rescuers working past exhaustion.\nWe've seen the unfurling of flags, the lighting of candles, the giving of blood, the saying of prayers in English, Hebrew and Arabic.\nWe have seen the decency of a loving and giving people who have made the grief of strangers their own.\nMy fellow citizens, for the last nine days, the entire world has seen for itself the state of union, and it is strong.\nTonight, we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom. Our grief has turned to anger and anger to resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.\nI thank the Congress for its leadership at such an important time.\nAll of America was touched on the evening of the tragedy to see Republicans and Democrats joined together on the steps of this Capitol singing ``God Bless America.''\nAnd you did more than sing. You acted, by delivering $40 billion to rebuild our communities and meet the needs of our military. Speaker Hastert, Minority Leader Gephardt, Majority Leader Daschle and Senator Lott, I thank you for your friendship, for your leadership and for your service to our country.\nAnd on behalf of the American people, I thank the world for its outpouring of support.\nAmerica will never forget the sounds of our national anthem playing at Buckingham Palace, on the streets of Paris and at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate.\nWe will not forget South Korean children gathering to pray outside our embassy in Seoul, or the prayers of sympathy offered at a mosque in Cairo.\nWe will not forget moments of silence and days of mourning in Australia and Africa and Latin America.\nNor will we forget the citizens of 80 other nations who died with our own. Dozens of Pakistanis, more than 130 Israelis, more than 250 citizens of India, men and women from El Salvador (news - web sites), Iran, Mexico and Japan, and hundreds of British citizens.\nAmerica has no truer friend than Great Britain.\nOnce again, we are joined together in a great cause.\nI'm so honored the British prime minister has crossed an ocean to show his unity with America.\nThank you for coming, friend.\nOn Sept. 11, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. Americans have known wars, but for the past 136 years they have been wars on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941. Americans have known the casualties of war, but not at the center of a great city on a peaceful morning.\nAmericans have known surprise attacks, but never before on thousands of civilians.\nAll of this was brought upon us in a single day, and night fell on a different world, a world where freedom itself is under attack.\nAmericans have many questions tonight. Americans are asking, ``Who attacked our country?''\nThe evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al-Qaida. They are some of the murderers indicted for bombing American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and responsible for bombing the USS Cole (news - web sites).\nAl-Qaida is to terror what the Mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money. Its goal is remaking the world and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere.\nThe terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics; a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam\nThe terrorists' directive commands them to kill Christians and Jews, to kill all Americans and make no distinctions among military and civilians, including women and children.\nThis group and its leader, a person named Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), are linked to many other organizations in different countries, including the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.\nThere are thousands of these terrorists in more than 60 countries.\nThey are recruited from their own nations and neighborhoods and brought to camps in places like Afghanistan (news - web sites), where they are trained in the tactics of terror. They are sent back to their homes or sent to hide in countries around the world to plot evil and destruction.\nThe leadership of al-Qaida has great influence in Afghanistan and supports the Taliban regime in controlling most of that country. In Afghanistan we see al-Qaida's vision for the world. Afghanistan's people have been brutalized, many are starving and many have fled.\nWomen are not allowed to attend school. You can be jailed for owning a television. Religion can be practiced only as their leaders dictate. A man can be jailed in Afghanistan if his beard is not long enough.\nThe United States respects the people of Afghanistan - after all, we are currently its largest source of humanitarian aid - but we condemn the Taliban regime.\nIt is not only repressing its own people, it is threatening people everywhere by sponsoring and sheltering and supplying terrorists.\nBy aiding and abetting murder, the Taliban regime is committing murder. And tonight the United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban.\nDeliver to United States authorities all of the leaders of al-Qaida who hide in your land.\nRelease all foreign nationals, including American citizens you have unjustly imprisoned. Protect foreign journalists, diplomats and aid workers in your country. Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. And hand over every terrorist and every person and their support structure to appropriate authorities.\nGive the United States full access to terrorist training camps, so we can make sure they are no longer operating.\nThese demands are not open to negotiation or discussion.\nThe Taliban must act and act immediately.\nThey will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate.\nI also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith. It's practiced freely by many millions of Americans and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah.\nThe terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself.\nThe enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends. It is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists and every government that supports them.\nOur war on terror begins with al-Qaida, but it does not end there.\nIt will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.\nAmericans are asking, ``Why do they hate us?''\nThey hate what they see right here in this chamber: a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.\nThey want to overthrow existing governments in many Muslim countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. They want to drive Israel out of the Middle East. They want to drive Christians and Jews out of vast regions of Asia and Africa.\nThese terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. With every atrocity, they hope that America grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends. They stand against us because we stand in their way.\nWe're not deceived by their pretenses to piety.\nWe have seen their kind before. They're the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions, by abandoning every value except the will to power, they follow in the path of fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way to where it ends in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies.\nAmericans are asking, ``How will we fight and win this war?''\nWe will direct every resource at our command - every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence and every necessary weapon of war - to the destruction and to the defeat of the global terror network.\nNow this war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion. It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat.\nOur response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes visible on TV and covert operations secret even in success.\nWe will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place until there is no refuge or no rest.\nAnd we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.\nFrom this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime. Our nation has been put on notice, we're not immune from attack. We will take defensive measures against terrorism to protect Americans.\nToday, dozens of federal departments and agencies, as well as state and local governments, have responsibilities affecting homeland security.\nThese efforts must be coordinated at the highest level. So tonight, I announce the creation of a Cabinet-level position reporting directly to me, the Office of Homeland Security.\nAnd tonight, I also announce a distinguished American to lead this effort, to strengthen American security: a military veteran, an effective governor, a true patriot, a trusted friend, Pennsylvania's Tom Ridge.\nHe will lead, oversee and coordinate a comprehensive national strategy to safeguard our country against terrorism and respond to any attacks that may come.\nThese measures are essential. The only way to defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life is to stop it, eliminate it and destroy it where it grows.\nMany will be involved in this effort, from FBI (news - web sites) agents, to intelligence operatives, to the reservists we have called to active duty. All deserve our thanks, and all have our prayers.\nAnd tonight a few miles from the damaged Pentagon (news - web sites), I have a message for our military: Be ready. I have called the armed forces to alert, and there is a reason.\nThe hour is coming when America will act, and you will make us proud.\nThis is not, however, just America's fight. And what is at stake is not just America's freedom.\nThis is the world's fight. This is civilization's fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom.\nWe ask every nation to join us.\nWe will ask and we will need the help of police forces, intelligence services and banking systems around the world. The United States is grateful that many nations and many international organizations have already responded with sympathy and with support - nations from Latin America, to Asia, to Africa, to Europe, to the Islamic world.\nPerhaps the NATO (news - web sites) charter reflects best the attitude of the world: An attack on one is an attack on all. The civilized world is rallying to America's side.\nThey understand that if this terror goes unpunished, their own cities, their own citizens may be next. Terror unanswered cannot only bring down buildings, it can threaten the stability of legitimate governments.\nAnd you know what? We're not going to allow it.\nAmericans are asking, ``What is expected of us?''\nI ask you to live your lives and hug your children.\nI know many citizens have fears tonight, and I ask you to be calm and resolute, even in the face of a continuing threat.\nI ask you to uphold the values of America and remember why so many have come here.\nWe're in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them. No one should be singled out for unfair treatment or unkind words because of their ethnic background or religious faith.\nI ask you to continue to support the victims of this tragedy with your contributions. Those who want to give can go to a central source of information, libertyunites.org, to find the names of groups providing direct help in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia.\nThe thousands of FBI agents who are now at work in this investigation may need your cooperation, and I ask you to give it. I ask for your patience with the delays and inconveniences that may accompany tighter security and for your patience in what will be a long struggle.\nI ask your continued participation and confidence in the American economy. Terrorists attacked a symbol of American prosperity; they did not touch its source.\nAmerica is successful because of the hard work and creativity and enterprise of our people. These were the true strengths of our economy before Sept. 11, and they are our strengths today.\nAnd finally, please continue praying for the victims of terror and their families, for those in uniform and for our great country. Prayer has comforted us in sorrow and will help strengthen us for the journey ahead.\nTonight I thank my fellow Americans for what you have already done and for what you will do.\nAnd ladies and gentlemen of the Congress, I thank you, their representatives, for what you have already done and for what we will do together.\nTonight we face new and sudden national challenges.\nWe will come together to improve air safety, to dramatically expand the number of air marshals on domestic flights and take new measures to prevent hijacking.\nWe will come together to promote stability and keep our airlines flying with direct assistance during this emergency.\nWe will come together to give law enforcement the additional tools it needs to track down terror here at home.\nWe will come together to strengthen our intelligence capabilities to know the plans of terrorists before they act and to find them before they strike.\nWe will come together to take active steps that strengthen America's economy and put our people back to work.\nTonight, we welcome two leaders who embody the extraordinary spirit of all New Yorkers, Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Rudolf Giuliani.\nAs a symbol of America's resolve, my administration will work with Congress and these two leaders to show the world that we will rebuild New York City.\nAfter all that has just passed, all the lives taken and all the possibilities and hopes that died with them, it is natural to wonder if America's future is one of fear.\nSome speak of an age of terror. I know there are struggles ahead and dangers to face. But this country will define our times, not be defined by them.\nAs long as the United States of America is determined and strong, this will not be an age of terror. This will be an age of liberty here and across the world.\nGreat harm has been done to us. We have suffered great loss. And in our grief and anger, we have found our mission and our moment.\nFreedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom, the great achievement of our time and the great hope of every time, now depends on us.\nOur nation, this generation, will lift the dark threat of violence from our people and our future. We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.\nIt is my hope that in the months and years ahead life will return almost to normal. We'll go back to our lives and routines, and that is good.\nEven grief recedes with time and grace.\nBut our resolve must not pass. Each of us will remember what happened that day and to whom it happened. We will remember the moment the news came, where we were and what we were doing.\nSome will remember an image of a fire or story or rescue. Some will carry memories of a face and a voice gone forever.\nAnd I will carry this. It is the police shield of a man named George Howard, who died at the World Trade Center trying to save others.\nIt was given to me by his mom, Arlene, as a proud memorial to her son. It is my reminder of lives that ended and a task that does not end.\nI will not forget the wound to our country and those who inflicted it. I will not yield, I will not rest, I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people.\nThe course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.\nFellow citizens, we'll meet violence with patient justice, assured of the rightness of our cause and confident of the victories to come.\nIn all that lies before us, may God grant us wisdom, and may he watch over the United States of America.","title":"President Bush's address 9/21/2001 to a joint session of ...","type":"page"}