I got deliciously wound-up at my Foreign Policy class last night. And, since I had a long lunch, I started writing a replacement speech that I wish would have been delivered instead of Bush’s “Hear you” speech. I kinda like how it came out.
My Fellow Americans.
Like you, I stand here today, with a wealth of very strong emotions. I am primarily outraged that so many innocent lives were taken on our own soil. I am grieving for and with the families of those who lost loved ones in these senseless actions. I worry about what this means for the future of our world.
But with these emotions I am also exceedingly proud. Proud of the men and women who have worked around the clock to bring order to the chaos of Ground Zero here in New York, proud of the passengers of Flight 93, who took it upon themselves to bring swift action to bear in the face of evil deeds, and proud of the American people, who have put aside all differences to support each other in so many numerous and beautiful ways.
It is human nature to want to strike back immediately, decisively, and make such a statement that any rational creature would not think about
perpetrating an act like this against any nation ever again.
If the acts on 9/11 had been the organized act of a sovereign nation, I would not be standing here before you today. I would be in a war room, tracking the movement of our troops as they brought swift justice to our aggressors.
It pains me greatly that we are not afforded that option today. There cannot be clean military retaliation, because we were not subjected to a clean military act. Those who attacked us have no flag. They have no specific geographic location.
We were attacked by an idea. An idea that Americans and those who ascribe to our ideals are deserving of nothing but death. The people who hold that idea as truth are cunning, disperse themselves amongst the innocents of both foreign and domestic lands, and do not care if they or those around them die, save to use deaths as fuel for the fires of their hatred. They are most certainly expecting us to use our esteemed military to come down upon them even now.
As much as our hurt would drive us to retaliate, I would like to assert that we, as Americans, are better than that.
It is not my intention or desire to start a war where hundreds of thousands of people, with an unknown ratio of guilty to innocent, will die by our guns, or by our bombs. Such actions should haunt us more than yesterday’s actions ever could.
That is not to say that I will move forward without decisive action. We will use guns. We will use guns to protect our borders, we will increase the numbers and the quality of our intelligence units, and perhaps most importantly we will create a panel of experts, in both military and civilian fields to find a way to wage war against this idea that seeks so desperately to do us harm.
We will not, I repeat, WILL NOT, lay down our identity in response to the actions of a handful of evil men. We will promote justice. We will keep our freedoms no matter what. We will maintain the moral compass that has served us so well during the course of our statehood.
And more than that, we will not be afraid. For we too, are an idea. We are an idea that all men are created equal, and that when equal men stand together, nothing can tear them down. It is an idea so powerful, that those who do not understand will fight against it.
But our idea cannot be marked by theirs. It is too pure, too real, too inspiring to even be touched by any level of hate.
And so, fellow Americans, I look forward to standing together with you. I look forward to a reality where evil deeds are not met with emotional response, but with the power that comes from clear and forward thought. For that is who we are, and that is what we will do.
We will be stronger because of this.
Thank you.
