Notice that Kennedy spoke of the "survival" of liberty. So did Bush, but he said the survival of liberty depends on the expansion of liberty, indeed on its maximum expansion, pending the possibility of bringing liberty to some other planet. Bush said: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world." The idea that the very survival of American liberty depends on the success of liberty everywhere suggests that America is more embattled and vulnerable than it was during the Cold War. Then the survival of liberty meant the containment of tyranny. Now, Bush says, the survival of liberty must involve the expansion of liberty until "our world" is scrubbed clean of tyranny. [emphasis added]
Will seems to be saying that in 1961 when we pledged to bear any burden to resist Communist expansion that this was somehow a pledge made from more strength than President Bush's view that we must promote liberty everywhere to preserve our liberty. This could not be any more wrong.
When President Kennedy vowed to bear any burden and pay any price to defend liberty, we were playing defense against a system that many thought could not be defeated. In Vietnam, in Africa, and in Central America, we struggled against what seemed to be a surging Soviet Communist advance. Indeed, by the 1970s it was possible for some to wonder whether the American century that had begun in 1898 would be truncated in 1975 to be replaced by a Soviet century of primacy. Yes, we only sought conatainment but at the time even that seemed a tall order. Survival seemed to be all we could hope to achieve. Is it possible that we have forgotten that before our emergence as the lone superpower, we seemed doomed to domination by the Soviet Union? But it was the Soviet Union that collapsed in 1991 and not America, after Moscow lost control of their East European empire in 1989.
Today we are on offense. But when we speak of preserving our liberty it is not because we fear an Islamist version of the USSR will defeat us around the globe and pin us in North America, isolated from the Green-dominated world. The jihadis cannot conquer us, though in their feverish moments they dream of world conquest. No, we seek to drain the swamps that support jihadi delusions in order to prevent attacks on our homeland that kill and damage us but which cannot defeat us.
And Will's dismissing the importance of spreading liberty to protect our own liberty ignores the fact that our civil liberties do require going on the offensive to crush the terrorists and to defeat the states and ideologies that motivate those thugs. If our war on terror drags on for decades on end and we sit on the defensive, crafting new laws and trying to build an impregnible defense against small groups of attackers, our civil liberties will erode until freedom is but a dream. For a perfect defense is impossible. Enemies will get through and kill large numbers of us. And after each attack, the public will demand our government protect them through ever harsher laws.
But most important, Will neglects the difference that in 1961, our hopes for going on the offensive were slim. Today we have the strength to attack our enemies where they had thought they were safe from our power. We reached out and crushed the jihadis in Afghanistan. We crushed their champion in Iraq and fight the jihadis who go to Iraq to support the fight of the Baathists.
Going on offense to preserve our liberty is not a strategy of weakness. It is a strategy that recognizes we have the power to go on offense. It is a strategy that recognizes that no passive defense can possibly secure us 100%. And ultimately, as the pictures of weeping Iraqis voting for the first time and Afghan children going to school demonstrate, it is also a strategy of compassion that will better the lives of tens of millions in the short run and hundreds of millions in the long run.
The message our president sent in our name is a powerful one--not a fearful one. It is hopeful and confident rather than being defiant in the face of looming disaster:
All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.
We will not cower in our homes. We're coming after the bastards that wish us dead or groveling. And when we come, people who have lived under the boots stomping on their faces forever will rise up. Tomorrow, Iraqis will join us in promoting liberty despite the thugs who threaten them and demand they lie down for more boot stomping. I am hopeful that this is a a monumental moment that will lead to victory in Iraq. And in the war.
And then our liberty will be secure. For a time anyway. There will always be new threats.
