‘We Are Defending Civilization Itself’

Excerpts from President Bush’s speech Thursday before the German Bundestag:

After the Cold War, during the relative quiet of the 1990s, some questioned whether our transatlantic partnership still had a purpose. History has given its answer.

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Together, we oppose an enemy that thrives on violence and the grief of the innocent. The terrorists are defined by their hatreds. They hate democracy and tolerance and free expression and women and Jews and Christians and all Muslims who disagree with them. Others killed in the name of racial purity or the class struggle. These enemies kill in the name of a false religious purity, perverting the faith they claim to hold. In this war, we defend not just America or Europe, we are defending civilization itself.

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The authors of terror are seeking nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Regimes that sponsor terror are developing these weapons and the missiles to deliver them. If these regimes and their terrorist allies were to perfect these capabilities, no inner voice of reason, no hint of conscience would prevent their use. Wishful thinking might bring comfort, but not security.

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Ours is the first generation in 100 years that does not expect and does not fear the next European war. And that achievement, your achievement, is one of the greatest in modern times. When Europe grows in unity, Europe and America grow in security.

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NATO must be able and willing to act whenever threats emerge. This will require all the assets of modern defense: mobile and deployable forces, sophisticated special operations, the ability to fight under the threat of chemical and biological weapons.

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We must continue to stand for peace in the Middle East. That peace must assure the permanent safety of the Jewish people. And that peace must provide the Palestinian people with a state of their own.

--Associated Press