Checking in with Evil Dick aboard the USS Virginia, 5/19/04

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

"Remarks by the Vice President at the 123rd Coast Guard Academy Commencement Ceremony"



http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/05/images/20040519-5_v9041-22-515h.html

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/05/20040519-5.html



"The terrorists hate our country and everything we stand for in the world. They serve a fanatical ideology that sets itself against progress and against humanity. They seek to impose their will across the Middle East and beyond. They seek to persecute women, and to oppress entire populations by spreading violence, fear, and putting dissenters to death. They seek to intimidate America into panic and retreat, and to set free nations against each other. And they seek weapons of mass destruction, to blackmail and murder on a massive scale."

"Something else has become clear over the last several decades. We've learned that any concession or retreat on our part will only embolden this enemy and invite more attacks on Americans. The terrorist enemy holds no territory, defends no population, hides among the innocent and seeks their death by the thousands. Such an adversary cannot be deterred, contained, appeased, or negotiated with. Nor can we hope that defensive actions are enough to protect our country. Wars are not won on the defensive. To fully and finally remove this danger, we have only one option -- and that's to take the fight to the enemy. (Applause.)"

"In Iraq, where a dictator cultivated ties to terror and sought to develop the world's most deadly weapons, America led a mission to make the world safer, and to liberate the Iraqi people. Saddam Hussein defied the demands of the civilized world and he has experienced the consequences. The dictator and his sons will never again terrorize Iraqis, never again threaten Iraq's neighbors, and never again threaten the United States of America. (Applause.)"

"A collection of killers is trying to undo Iraq's progress and throw that country into chaos -- and these men are not just acting from blind rage. The terrorists in Iraq understand that the defeat of tyranny and violence in that nation, and the rise of democracy in the heart of the Middle East, will be a crucial setback for international terror. They understand that a free Iraq will confirm that America's word is good. And so these enemies are employing the tactics of terror -- from hostage-taking, to roadside bombings, to the assassination of Iraq's leaders, to the beheading of an American civilian on camera. They want to destroy the democratic hopes of the Iraqi people. They want to shake the will of the American people, and show the world that America runs from a challenge. In all of this, the terrorists will fail. (Applause.)"