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West Point Commencement Ceremony 06/01/2002
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West Point Commencement Ceremony 06/01/2002
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Friday, June 12, 2015
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during FOIA processing by George W. Bush Presidential Library staff.
Public Liaison, White House Office of
Smith, Matthew
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West Point Commencement Ceremony 06/01/2002
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
June 4, 2002
Enclosed please find a copy of the President's
address at the 2002 West Point Commencement
Ceremony.
In the event that the recipient of this correspondence
is an error, please aid us in updating our information
by calling 202-456-2380.
Sincerely,
The White House Office of Public Liaison
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
Remarks by the
President
To West Point Graduates
Saturday June 1, 2002
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(West Point, New York)
June 1, 2002
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AT 2002 GRADUATION EXERCISE
OF THE UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY
West Point, New York
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, General Lennox. Mr. Secretary, Governor
Pataki, members of the United States Congress, Academy staff and faculty, distinguished guests,
proud family members, and graduates: I want to thank you for your welcome. Laura and I are
especially honored to visit this great institution in your bicentennial year.
In every corner of America, the words "West Point" command immediate respect. This
place where the Hudson River bends is more than a fine institution of learning. The United
States Military Academy is the guardian of values that have shaped the soldiers who have shaped
the history of the world.
A few of you have followed in the path of the perfect West Point graduate, Robert E. Lee,
who never received a single demerit in four years. Some of you followed in the path of the
imperfect graduate, Ulysses S. Grant, who had his fair share of demerits, and said the happiest
day of his life was "the day I left West Point." (Laughter.) During my college years I guess you
could say I was -- (laughter.) During my college years I guess you could say I was a Grant man.
(Laughter.)
You walk in the tradition of Eisenhower and MacArthur, Patton and Bradley - the
commanders who saved a civilization. And you walk in the tradition of second lieutenants who
did the same, by fighting and dying on distant battlefields.
Graduates of this academy have brought creativity and courage to every field of
endeavor. West Point produced the chief engineer of the Panama Canal, the mind behind the
Manhattan Project, the first American to walk in space. This fine institution gave us the man
they say invented baseball, and other young men over the years who perfected the game of
football.
You know this, but many in America don't -- George C. Marshall, a VMI graduate, is
said to have given this order: "I want an officer for a secret and dangerous mission. I want a
West Point football player." (Applause.)
As you leave here today, I know there's one thing you'll never miss about this place:
Beingla plebe. (Applause.) But even a plebe at West Point is made to feel he or she has some
standing in the world. (Laughter.) I'm told that plebes, when asked whom they outrank, are
required to answer this: "Sir, the Superintendent's dog -- (laughter) -- the Commandant's cat, and
all the admirals in the whole damn Navy." (Applause.) I probably won't be sharing that with the
Secretary of the Navy. (Laughter.)
West Point is guided by tradition, and in honor of the "Golden Children of the Corps," --
(applause) -- I will observe one of the traditions you cherish most. As the Commander-in-Chief,
I hereby grant amnesty to all cadets who are on restriction for minor conduct offenses.
(Applause.) Those of you in the end zone might have cheered a little early. (Laughter.)
Because, you see, I'm going to let General Lennox define exactly what "minor" means.
(Laughter.)
Every West Point class is commissioned to the Armed Forces. Some West Point classes
are also commissioned by history, to take part in a great new calling for their country. Speaking
here to the class of 1942 -- six months after Pearl Harbor -- General Marshall said, "We're
determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle, our flag will be recognized
throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand, and of overwhelming power on
the other." (Applause.)
Officers graduating that year helped fulfill that mission, defeating Japan and Germany,
and then reconstructing those nations as allies. West Point graduates of the 1940s saw the rise of
a deadly new challenge the challenge of imperial communism -- and opposed it from Korea to
Berlin, to Vietnam, and in the Cold War, from beginning to end. And as the sun set on their
struggle, many of those West Point officers lived to see a world transformed.
History has also issued its call to your generation. In your last year, America was
attacked by a ruthless and resourceful enemy. You graduate from this Academy in a time of war,
taking your place in an American military that is powerful and is honorable. Our war on terror is
only begun, but in Afghanistan it was begun well. (Applause.)
I am proud of the men and women who have fought on my orders. America is
profoundly grateful for all who serve the cause of freedom, and for all who have given their lives
in its defense. This nation respects and trusts our military, and we are confident in your victories
to come. (Applause.)
This war will take many turns we cannot predict. Yet I am certain of this: Wherever we
carry it, the American flag will stand not only for our power, but for freedom. (Applause.) Our
nation's cause has always been larger than our nation's defense. We fight, as we always fight, for
a just peace -- a peace that favors human liberty. We will defend the peace against threats from
terrorists and tyrants. We will preserve the peace by building good relations among the great
powers. And we will extend the peace by encouraging free and open societies on every
continent.
Building this just peace is America's opportunity, and America's duty. From this day
forward, it is your challenge, as well, and we will meet this challenge together. (Applause.) You
will wear the uniform of a great and unique country. America has no empire to extend or utopia
to establish. We wish for others only what we wish for ourselves -- safety from violence, the
rewards of liberty, and the hope for a better life.
In defending the peace, we face a threat with no precedent. Enemies in the past needed
great armies and great industrial capabilities to endanger the American people and our nation.
The attacks of September the 11th required a few hundred thousand dollars in the hands of a few
dozen evil and deluded men. All of the chaos and suffering they caused came at much less than
the cost of a single tank. The dangers have not passed. This government and the American
people are on watch, we are ready, because we know the terrorists have more money and more
men and more plans.
The gravest danger to freedom lies at the perilous crossroads of radicalism and
technology. When the spread of chemical and biological and nuclear weapons, along with
ballistic missile technology -- when that occurs, even weak states and small groups could attain a
catastrophic power to strike great nations. Our enemies have declared this very intention, and
have been caught seeking these terrible weapons. They want the capability to blackmail us, or to
harm us, or to harm our friends -- and we will oppose them with all our power. (Applause.)
For much of the last century, America's defense relied on the Cold War doctrines of
deterrence and containment. In some cases, those strategies still apply. But new threats also
require new thinking. Deterrence -- the promise of massive retaliation against nations -- means
nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend. Containment is
not possible when unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver those
weapons on missiles or secretly provide them to terrorist allies.
We cannot defend America and our friends by hoping for the best. We cannot put our
faith in the word of tyrants, who solemnly sign non-proliferation treaties, and then systemically
break them. If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long. (Applause.)
Homeland defense and missile defense are part of stronger security, and they're essential
priorities for America. Yet the war on terror will not be won on the defensive. We must take the
battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge.
(Applause.) In the world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action. And this
nation will act. (Applause.)
Our security will require the best intelligence, to reveal threats hidden in caves and
growing in laboratories. Our security will require modernizing domestic agencies such as the
FBI, so they're prepared to act, and act quickly, against danger. Our security will require
transforming the military you will lead -- a military that must be ready to strike at a moment's
notice in any dark corner of the world. And our security will require all Americans to be
forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our
liberty and to defend our lives. (Applause.)
The work ahead is difficult. The choices we will face are complex. We must uncover
terror cells in 60 or more countries, using every tool of finance, intelligence and law
enforcement. Along with our friends and allies, we must oppose proliferation and confront
regimes that sponsor terror, as each case requires. Some nations need military training to fight
terror, and we'll provide it. Other nations oppose terror, but tolerate the hatred that leads to terror
-- and that must change. (Applause.) We will send diplomats where they are needed, and we
will send you, our soldiers, where you're needed. (Applause.)
All nations that decide for aggression and terror will pay a price. We will not leave the
safety of America and the peace of the planet at the mercy of a few mad terrorists and tyrants.
(Applause.) We will lift this dark threat from our country and from the world.
Because the war on terror will require resolve and patience, it will also require firm moral
purpose. In this way our struggle is similar to the Cold War. Now, as then, our enemies are
totalitarians, holding a creed of power with no place for human dignity. Now, as then, they seek
to impose a joyless conformity, to control every life and all of life.
America confronted imperial communism in many different ways -- diplomatic,
economic, and military. Yet moral clarity was essential to our victory in the Cold War. When
leaders like John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan refused to gloss over the brutality of tyrants,
they gave hope to prisoners and dissidents and exiles, and rallied free nations to a great cause.
Some worry that it is somehow undiplomatic or impolite to speak the language of right
and wrong. I disagree. (Applause.) Different circumstances require different methods, but not
different moralities. (Applause.) Moral truth is the same in every culture, in every time, and in
every place. Targeting innocent civilians for murder is always and everywhere wrong.
(Applause.) Brutality against women is always and everywhere wrong. (Applause.) There can
be no neutrality between justice and cruelty, between the innocent and the guilty. We are in a
conflict between good and evil, and America will call evil by its name. (Applause.) By
confronting evil and lawless regimes, we do not create a problem, we reveal a problem. And we
will lead the world in opposing it. (Applause.)
As we defend the peace, we also have an historic opportunity to preserve the peace. We
have our best chance since the rise of the nation state in the 17th century to build a world where
the great powers compete in peace instead of prepare for war. The history of the last century, in
particular, was dominated by a series of destructive national rivalries that left battlefields and
graveyards across the Earth. Germany fought France, the Axis fought the Allies, and then the
East fought the West, in proxy wars and tense standoffs, against a backdrop of nuclear
Armageddon.
Competition between great nations is inevitable, but armed conflict in our world is not.
More and more, civilized nations find ourselves on the same side -- united by common dangers
of terrorist violence and chaos. America has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond
challenge -- (applause) -- thereby, making the destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless,
and limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace.
Today the great powers are also increasingly united by common values, instead of
divided by conflicting ideologies. The United States, Japan and our Pacific friends, and now all
of Europe, share a deep commitment to human freedom, embodied in strong alliances such as
NATO. And the tide of liberty is rising in many other nations.
Generations of West Point officers planned and practiced for battles with Soviet Russia.
I've just returned from a new Russia, now a country reaching toward democracy, and our partner
in the war against terror. (Applause.) Even in China, leaders are discovering that economic
freedom is the only lasting source of national wealth. In time, they will find that social and
political freedom is the only true source of national greatness. (Applause.)
When the great powers share common values, we are better able to confront serious
regional conflicts together, better able to cooperate in preventing the spread of violence or
economic chaos. In the past, great power rivals took sides in difficult regional problems, making
divisions deeper and more complicated. Today, from the Middle East to South Asia, we are
gathering broad international coalitions to increase the pressure for peace. We must build strong
and great power relations when times are good; to help manage crisis when times are bad.
America needs partners to preserve the peace, and we will work with every nation that shares
this noble goal. (Applause.)
And finally, America stands for more than the absence of war. We have a great
opportunity to extend a just peace, by replacing poverty, repression, and resentment around the
world with hope of a better day. Through most of history, poverty was persistent, inescapable,
and almost universal. In the last few decades, we've seen nations from Chile to South Korea
build modern economies and freer societies, lifting millions of people out of despair and want.
And there's no mystery to this achievement.
The 20th century ended with a single surviving model of human progress, based on non-
negotiable demands of human dignity, the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect
for women and private property and free speech and equal justice and religious tolerance.
America cannot impose this vision yet we can support and reward governments that make the
right choices for their own people. In our development aid, in our diplomatic efforts, in our
international broadcasting, and in our educational assistance, the United States will promote
moderation and tolerance and human rights. And we will defend the peace that makes all
progress possible.
When it comes to the common rights and needs of men and women, there is no clash of
civilizations. The requirements of freedom apply fully to Africa and Latin America and the
entire Islamic world. The peoples of the Islamic nations want and deserve the same freedoms
and opportunities as people in every nation. And their governments should listen to their hopes.
(Applause.)
A truly strong nation will permit legal avenues of dissent for all groups that pursue their
aspirations without violence. An advancing nation will pursue economic reform, to unleash the
great entrepreneurial energy of its people. A thriving nation will respect the rights of women,
because no society can prosper while denying opportunity to half its citizens. Mothers and
fathers and children across the Islamic world, and all the world, share the same fears and
aspirations. In poverty, they struggle. In tyranny, they suffer. And as we saw in Afghanistan, in
liberation they celebrate. (Applause.)
America has a greater objective than controlling threats and containing resentment. We
will work for a just and peaceful world beyond the war on terror.
The bicentennial class of West Point now enters this drama. With all in the United States
Army, you will stand between your fellow citizens and grave danger. You will help establish a
peace that allows millions around the world to live in liberty and to grow in prosperity. You will
face times of calm, and times of crisis. And every test will find you prepared -- because you're
the men and women of West Point. (Applause.) You leave here marked by the character of this
Academy, carrying with you the highest ideals of our nation.
Toward the end of his life, Dwight Eisenhower recalled the first day he stood on the plain
at West Point. "The feeling came over me," he said, "that the expression 'the United States of
America' would now and henceforth mean something different than it had ever before. From
here on, it would be the nation I would be serving, not myself."
Today, your last day at West Point, you begin a life of service in a career unlike any
other. You've answered a calling to hardship and purpose, to risk and honor. At the end of every
day you will know that you have faithfully done your duty. May you always bring to that duty
the high standards of this great American institution. May you always be worthy of the long
gray line that stretches two centuries behind you.
On behalf of the nation, I congratulate each one of you for the commission you've earned
and for the credit you bring to the United States of America. May God bless you all.
(Applause.)
END