Speeches from YCSD "Support the Troops" Rally - 3/26/03

:: Speech by Norma Thompson

:: Speech by David Gelertner

“Supporting American Action: The Force of Words”
Norma Thompson

While our troops are on the ground risking their lives in Iraq, I would like to say a word on their behalf, in appreciation of how they are fighting to uphold the force of words.

Of all the striking images we have seen in the past week, one which is especially significant is the sight of the media – the “talkers” – embedded in various military posts, with the “do-ers.” They are free to share anything but top military secrets. To me, this conjunction of the military and the media speaks volumes about the American commitment to the clarifying and politically invigorating free expression of ideas.

We’re in this war because we were not just mouthing words when we signed on to UN Resolutions 678, 687, 1205, 1441 and the combined 17 or so statements of principle, regarding Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction. Did we mean it when we said that Hussein must comply with regulations that he himself signed on to, or did we not?

If your words are not credible, then your institutions are worth nothing. I’m not just referring to Saddam’s cynical games with the international community. Our former ally France has a whole lot to answer for here. What does NATO mean today, now that France has publicly renounced its responsibility to Turkey, a member in good standing that had good cause to ask for its assistance? Why should any member of NATO consider that its pleas for support would be heeded automatically, after this precedent? The answer is that it would be foolish to assume NATO’s support. Therefore, NATO no longer has a viable identity. We should be very worried about the Security Council for similar reasons: it has proven hollow.

As with institutions, so with states. If you don’t stand behind your assertions, you cannot hold on to your political identity. You became the pawns of another. If empty words are a threat to political integrity, so are innocent words, like “War is Immoral.” We stand here in Beinecke Plaza, surrounded by memorials to political freedom, markers of the sacrifice of soldiers, to words they believed in. Can we afford to forget that, to be lulled into complacency, with the likes of sayings like “War is immoral?” Their example should be worth more.

Our forces are fighting for freedom. They resist servitude. This is deadly serious. So formulaic speech, and propaganda, should be opposed. They are too easy, too glib. We’ve seen the signs: “No blood for oil.” “American imperialists.” They don’t reflect reality. Let’s let our media report on this. America is confident enough of its position to be utterly transparent.

Our troops are fighting in Iraq to preserve the force of our words. For make no mistake, our words need guarding. They must be guarded against all the things I’ve spoken of: Emptiness. Innocence. Propaganda. Most of all, we have to retain our ability to identify Lies. You know, like when Hussein fires a missle he is not supposed to have had, we should call him on it. He lied. He has always lied, and so has his regime. Remember the place of lies in the totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century. Hitler’s Germany lived on Euphemisms, a sugar-coated word for lies.

The truth is, that war is hell; that it is terrible and heartbreaking and cruel. All these things, and more. But we must watch our words, and be grateful for those who do so for us. If we say war is immoral, we are saying to ruthless dictators like Hitler, like Milosevic, like Saddam Hussein – there is nothing you can do which will make me fight you. Not VX Nerve Gas. Not genocide. You say “war is immoral” and I say “you have accepted the conditions for enslavement.” To say “war is immoral” is immoral – when it comes to a tyrant like Saddam Hussein.

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Speech by David Gelernter

Among supporters of the war in Iraq I doubt there's a single one who's "pro-war." No one wants war, no one likes war; but now is the time to recall that no one likes the word "duty" very much either, or "obligation," or "responsibility."

But I think we're here today to talk about our obligations and our duties: our duties as Americans to protect this country and support our troops; our duties as human beings, and especially as Americans, to listen when suffering people cry out; to hear them and not turn away.

We know how easy it is to turn away. We know that when a bestial dictator systematically tortures and dismembers, and rapes women and hacks men to pieces and murders thousands on whim -- we know that most natural thing in the world is to turn away. And we know also: it's our duty not to.

We know we have a duty to protect our country; we know that September 10th, 2001 would have been a better day to start worrying about terrorist mass attacks than September 12th turned out to be. We know that today is a better day to worry about nuclear- or poison gas- or smallpox-armed terrorists than the day after they strike.

When we look at Saddam Hussein we see a man who's proved he loves to fight, proved he loves to kill, proved he loves weapons of mass murder, proved he hates America; a man who's spent a whole lifetime creating misery.

The UN's long search for weapons of mass destruction was always a joke, because the number one weapon of mass destruction is enthroned in Baghdad, or was; Saddam Hussein IS a weapon of mass destruction, a poison gas who's spread suffering and death as far as he can reach.

But our goals in Iraq go beyond protecting our country; and if self-defense were our only goal, we could have blown the regime apart far more easily than by waging the kind of war we're waging today. We have another goal: to save the Iraqi people from misery and murder. We know it's a strange, radical idea, because the world keeps telling us so--

What an honor to be told by France and by Germany -- the symbolism, the historical resonance is so perfect, it's almost unbelievable -- what an honor to have France and Germany tell us: drop it, forget it, it's not your problem! Torture and mayhem and murder visited by a brutal dictator on a helpless population ... it's not your affair. After all, these things happen. Sophisticated nations shrug it off.

Where do you Americans get the arrogance to believe that no man is an island entire of itself? Who ever gave you the crazy idea that each man murdered, each man tortured, each woman raped diminishes you because you are involved in mankind? Who ever told you that crazy arrogant stuff?

It IS a radical doctrine and always has been. But America is a radical nation, and has always tried, sometimes successfully and sometimes not -- but always TRIED to see what's right and do it. To do the right as God gives us to see the right.

I've often been proud of this country in my lifetime, but I've never been prouder of it than I am today. It's never been such an honor and such a privilege to be part of it. Thank you, thanks for coming, and God bless America.

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