07/10/2005 10:37:22 am
Bush Defending the Fight for Freedom. Sometimes you get the image that President George W Bush pops up every now and then, but quite seldom, to give a speech. In fact, any look at the White House shows that there are many speeches and that few are mentioned in Europe. Last night, though, he gave a very strong and ideological speech about how the fight against terror is a fight for freedom - also for Muslims:

"All these separate images of destruction and suffering that we see on the news can seem like random and isolated acts of madness; innocent men and women and children have died simply because they boarded the wrong train, or worked in the wrong building, or checked into the wrong hotel. Yet while the killers choose their victims indiscriminately, their attacks serve a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs and goals that are evil, but not insane.

Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamo-fascism. Whatever it′s called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam. ...

Some have also argued that extremism has been strengthened by the actions of our coalition in Iraq, claiming that our presence in that country has somehow caused or triggered the rage of radicals. I would remind them that we were not in Iraq on September the 11th, 2001 -- and al Qaeda attacked us anyway.

The hatred of the radicals existed before Iraq was an issue, and it will exist after Iraq is no longer an excuse. The government of Russia did not support Operation Iraqi Freedom, and yet the militants killed more than 180 Russian schoolchildren in Beslan. ...

Zarqawi has said that Americans are, quote, "the most cowardly of God′s creatures." But let′s be clear: It is cowardice that seeks to kill children and the elderly with car bombs, and cuts the throat of a bound captive, and targets worshipers leaving a mosque. It is courage that liberated more than 50 million people."

Read the entire speech here - >