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President George W. Bush
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05 September 2006
Bush Vows Victory Against Terrorists, September 5, 2006(War on terrorism a battle of arms and ideas, says new White House report)
See also:
A transcript of Bush’s speech, a fact sheet, the full text of the National Strategy to Combat Terrorism and the Overview of America's National Strategy for Combating Terrorism.
Washington – As the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, approaches, a new White House report calls the global war on terrorism “a battle of arms and ideas,” and sets out a strategy to promote freedom and human dignity as alternatives to the terrorists’ vision of oppression and totalitarian rule.
The National Strategy to Combat Terrorism, released September 5, finds that even though international efforts have succeeded in significantly degrading the al-Qaida network, today’s terrorist threat is less centralized – a complex mix of extremist organizations, networks and individuals. Supported in many cases by state and nonstate entities, these groups are united in their continued commitment to destroy innocent lives through both violent attacks and the use of propaganda based on a “violent and intolerant distortion of Islam” to deceive individuals into joining their ranks, the report states.
In remarks at the Military Officers Association of America in Washington September 5, President Bush called attention to the report, and said it has been updated since it was first released in February 2003 to “take into account the changing nature of this enemy.”
Bush’s comments came as part of the second in a series of five scheduled speeches concerning the global war on terrorism. (See related article.)
“Five years after our nation was attacked, the terrorist danger remains. We're a nation at war – and America and her allies are fighting this war with relentless determination across the world. Together with our coalition partners, we've removed terrorist sanctuaries, disrupted their finances, killed and captured key operatives, broken up terrorist cells in America and other nations, and stopped new attacks before they're carried out,” Bush said. (See related article.)
“We're on the offense against the terrorists on every battlefront,” he added, “and we'll accept nothing less than complete victory.”
TERRORISTS DISTORT ISLAM, TARGET MUSLIMS
The president added that much has been learned about terrorist groups like al-Qaida since the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.
“We've learned that they're cunning and sophisticated. We've witnessed their ability to change their methods and their tactics with deadly speed, even as their murderous obsessions remain unchanging. We've seen that it's the terrorists who have declared war on Muslims, slaughtering huge numbers of innocent Muslim men and women around the world,” he said.
“This enemy movement seeks to create and exploit a division between the Muslim and non-Muslim world and within the Muslim world itself,” the report states. “The terrorists distort the idea of jihad into a call for violence and murder against those they regard as apostates or unbelievers, including all those who disagree with them.” (See related article.)
Despite the successes of ongoing international coordination in military, intelligence and law enforcement operations aimed at breaking up terror plots, terrorists’ continuing desire to inflict catastrophic damage on the United States and its allies also raises another international security threat – the prospect of terrorists acquiring chemical, biological or nuclear weapons for use in future attacks, according to the report.
The president said his administration has decided to take the threat of terrorism seriously, and “will not rest until this threat to civilization is removed.”
“We know what the terrorists believe, we know what they have done and we know what they intend to do,” Bush said, adding that free nations around the world “must summon the will to meet this great challenge.”
Bush said terrorist leaders like Osama bin Laden have made their intentions “as clear as [Vladimir] Lenin and [Adolph] Hitler before them,” and said, “The question is will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say?”
ADVANCING DEMOCRACY WILL DEFEAT TERRORISM
The new national strategy builds on the president’s National Security Strategy, released earlier in 2006, presenting an approach that combines both short- and long-term counterterrorism strategies. (See related article.)
In the immediate term, the strategy advocates continued focus on four key areas:
• Preventing future attacks by neutralizing cell leaders and operatives, freezing the flow of funding and weapons, and targeting terrorists' communications and propaganda efforts;
• Denying weapons of mass destruction to rogue states and terrorists’ allies that intend to use them;
• Denying terrorists the support and sanctuary of rogue regimes; and
• Denying terrorists control of any nation that they could use as a base and a launching pad for terror.
Achieving these short-term strategic objectives, the strategy states, will buy the necessary time and space for the international community to focus on the long-term solution for winning the War on Terror: winning the “war of ideas" by advancing effective democracies to address underlying societal conditions that terrorists seek to exploit. (See related article.)
The new report also states that:
• Terrorists exploit political alienation, but democracy gives people an ownership stake in society;
• Terrorists exploit grievances, but democracy offers the rule of law, the peaceful resolution of disputes and the habits of advancing interests through compromise;
• Terrorists exploit misinformation and conspiracy theories, but democracy offers freedom of speech, independent media and a marketplace of ideas to expose and discredit falsehoods; and
• Terrorists exploit an ideology that justifies murder, but democracy offers a respect for human dignity and rejects the targeting of innocents.
“Effective democracies honor and uphold basic human rights, including freedom of religion, conscience, speech, assembly, association, and press. They are the long-term antidote to the ideology of terrorism today,” the report states.
“There will continue to be challenges ahead,” the report concludes, “but along with our partners, we will attack terrorism and its ideology, and bring hope and freedom to the people of the world. This is how we will win the War on Terror.”
For more information, see Response to Terrorism and International Security.
