09919

06/01/2002

EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-09919

U.S. & GERMANY AGAINST TERRORISM

"There can be no lasting security in a world at the mercy of terrorists, for my nation or for any nation." That's what President George W. Bush told a special session of Germany's parliament. "Our generation faces new and grave threats to liberty, to the safety of our people, and to civilization itself," said Mr. Bush. "We face an aggressive force that glorifies death, that targets the innocent, and seeks the means to murder -- murder on a massive scale."

"For the United States, September 11^th, 2001, cut a deep dividing line in our history," said President Bush, "a change of eras as sharp and clear as Pearl Harbor, or the first day of the Berlin Blockade." Noting that "NATO's defining purpose -- our collective defense -- is as urgent as ever," Mr. Bush said that "America and Europe need each other to fight and win the war against global terror."

Troops from more than a dozen European countries have been deployed in and around Afghanistan to help the Afghan people rid themselves of the Taleban regime and the al-Qaida terrorists it sponsored. "German soldiers have died in this war, and we mourn their loss as we do our own," Mr. Bush told the German parliament. "German authorities are on the trail of terrorist cells and finances. And German police are helping Afghans build their own police force."

"The terrorists," said President Bush, "are defined by their hatreds: they hate democracy and tolerance and free expression and women and Jews and Christians and all Muslims who disagree with them. Others killed in the name of racial purity, or the class struggle. These enemies kill in the name of a false religious purity, perverting the faith they claim to hold. In this war we defend not just America or Europe; we are defending civilization itself."

"The authors of terror are seeking nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons," said President Bush. "Regimes that sponsor terror" -- including Iran, Iraq, Syria, and North Korea -- "are developing these weapons and the missiles to deliver them. If these regimes and their terrorist allies were to perfect these capabilities, no inner voice of reason, no hint of conscience would prevent their use."

To meet this threat, said President Bush, "America will consult closely with our friends and allies at every stage. But make no mistake about it, we will and we must confront this conspiracy against our liberty and against our lives."