Robert D. Blackwill
Not Known
Posted on
TitlOur objective is total victory Author: Robert D. Blackwill Publictaion: Hindustan Times DatSept. 24, 2001 (Blackwill is U.S. Ambassador to India) Few people will ever forget where they were or what they were doing when they first heard the news on September 11 of the horrible and unprovoked attacks on Americans and others in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. The world watched aghast and dumbstruck as a few violent and hate-filled men took more American lives than occurred at Pearl Harbour, or, perhaps, even during the D-day landings in Europe on June 6, 1944. America‚s profound shock has given way to a new resolve in my country to defend our nation and our values. As President George W. Bush has indicated, we will do so. "War has been declared on us," he said. India has long suffered from terrorising attacks on innocent civilians. So has the United States. In the last 20 years, Americans have suffered at the hands of foreign terrorists in the marine barracks in Beirut, in the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, on Pan-AM 103 in the skies over Scotland, in the streets of Athens, on the deck of Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean, in the first attack on the World Trade Center, and on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. We have sadly also felt the cold horror of the terrorist‚s hand from one of our own in Oklahoma City. Like most other nations, the United States treated these previous attacks on its citizens as an internal matter. That type of limited response is no longer adequate. No citizen of the world can feel as safe now as he or she did before the attack. The threat of terrorism knows no borders. Citizens of 80 nations so far are known to be lost in last week‚s attacks. Terrorists have murdered innocent people and there is a rising tide of fear in the world that threatens not only public safety, but also the very foundations of civil society. It is time for freedom-loving nations to decide, to choose and to act. This is one of those rare moments in history that changes the way people think. It has produced a new consensus for action, an unprecedented willingness to confront a long poisonous threat to the peace of the world. At this hour of sorrow in the United States, the spirit of the American people has been buoyed not only by the outpouring of empathy from ordinary citizens all over the world ˜ including many of the Islamic faith ˜ but also by concrete gestures of support from many governments and regional and international organisations. Just in the few days since the attack, as Secretary of State Colin Powell has indicated, the US has received encouraging support from the UN Security Council and General Assembly, the Organisation of Islamic States, the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and many other groups. On September 12, NATO invoked Article 5 of its charter that says an attack on one NATO country is an attack on all NATO countries. We hope this is the beginning of a worldwide commitment to fighting terrorists no matter whom they target, no matter what cause they profess, no matter where they hide. My government is moving aggressively and with deliberate speed to assemble a new international coalition against terrorism not only to punish those responsible ˜ and those who harbour them ˜ for the carnage wrought in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, but also those involved in planning and coordinating future acts of terrorism. The resolve of the United States to address terrorism is not only a response to the killing of almost 7,000 Americans. As precious as the lives of the lost were to their families, as enraged as our nation was at the sight of the slaughter of innocents broadcast live on television ˜ we know other nations have suffered in the same way. The resolve of the Unites States rises from the rubble of the World Trade Center because today‚s terrorists do not simply want to kill individual Americans; they want to kill democratic societies like those in India and the United States. A few minutes after President Bush gave his speech to the American nation on September 20, Home Minister L.K. Advani telephoned me at Roosevelt House. We discussed the speech and agreed that the US and India are in this struggle together because to fight against terrorism is to defend everything that democracies treasure. I had a similar conversation with Foreign and Defence Minister Jaswant Singh in his office later that morning. Let no one doubt the difficulty of the task ahead and how long it will take. This will be a war that will not be won in weeks or months. It will be a long, difficult struggle ˜ year in and year out. Our objective is total victory ˜ to vanquish all those willing to take innocent lives for extremist ideology. Terrorists have long threatened the body politic, but in this era of modern communications and weapons of mass destruction they pose a new and frightening peril that must no longer be minimised or ignored. In this effort, the United States asks for the support of all governments of goodwill from all corners of the planet. On September 15, President Bush telephoned Prime Minister Vajpayee to express America‚s gratitude for India‚s offer of assistance. Most of all, we ask for the support of ordinary men and women everywhere. In the short space of a few minutes on a radiant autumn day two weeks ago, the lives of thousands of innocent people were ended. As a tribute to those who lost their lives, we ask you to join with us to end this abomination. (The writer is US Ambassador to India.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.ofbjp.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A worldwide community of BJP's friends, supporters and activists: Friends of the BJP - Worldwid http://www.ofbjp.org/fob ----------------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by (modified version of) hypermail.pl 1.00