A Call to Arms
A symposium on Bush’s speech to Congress.

Compiled by Kathryn Jean Lopez, NRO Executive Editor
September 21, 2001 8:40 a.m.

Mark R. Levin
NRO contributing editor

"Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done." "Freedom and fear are at war." So said George W. Bush, and I believe these will be among the words that resonate throughout American history.

The president has spoken with Churchillian clarity. He has demonstrated to his most petty detractors — from the New York Times editorial board to Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory, as well as the enemies of the republic — from the Taliban terrorists to Middle East despots, that Americans have wisely chosen a strong leader for the times.

These are enormously difficult times, as are most wartime periods. Indeed, the American experiment has been challenged before — from the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, to the first and second World Wars and the Cold War.

America was challenged by the assassinations of four presidents — Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John Kennedy — and great depressions and natural disasters. And through it all, America became even stronger and more committed to its founding principles.

Today America is blessed, once again, with an outstanding leader who appreciates the greatness of her people and the awesomeness of his responsibilities. God truly has blessed America.

Peter Robinson,
Research fellow at the Hoover Institution & host of Uncommon Knowledge

An astonishing performance. The text was magnificent, a beautifully crafted, powerful address that left nothing of importance unsaid. But Bush himself carried the moment. Since the events of September 11, he has undergone a transformation as dramatic as anything in Shakespeare. Gravity, moral seriousness, stature, authority — all have descended upon him like a mantle. Prince Hal has become Henry V.

Mackubin Thomas Owens
Professor of strategy and force planning at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. & a monthly columnist for the Providence Journal

It would seem that the man and the moment have met. This was George W. Bush as Americans have never seen him — determined, resolute, and purposeful. He is not known as a great orator, but this address was masterful, both in tone and content.

In tone, it reflected righteous indignation, what the Greeks called thumos. His anger was not the anger of passion, but the measured anger of the leader who knows he has to steel citizens to a long and arduous task.

The content of the speech was just as remarkable as its tone. The president delivered an unmistakable ultimatum to the Taliban, one that he must know they will reject. But he gave them fair warning: If they do not meet unconditional demands of the United States, they will share the fate of the terrorists. But he also delivered an ultimatum to other governments as well. If you harbor and support terrorism, you are an enemy of the United States. He praised the American spirit and American principles.

The speech was absolutely necessary. He reassured Americans while calling them to arms. He avoided the rhetoric of law enforcement in favor of the rhetoric of war. His one reference to "justice" was more in the spirit of just war than courts of justice. He reminded America and the world that this war was not against Islam, but against a violent mutation of that great religion, one that is as much at war against Islam as it is against the United States and the West.

He saluted the heroes of September 11, while warning Americans that this would not be a war of a single battle or a single campaign, but one that would require a commitment for the long haul. He pointed out that such a war would not be what Americans came to expect in the 1990s — short wars fought at a distance.

This is the most important message of his address--that this will be a long, possibly savage affair. This is the lesson of history. Terrorism and savage wars of peace, after all, are not new. The president set the bar very high when he announced the goal of eradicating terrorism worldwide. That goal is not likely to be realized. But if he is able to attain only part of this goal, America and the world will be safer than they would be if the United States retreated in the face of this threat.

Michael Ledeen
NRO contributing editor & resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute

He's in charge now, and a good thing it is, too. You never know how a leader will react to crisis, especially one for which he's technically unprepared. W. did not expect to have to deal with anything like this, but he seems to me to have the best foreign-policy instincts of the entire Cabinet. This was clearly his speech, he was completely comfortable with it, he chewed it up and spat it out, Hollywood couldn't have cast the role anywhere near as perfectly. It was a feisty speech, just what the country wanted and needed, and just what the world needed to see.

He laid out a coherent strategy: first Afghanistan, then the rest of you thugs. And it's the right strategy. Let's hope somebody tells the Department of State that it's time to support the Iraqi resistance.

I've always had a soft spot for nonnegotiable demands, so any speech that contains one is automatically a hit with me, and I'm really looking forward to his nonnegotiable demands to Syria, Iran, and Iraq.

It would be churlish to quibble with a boffo speech wonderfully delivered. So I won't.

John O'Sullivan
NR editor-at-large

Mr. Bush's speech was lucid, bold, and eloquent. He delivered it well — not with the polished ease of a Bill Clinton perhaps, but with a kind of painstaking intensity that indicated his words should be taken seriously. And he achieved important secondary objectives with neatness and economy. Thus, his distinction between law-abiding Muslims and peace-minded Arab states on the one hand and bin Laden's radical terrorist network on the other will both deter shameful attacks on American Muslims and help to dissipate anti-American prejudices in the Islamic world.

But the central question last night was: What does the U.S. mean in practice by a "war against terrorism"?

My great fear beforehand was that the president would direct the nation's anger exclusively against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. That would have been a sign that the U.S. was not fundamentally serious about ending the global network of state-sponsored terrorism but would settle for Osama's head on a platter.

And for the first third of the speech, I was kept in suspense. Mr. Bush did indeed launch a fierce attack on the Taliban. Then he expanded the indictment as follows: "Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them."

And later: "We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism."

And a third time: "From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."

Taken together, these statements fall not far short of a declaration of war on several states. That Mr. Bush did not mention the states by name — they are, in case you are interested, Iran, Iraq, and Syria — was almost as eloquent as the rest of his speech. For his silence on that point seemed to offer them one last chance to retreat from their sponsorship of terror without publicly seeming to bend to American threats — or face the consequences.

Afterwards I asked a colleague from Pakistan if he would be worried by the speech, were he a terrorist or the intelligence chief of a terrorist state.

"Yes," he replied, "I certainly would."

So what words can do has been very effectively done. Now for the hard part.

Peter Berkowitz
Professor at George Mason University School of Law & a contributing editor at The New Republic. His Virtue and the Making of Modern Liberalism was recently reissued in paperback.

It was no small challenge that George W. Bush faced on Thursday night: to honor the innocent victims; to celebrate the heroic passengers who rushed the hijackers in the sky over Pennsylvania as well as the courageous firefighters and police officers and rescue workers in New York and Washington; to express gratitude to the nations that have rallied behind us; to articulate in plain and memorable terms what is at stake in, and the purpose of, the war that the president, with our support, has committed our country to waging; to issue a public and uncompromising ultimatum to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan who harbor bin Laden; and to reaffirm our devotion to the principles of freedom and equality. With gravity and resolve, the president met the challenge. And then some.

We would not allow the terrorist menace, Bush stressed, to furnish a pretext for the practice of intolerance and hatred. Incidents have been reported of bullies and idiots across the United States who have harassed and assaulted Muslims and Arab Americans and those who look like them. Bush calmly reiterated Thursday evening what he and members of his administration have frequently declared since the attack eleven days ago: The teachings of Islam must be distinguished from the fanaticism of the terrorists; our war is not with the millions of peace-loving Muslims and Arabs here and abroad but with the terrorists and the governments that support them; it is imperative that we continue to live by the principles of freedom and equality for which we fight. These words were necessary and important. They were also stirring. It is an extraordinary country, the likes of which the world has seldom seen, that in its grief and anger, even as it sifts through its rubble and mobilizes its forces and devises its battle plan, summons its citizens to respect the rights of all.