I want to thank Kathleen Sebelius for that generous introduction.
As I travel my state and the country — visiting people and campaigning for Democratic candidates — I am struck by the earnest, passionate simplicity of our fellow citizens’ hope for life in our country. People are desperate for the truth and they want common sense applied to our choices. So, above all our national conversation should honor their hopes. Our mission should not be driven by polls or pundits but those people who get up every day — go to work — and who want to believe in the government and our leaders to do what is right.
The challenge for us today could not be more clear — it is to provide for the security of the American people: job security, income security, retirement security, health security, physical security, national security. And I believe that on all counts we can do better than we are doing today. We can — and we must — offer better choices to the American people.
Looming over life in America today is of course, the state of the economy and a set of domestic choices that are linked to it. None of the things we aspire to be or accomplish as a country will be possible if we do not solve the problems of our economy.
In the span of a year, this Administration has turned fiscal responsibility on its ear — turned a budget in surplus into a budget with endless deficits spurred on by an irresponsible and unfairly structured tax cut.
And above all — they have contributed to and until recently have been content to acquiesce to a national crisis of confidence. This crisis of confidence touches everything: corporate books, fiscal discipline, the tax cut, Washington politics, the war on terror, and our economic future.
And so it is up to us to lead and restore America’s confidence. We fought for and passed — over their objections — tough reforms which will protect investors and employees from corporate criminals. Most importantly — We’re fighting to restore the combination of discipline and investment that we made through tough choices and which gave our country lower interest rates, record job creation, record low unemployment, record low inflation and paid down our national debt for the first time since the end of WWII. But now we must do more.
I believe it is essential we continue to battle for fundamental fairness. Americans must believe that Washington isn’t tilting the field against them — We must make the tax code fair — We must end forever the practice of American companies and executives giving up American citizenship for tax purposes only — and We must end sham transactions that are essentially tax evasion — not avoidance.
And above all — We cannot any longer defer investment in the future. We need a significant commitment to infrastructure for states whose revenues are reduced and for communities which have no tax base. We need an increase in our commitment to basic science — to research and development — to education. We need to kick the next wave of invention and technology into gear. These are the things that will make us strong and keep us strong for years to come.
But today I want to talk about something more. I think our country and our party deserve a conversation about all the things that will make us stronger. I believe there is a better vision for how we deal with the rest of the world — a better vision for how we build relationships — a better vision for how we structure our military forces, a better vision for how you fight a war and win it — a better vision for accepting the responsibility of being the sole superpower in the world.
These beliefs make it clear to me that we must resist a new orthodoxy within our Party which does a disservice to more than seventy-five years of our Party’s history — a new conventional wisdom of consultants, pollsters, and strategists who argue as a matter of political strategy that Democrats should be the party of domestic issues only.
I don’t believe that. I believe we need to talk about all the things that strengthen and protect America and certainly a vision that extends to the world around us. We need to remember — this vision is not recent — it is as old as our party. Woodrow Wilson was elected during peace, but he led during war. Franklin Roosevelt was elected to tackle the Great Depression, create Social Security, and put America back to work. But shame on anyone — Republican or Democrat — who conveniently forgets that he did those things even as he responded to Pearl Harbor and marshaled the nation’s troops from Normandy to Iwo Jima. And Jack Kennedy didn’t try to change the subject of the debate when General Eisenhower’s Vice-President brought up foreign policy. He challenged America globally –– insisted that we do more — that we do better –– and insisted that we do these things not because they were easy but because they were hard.
That is the standard of leadership, engagement, and vision that defines our Party and I would respectfully say to everyone here and around the country that it must be the standard if we are to lead this nation once again.
Remember: the Presidency has three key job descriptions: chief executive of the fiscal and domestic policies of the United States — head of state and therefore the nation’s chief diplomat — and Commander in Chief of the Nation’s military forces. We dare not avoid discussing two-thirds of the job.
Quite some time ago, when I was a little kid, I remember walking on the beaches of Normandy where thousands of young Americans died fighting for freedom. It was a few years after the war and my father was serving abroad in the foreign service. As we walked and my father pointed out burnt-out bunkers, exploded shells, and the skeletons of landing vehicles — I came face to face — at a young age — with the meaning of our nation’s sacrifices. I think that beach — where thousands died for a freedom we defend today — symbolizes how my father and his generation — known as the greatest generation — answered the questions of their time. They had the courage to win the war, but they didn’t stop there — they went farther and secured the peace — rebuilding Europe and setting the stage to win the Cold War.
And like that generation, our’s also has its own set of difficult questions. I respectfully suggest that with recent events, it is time for us to ask the question — what will historians write about this moment, what will they saw about our generation?
I believe all of us want to be able to look back and tell our children and grandchildren that at this critical time our generation offered the leadership and vision to build and sustain the peace even as we waged this new war on terrorism. We want to be able to say that we spoke up because we knew we could do a better job of managing our responsibilities in the world in a way that makes country safer and stronger.
America finds itself — thanks to the effort and sacrifice of all Americans — the sole superpower on the face of the planet. No nation has ever held this unique status and with it comes both burden and responsibility.
A few months ago, this Administration was given the country’s full support — Democrat and Republican — to do whatever was necessary to destroy Al Qaida. And we expected the full might of America’s military to be called into action, especially recalling the Administration’s claim not to merely fire missiles into the desert, but to do whatever was necessary to smoke Osama bin Laden and his terrorist thugs out of their caves. But when given the opportunity to destroy Al Qaida at Tora Bora, the President turned not to the best military in the history of man — this President turned to Afghan warlords who only a week before were on the other side — and entrusted them with the responsibility of seeking out the number one terrorist criminal in the world. None of this is a criticism of our troops, many of whom were frustrated by decisions made up the chain of command, and all of whom did a tremendous job of soldiering, but the fact remains that when we had a thousand hardened Al Qaida trapped, we didn’t give our troops the chance to complete the mission for which they’d volunteered, we didn’t close off the backside mountain exit, we didn’t maintain the initiative, and we allowed Al Qaida to disperse, making our job tougher today.
But there is more challenge in this war — once again, in spite of all the President’s talk about security, leadership is not words, it’s actions. We must recognize that this war is different than any in history and that our most important weapon is intelligence — and it’s also our greatest vulnerability. Everyone knows of the reports that crucial intercepts from September 10th weren’t translated until the next day because of severe understaffing at our intelligence agencies. Yet ten months later, the Army reports they still have 15,000 unfilled positions requiring proficiency in 62 languages —and the State Department reported 2,581 such positions. Information gatherers and intelligence officers are our new foot soldiers. We should begin by speaking out against Vietnam era bans that keep CIA and FBI recruiters off too many Ivy League campuses. To respond to the new threats it’s imperative we redouble our information gathering efforts and make sure that the information we get is being heeded by the proper officials so that when we talk about preventing another September 11th, we’re dealing in reality not rhetoric.
We also face critical choices in the make-up and structuring of our armed forces. Operations in Afghanistan, Bosnia and the Persian Gulf have highlighted the changes in military tactics and equipment needs. Outdated military equipment won’t win tomorrow’s battles. A modern military means smarter, more versatile equipment, better intelligence, advanced communications, long-range air power, and highly mobile ground forces. Predictably, the Republicans have talked about improvements, but have so far failed to enact meaningful change. That is why we it is up to us to understand and prepare for Fourth Generation warfare so that our nation can be better prepared to wage and win the New War.
We must also change the way we interact with the world. For anyone who has ever suggested that ‘unilateralism’ is just the American way –– that allies around the globe won’t get in the way of our mission –– it’s time they acknowledge that more and more, our allies are our eyes and ears around the globe –– and our friends — old and new — will play a critical role in our intelligence operation. We need partners — and we need friends — and we must work at our public and private diplomacy more thoughtfully, sensitively, and intensely to develop both.
Now as to Iraq: I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq — Saddam Hussein is a renegade and outlaw who turned his back on the tough conditions of his surrender put in place by the United Nations in 1991. But the Administration’s rhetoric has far exceeded their plans or their groundwork. In fact, their single-mindedness, secrecy and high-blown rhetoric has alienated our allies and threatened to unravel the stability of the region. One of the lessons I learned as a soldier and as a Senator — when it comes to war our goal must not just be regime change — we have done that in Afghanistan without securing the peace — our goal, the very cornerstone of our foreign policy, must always be lasting peace. This Administration has offered no plan for what happens after we topple Saddam’s regime. No one disagrees that even if we go it alone in Iraq, we will win and we will replace Saddam; but what this Administration has failed to do is make their case on the international stage or to the American people for the rationale of starting the war or the means of ending it. We cannot afford to put the security of our allies, the region and ultimately our own at risk for the vague offerings we have heard to date. We must do better.
This President had bold words for North Korea in his State of the Union, but so far, in the Korean Peninsula where we deemed it important enough to sacrifice almost 60,000 American lives a half-century ago, this Administration chose to turn its back on the progress made by former Defense Secretary Bill Perry. Since the Inauguration they have done little to show real initiative to deal with real proliferation — and their rhetorical foreign policy has damaged and ultimately lost our policy of engagement that had forced North Korea to take previously unimaginable steps — agreeing to freeze its existing nuclear energy program and permitting critical inspections. In short, this Administration’s Cold War distrust and single-minded foreign policy has only increased North Korea’s already long prospects for democratic change and made us anything but safer.
When the Administration is engaged, too often it's been with lofty rhetoric and little real accomplishment. The Bush-Putin arms treaty — they tell us — puts an end to old suspicions and embraces a new Russia. But they won’t acknowledge that this new Russia is also home to organized crime, declining military morale, crumbling infrastructure, economic woe, and continued official contacts with two members of the President's axis of evil — Iran and Iraq. And so, we are left to question the measure of a treaty which takes warheads out of service, but which allows Russia to retain their largest missiles; a treaty which rings hollow with little verification and no guarantee that decommissioned weapons will be destroyed in a country where loose nukes are a mystery yet to be solved, not a myth. It is up to us to strengthen a cosmetic treaty and recapture an opportunity to make real gains in enhancing our security.
American leadership means we must listen to the cultures and histories of other countries and work harder to build coalitions and partnerships — it means we have to conduct our policies in a thoughtful manner. But for eighteen months this Administration has drifted from their chosen proactive message of disengagement to the reactive, mixed, and contradictory messages of reluctant engagement.
They disregarded almost seventy years of American friendship and leadership in the Middle East and every President of the last 30 years’ efforts for peace. For fourteen months this Administration was unwilling to take the responsibility of American leadership to heart
A great nation like ours should not be dragged kicking and resisting — should not have to be pressured to the task of making peace. A great nation like ours should be leading the effort to make peace or we risk encouraging through our inaction the worst instincts of an already troubled region.
Draining the swamps of terrorists will require much greater involvement in the world. It must include significant investments in the education and human infrastructure of troubled countries. The globalization of the last decade taught us that simple investments like books and family planning can do more to expose, rebut, isolate and defeat the apostles of hate so that children are no longer brainwashed into becoming suicide bombers and terrorists are denied the ideological swamplands in which they breed.. I believe our foreign aid must be increased and reformed to focus on this mission of education.
We must give these countries — and not just the leaders, but the children on the streets — a reason to want peace. In the next few years, without change, the potential for violence in the Middle East will only increase. If we fail to reach the children and the families wrecked by the violence of poverty and seclusion — the growing population of unemployed and unemployable kids will find in fanaticism a tragic answer to their problems. Our security depends on giving them a reason to believe in peace.
It is also clear that if we are to drain the swamps of terrorism, we must provide leadership in those places where anarchy and chaos can one day give way to fanaticism. Nowhere is this potential chaos greater than in Africa where there are more than 36 million people living with HIV/AIDS. Africa has 11 % of the world’s population but 70% of the population living with HIV/AIDS.
It’s up to us to respond. Only the United States is in a position to lead the effort with other governments and private sector partners to beat this pandemic — and only the United States has the resources to make a difference.
And — finally — redefining national security means making renewable energy sources a cornerstone of our foreign policy. Any meaningful definition of national security must include new strategies to end our dependence on foreign oil. I believe that we must search for clean, renewable resources — not just because it is in the interests of our environment, but because it is a demand of national security. And let me tell you why I am so passionate about releasing our country from the grip of foreign oil: it’s because the new fuels can never be embargoed, can never be taken hostage, and not one American son or daughter will ever lose their life defending them.
But this Administration remains trapped in old thinking — stuck in an ideological cement of their own mixing, unable to grasp the ways in which liberating the United States from oil can liberate our foreign policy and empower the United States to tell the truth throughout the Middle East.
Rather than have our energy policy be the last big mistake of the 20th century, we can make it the first major opportunity for security of the 21st century.
These — my friends — are the debates we need to have in our country — and we must insist we do. There are today Republicans who want to pretend the only issue before our country is the war –– and well they should, because they have no domestic agenda besides a tax cut. But to those who would say we Democrats should pretend the only issues before the country are domestic — I say no –– we are a Party for all Americans and all issues, and we will provide the vision and leadership needed to make Americans safe at home and around the world. And in so doing we will keep with the best traditions of Wilson — Roosevelt — and Kennedy.
We will offer leadership — and by doing so we will earn the right to lead. President Kennedy, in another time, said that, "The path we have chosen is full of hazards, as all paths are…. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission."
And it’s time we make clear once more –– we will never surrender or submit — not on any issue, not on any question. We will lead and America will win.