Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Patience...
President Urges Patience on War
--but it's LBJ, it's 1965, and only 400 US soldiers had died.
|
We are also there to strengthen world order. Around the globe from Berlin to Thailand are people whose well being rests in part on the belief that they can count on us if they are attacked. To leave [Iraq] to its fate would shake the confidence of all these people in the value of an American commitment and in the value of America's word. The result would be increased unrest and instability, even wide war.
We are also there because there are great stakes in the balance. Let no one think for a minute that retreat from [Iraq] would bring an end to the conflict. The battle would be renewed in one country and then another. The central lesson of our time is that the appetite of aggression is never satisfied. To withdraw from one battlefield means only to prepare for the next. We must say in [the Middle East]--as we did in Europe--in the words of the Bible: "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further."
Our objective is the independence of [Iraq], and its freedom from attack. We want nothing for ourselves-only that the people of [Iraq] be allowed to guide their own country in their own way.
We will do everything necessary to reach that objective.
--but it's LBJ, it's 1965, and only 400 US soldiers had died.
