Why We Fight

From the White House and the

Office of the President of the

United States we present an

address by Dwight D. Eisenhower.

This is the farewell address for

president Eisenhower, whose...

eight years as chief executive

come to an end that noon Friday.

Good evening, my fellow Americans.

We now stand 10 years passed

the midpoint of the century,

that has witnessed four major

wars among great nations.

Three of these involved our own country.

We have been compelled to create a...

permanent armaments industry

of vast proportions.

Three and a half million men and women are

directly engaged in the defense establishment.

Of this conjunction, of an

immense military establishment...

and a large arms industry is

new in the American experience.

We recognize the imperative

need for this development.

Yet we must not fail to comprehend

its grave implications.

What are we fighting for?

Why do we bury our sons and fathers in

lonely graves, far away from home?

Our men are dying to preserve a way of life.

This religion, these rights, they are precious

enough to fight for, precious enough to die for.

WHY WE FIGH:

The United States is the greatest

force for good in the world.

And we have not an obligation to

go out and fight and start wars,

but certainly do everything we can to spread

democracy and freedom throughout the world.

We shall pay any price, bear any burden...

to assure the survival and

the success of liberty.

- What are we fighting for?

- Freedom.

Freedom.

I think we're fighting because it's

necessary and because it's right.

We are not talking simply

about the price of gas,

we are talking about the price of liberty.

We seek neither territory nor bases.

We fight for the principle

of self-determination.

America's strength and military power

have been a force for peace, not conflicts.

By keeping our military

strong, by using force where...

we must, America is making a difference...

... for people here and around the world.

Our course is just. And no

matter how long it takes,

we will defeat the enemies of freedom.

I was on my way to work and

I was taking the subway,

which is elevated subway.

And as the subway heads to

New York it comes a point...

where it makes a very abrupt lefthand

turn, almost a 90 degree turn.

And when it does that the wheels

of the subway always screech loudly.

If you look out of the window that's when

you can see the World Trade Center.

I was sitting on subway, reading as I always do.

Train made a lefthand

turn, the wheels screeched,

everybody jumped up and start to gasp...

'Oh.'

And I look up and there's the building

with smoke pouring out of it.

I didn't know if that was my

son's building, because...

tower 1 and tower 2 were in perfect symmetry.

And I didn't know which tower I'm looking at.

And I'm just thinking to myself you know,

'How did my son get out of there?'

I don't know how, but he got out of there.

There's no two ways about that.

He can't be in there. Cause anybody

who's in there is gonna die.

Blowback.

It's a CIA turn.

Blowback does not mean simply the

unintended consequences of foreign operations.

It means the unintended

consequences of foreign operations,

that were deliberately kept

secret from the American public.

So that when the retaliation comes,

the American public is not...

able to put it in context, to

put cause and effect together.

That they come up with questions like

'Why did they hate us?'

The forces of evil declared

war on the America...

Since Pearl Harbor has there

been so much national...

Bringing the democracy under attack.

'Why do they hate us?'

That's the question everybody's asking.

Our government did not want the forensic

question asked 'What were their motives?'.

And instead shows to say

'Thy were just evil doers.'

And the towers keep falling. Every

five minutes they go to tower again.

I've Come on the phone, I call the NBC.

I'm listening to your newscast. How many times

you gonna show those goddamn towers coming down?

Don't you have any respect for the people,

who have family and friends in those towers?

Do we have to keep watching

them fall down? I watch them...

fall down fifty times already.

When are you gonna stop?

Please stop. You are ripping my heart out.

...I guess people, that hate freedom.

God gave me two greatest sons

any parent could ever ask for.

Why he took one back?

I'll never know.

I can hear you.

The rest of the world hears you.

And the people..

And the people, who knock these

buildings down will hear all of us soon.

Yeah!

USA!

USA!

Somebody has to pay for this.

Somebody has to pay for 9/11th.

I want enemy dead. I wanna see their bodies...

stacked up, for what they

did, for taking my son.

On September 12, 2001, The President's

national security team met...

to discuss a military response to

the attacks of the previous day.

The discussion included the prospect of a...

preemptive military strike

against the nation of Iraq.

There was a moment when

the entire world was behind us.

There was a million people,

demonstrating in the streets of Teheran

in favor of the United States.

We had the world behind us.

Now kids are dying.

Billions are being spent every month.

Animosity against United States is stronger

now than it ever has been in history.

What happened here?

Is it just the experience of September 11th?

Or is there something else going on here?

When something like this

happens you got to take stock...

of this, you got to understand

what went wrong here.

We live here in the United States of Amnesia.

No one remembers anything before Monday morning.

Everything is a blank.

We have no history.

Guatemala 1954.

The United States intervened

unilaterally, to protect its vital interests.

Lebanon 1959, the United

States fills its policy of...

containment and the Middle East is threatened.

They response openly an unilaterally.

The United States intervened

in Laos, Boetoeng, Brazil.

There are so many theories

about what happened in Iraq.

And why we really went in.

But when you look at the history of the

United States, almost every president,

there is something we

don't like, somewhere in...

the world and we've got to

dispense military force.

Ronald Reagan invaded Grenada in 1983.

Last night I ordered US

military forces to Panama.

This is not about one president or one party.

We fight as a nation because

we perceive it is our interest to fight.

And we then mention words like freedom...

and nice common values.

Who can be against freedom?

When in fact much more has

been going on privately.

Just completed the meating

where our national security...

team and we've received the

latest intelligence updates.

The deliberate and deadly attacks, which

occurred yesterday against our country

were more than acts of terror.

They were acts of war.

September 11th, 2001 provided a group of people,

deeply committed to the

expansion of the American empire.

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