'A Time To Weep'
By Theodore Sorensen
Full text of the commencement address by Theodore Sorensen to the New School
University on May 21, 2004. Images added by the webmaster.
This is not a speech. Two weeks ago I set aside the speech I prepared. This is a
cry from the heart, a lamentation for the loss of this country's
goodness and therefore its greatness. Future historians studying the decline and
fall of America will mark this as the time the tide began to turn -toward a mean-spirited mediocrity in place of a noble beacon.
For me the final blow was American guards laughing over the naked, helpless
bodies of abused prisoners in Iraq. "There is a time to laugh," the Bible tells
us, "and a time to weep." Today I weep for the country I love, the country I
proudly served, the country to which my four grandparents sailed over a century
ago with hopes for a new land of peace and freedom. I cannot remain silent when
that country is in the deepest trouble of my lifetime.
I am not talking only about the prison abuse scandal -- that stench will someday
subside. Nor am I referring only to the Iraq war -- that too will pass-- nor to
any one political leader or party.
THESE IMAGES ARE FROM THE ABU GHARIB JAIL IN IRAQ SHOWING USA MILITARY STAFF ABUSING IRAQI INMATES
This is no time for politics as usual, in which no one responsible admits
responsibility, no one genuinely apologizes, no one resigns, and everyone else
is blamed. The damage done to this country by its own misconduct in the last few
months and years, to its very heart and soul, is far greater and longer lasting
than any damage that any terrorist could possibly inflict upon us. The stain on
our credibility, our reputation for decency and integrity, will not quickly wash
away.
Last week, a family friend of an accused American guard in Iraq recited the
atrocities inflicted by our enemies on Americans, and asked: "Must we be held to
a different standard?" My answer is yes. Not only because others expect it. We
must hold ourselves to a different standard. Not only because God demands it,
but because it serves our security. Our greatest strength has long been not
merely our military might but our moral authority. Our surest protection against
assault from abroad has been not all our guards, gates and guns, or even our two
oceans, but our essential goodness as a people. Our richest asset has been not
our material wealth but our values. We were world leaders once -- helping found
the United Nations, the Marshall Plan, NATO, and programs like Food for Peace,
international human rights and international environmental standards.
Manadel al-Jamadi, an Iraqi tortured to death at Abu Ghraib.
The world admired not only the bravery of our Marine Corps but also the idealism
of our Peace Corps. Our word was as good as our gold. At the start of the
Cuban missile crisis, former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, President
Kennedy's special envoy to brief French President de Gaulle, offered to document
our case by having the actual pictures of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba
brought in. "No," shrugged the usually difficult deGaulle: "The word of the
president of the United States is good enough for me." Eight months later,
President Kennedy could say at American University: "THE WORLD KNOWS THAT
AMERICA WILL NEVER START A WAR. This generation of Americans has had enough of
war and hate ... we want to build a world of peace where the weak are secure and
the strong are just."
CAMP DELTA: GUANTANAMO BAY
Our founding fathers believed this country could be a beacon of light to the
world, a model of democratic and humanitarian progress. We were. We prevailed in
the Cold War because we inspired millions struggling for freedom in far corners
of the Soviet empire. I have been in countries where children and avenues were
named for Lincoln, Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. We were
respected, not reviled, because we respected man's aspirations for peace and
justice. This was the country to which foreign leaders sent not only their
goods to be sold but their sons and daughters to be educated. In the 1930s, when
Jewish and other scholars were driven out of Europe, their preferred
destination -- even for those on the far left -- was not the Communist citadel
in Moscow but the New School here in New York.
CAMP DELTA: GUANTANAMO BAY
What has happened to our country? We have been in wars before, without resorting
to sexual humiliation as torture, without blocking the Red Cross, without
insulting and deceiving our allies and the U.N., without betraying our
traditional values, without imitating our adversaries, without blackening our
name around the world. Last year when asked on short notice to speak to a
European audience and inquiring what topic I should address, the chairman said:
"Tell us about the good America, the America when Kennedy was in the White
House." "It is still a good America," I replied. "The American people still
believe in peace, human rights and justice; they are still a generous,
fair-minded, open-minded people." Today some political figures argue that
merely to report, much less to protest, the crimes against humanity committed by
a few of our own inadequately trained forces in the fog of war, is to aid the
enemy or excuse its atrocities. But Americans know that such
self-censorship does not enhance our security. Attempts to justify or defend our
illegal acts as nothing more than pranks or no worse than the crimes of our
enemies,only further muddies our moral image.
Thirty years ago, America's war in Vietnam became a hopeless military quagmire;
today our war in Iraq has BECOME A SENSELESS MORAL SWAMP.
CAMP DELTA: GUANTANAMO BAY
No military victory can endure unless the victor occupies the high moral ground.
Surely America, the land of the free, could not lose the high moral ground
invading Iraq, a country ruled by terror, torture and tyranny -- but we did.
Instead of isolating Saddam Hussein -- politically, economically,
diplomatically, much as we succeeded in isolating Gadhafi, Marcos, Mobutu
and a host of other dictators over the years -- we have isolated ourselves. We
are increasingly alone in a dangerous world in which MILLIONS WHO ONCE RESPECTED
US NOW HATE US. Not only Muslims. Every international survey shows our
global standing at an all-time low. Even our transatlantic alliance has not yet
recovered from its worst crisis in history. Our friends in Western Europe were
willing to accept Uncle Sam as class president, but not as class bully
once he forgot JFK's advice that "civility is not a sign of weakness." All
this is rationalized as part of the war on terror. But abusing prisoners in
Iraq, denying detainees their legal rights in Guantánamo -- even American
citizens -- misleading the world at large about Saddam's ready stockpiles
of mass destruction and involvement with al-Qaida at 9/11, did not advance by
one millimeter our efforts to end the threat of another terrorist attack
upon us. On the contrary, our conduct invites and incites new attacks and new
recruits to attack us.
The decline in our reputation adds to the decline in our security. We keep
losing old friends and making new enemies -- not a formula for success. We have
not yet rounded up Osama bin Laden or most of the al-Qaida and Taliban leaders
or the anthrax mailer. "The world is large," wrote John Boyle O'Reilly, in one
of President Kennedy's favorite poems, "when its weary leagues two loving hearts
divide, but the world is small when your enemy is loose on the other side."
Today our enemies are still loose on the other side of the world, and we are
still vulnerable to attack. True, we have not lost either war we chose or lost
too much of our wealth. But we have lost something worse -- our good name for
truth and justice. To paraphrase Shakespeare: "He who steals our nation's
purse, steals trash. 'Twas ours, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands. But
he that filches our good name ... makes us poor indeed." No American wants
us to lose a war. Among our enemies are those who, if they could, would
fundamentally change our way of life, restricting our freedom of religion by
exalting one faith over others, ignoring international law and the opinions of
mankind, and trampling on the rights of those who are different, deprived or
disliked. To the extent that our nation voluntarily treads those same paths in
the name of security, the terrorists win and we are the losers.
We are no longer the world's leaders on matters of international law and peace.
AFTER WE STOPPED LISTENING TO OTHERS, THEY STOPPED LISTENING TO US.
A nation without credibility and moral authority cannot lead, because no one will
follow. Paradoxically, the charges against us in the court of world opinion are
contradictory. We are deemed by many to be dangerously aggressive, a threat to
world peace. You may regard that as ridiculously unwarranted, no matter how
often international surveys show that attitude to be spreading. But remember the
old axiom: "No matter how good you feel, if four friends tell you you're drunk,
you'd better lie down." Yet we are also charged not so much with
intervention as indifference --
indifference toward the suffering of millions of our fellow inhabitants of this
planet who do not enjoy the freedom, the opportunity, the health and
wealth and security that we enjoy; indifference to the countless deaths of
children and other civilians in unnecessary wars, countless because we usually
do not bother to count them; indifference to the centuries of humiliation
endured previously in silence by the Arab and Islamic worlds.
The good news, to relieve all this gloom, is that a democracy is inherently
self-correcting. Here, the people are sovereign. Inept political leaders can be
replaced. Foolish policies can be changed. Disastrous mistakes can be reversed.
When, in 1941, the Japanese Air Force was able to inflict widespread death and
destruction on our naval and air forces in Hawaii because they were not on
alert, those military officials most responsible for ignoring advance
intelligence were summarily dismissed.
When, in the late 1940s, we faced a global Cold War against another asystem of
ideological fanatics certain that their authoritarian values would eventually
rule the world, we prevailed in time. We prevailed because we exercised
patience as well as vigilance, self-restraint as well as self-defense, and
reached out to moderates and modernists, to democrats and dissidents, within
that closed system. We can do that again. We can reach out to moderates and
modernists in Islam, proud of its long traditions of dialogue, learning,
charity and peace. Some among us scoff that the war on jihadist terror is
a war between civilization and chaos. But they forget that there were Islamic
universities and observatories long before we had railroads. So do not despair.
In this country, the people are sovereign. If we can but tear the blindfold of
self-deception from our eyes and loosen the gag of self-denial from our voices,
we can restore our country to greatness. In particular, you -- the class
of 2004 -- have the wisdom and energy to do it. Start soon. In the
words of the ancient Hebrews: "The day is short, and the work is great, and the
labourers are sluggish, but the reward is much, and the Master is urgent."
Theodore Sorensen was special counsel to President Kennedy, 1961-'63
Hiroshima: Evidence that the unthinkable can happen.
NOTE BY THE WEBMASTER:
Anyone who doubts that the USA is now hated as a nation of warmongers should ask why Secretary of State Colin Powell did not attend the Greek Olympic closing ceremony. The truth is that the Greek people were about to demonstrate in the streets against him and all that the USA currently stands for. The wonderful and dedicated athletes of the USA were booed as they received their Olympic Gold Medals because they were representing a nation that is seen as being responsible for creating war and defying the United Nations. As a UK citizen I am equally appalled by the disgraceful conduct of the current UK Government. The USA and the UK should be ashamed of the war in Iraq, they started it without reason, other than to grab the oil, and they have killed tens of thousands of innocent people. It is a little known fact that millions of UK citizens marched in London against the invasion of Iraq. The UK public does NOT support any attack on a sovereign nation and this Blair Government will, in the eye of history, be held responsible for a major crime against humanity. A time for all decent people to weep? Indeed it is.
Read now what one of America's most famous poets wrote about what it really means to be American:
Pioneers! O Pioneers!
by Walt Whitman
Come, my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!
For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
O you youths, western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you, western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied, over there beyond the
seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the lesson,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
All the past we leave behind;
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we, and piercing deep the mines
within;
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high
plateaus,
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood
intervein'd;
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the
Northern,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
O resistless, restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and yet exult--I am rapt with love for all,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress,
(bend your heads all,)
Raise the fang'd and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon'd
mistress,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
See, my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear, we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions, frowning there behind us urging,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
On and on, the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly
fill'd,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
O to die advancing on!
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill'd,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
All the pulses of the world,
Falling in, they beat for us, with the western movement beat;
Holding single or together, steady moving, to the front, all for us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Life's involv'd and varied pageants,
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
All the hapless silent lovers,
All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Through these shores, amid the shadows, with the apparitions
pressing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Lo! the darting bowling orb!
Lo! the brother orbs around! all the clustering suns and planets,
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
These are of us, they are with us,
All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait
behind,
We to-day's procession heading, we the route for travel clearing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
O you daughters of the west!
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Minstrels latent on the prairies!
(Shrouded bards of other lands! you may sleep--you have done your
work;)
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Not for delectations sweet;
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the
studious;
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock'd and bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged, nodding on
our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you, in your tracks to pause oblivious,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the day-break call--hark! how loud and clear I hear it
wind;
Swift! to the head of the army!--swift! spring to your places, Pioneers! O
pioneers.
Today the land of those Pioneers is exporting torture.
'Has the night descended?' to quote Walt Whitman.
INTERESTING LINK FOR THOSE QUESTIONING THE TRUTH OF OFFICIAL
STATEMENTS CONCERNING WAR, 9/11 etc.
Click on the twin-tower.