Since we’re talking about values, let me talk a little bit about values and the traditions of freedom in relation to our identity as a country and our role in the world after September 11th.

Now, let me begin with a question you’ll undoubtedly recognize as a rewording of one of the traditional Four Questions of Passover that we’ll be asking in the spring. Here’s the Question: Why is this nation different from all other nations? Or, if I can phrase it a little more specifically: Why do people across the globe consistently choose this country over other countries to live, work, raise a family and call home?

I happen to believe the answer is obvious. I think it’s because of our belief, enshrined in our Declaration of Independence, that people have fundamental rights that are not to be trampled upon by any government or any person.

Now, no nation is perfect, and ours is not either. But I do believe that our nation is and has been historically a remarkable reflection of the belief in these human rights and human freedom, because America is a place where people come and exercise the freedoms they need to build new lives for themselves and for their loved ones.

Of course, we’re not the only democracy in the world, but we are indeed one of the oldest. And, equally important, we began our life as a nation as a democracy.

It’s important to remember that when America’s democratic experiment was beginning, much of Europe was still clinging to the belief in the divine right of kings. But the founders of the United States rejected that view. They believed that nobody was above the law; there was no king that stood above everybody else. Rather, they believed that God ruled through the law, which spelled out the fundamental equality of all humanity.

America’s story is that of a great contest between this view - that ours is an exceptional nation dedicated to freedom - and the view that says that America is really no different from any other nation pursuing its own narrow interests.

The first view, the view of America as defined by freedom, begins at the very start of this country’s experience. In John Winthrop’s famous words, talking about the country in its earliest days, he said, “We must consider that we shall be as a City upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.” Of course, there’s a second view that sees America as a conventional nation pursuing narrow, materialistic interests. And I think throughout our history, these two views - one which I may call the exceptional view or the idealistic view, and the other being the conventional view - have been in competition with one another.

Now, let me drill down a little bit further into this idea of a fundamental difference of opinion or a fundamental difference of approach to this nation’s identity and purpose. Sometimes people say that the difference between competing views of this country is the difference between pie-in-the-sky idealists and down-to-earth realists. If the people who believe in this country as an example for freedom, dedicated to promoting freedom, are really just dreamers, and that what is really required is leadership, that is realistic. But I think that history shows that the so-called idealists are actually people who have been repeatedly vindicated by history, and that they in fact are the realists, and that sometimes what is described as realism is nothing more than conventional wisdom. Where conventional wisdom embraces accommodation, appeasement and resignation, in my view, it is not realism. It’s simply the avoidance of unpleasant reality. It’s what I sometimes call fatalism.

Let me give you some examples of what I mean about these conflicting views about the world - idealism versus fatalism.

In the 1930s, some, like Winston Churchill in Britain and others in our own country, said that we’d have to stand up to the ever-growing march of fascism because it was destroying lives and freedoms across the world. But the conventional wisdom in the ’30s rejected this as warmongering, rejected it as warmongering in England and rejected it as warmongering in the United States. And so, for a good deal of the 1930s, this country pursued a policy of isolationism. Thanks to that policy, Germany devoured pieces of continental Europe and Japan did likewise in Asia. And in the end, the conflict between freedom and the ideology of fascism could not be avoided or accommodated. Delay and dithering merely compounded the cost in lives and human suffering until freedom triumphed.

But after the Second World War, the same sort of contest occurred between those who saw communism as a monstrous ideology that enslaved hundreds of millions of people and that required us to challenge it, and those who believed that in the wake of an exhausting war, we should simply permanently accommodate ourselves to Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe in the name of pragmatism and peace.

For almost 50 years, some who styled themselves as realists criticized and ridiculed those who challenged the communist ideology and dared to argue that Eastern European countries should aspire to freedom. The conventional wisdom said these views, seeking freedom for Eastern Europe, were naive or even dangerous and destabilizing.

The high water mark for this kind of conventional wisdom of accommodation was the mid-1970s. I think you’ll remember the 1976 presidential debate, where President Ford appeared at one point to deny that Poland should be regarded as under Soviet domination. Now, I believe what he meant was that he was not prepared to concede a Poland that was permanently unfree. But President Ford was ridiculed for even suggesting that there might be a free Poland. And his opponent, Jimmy Carter, after winning the election, went on the following year in a speech at Notre Dame to say that our nation was getting over what he called an inordinate fear of communism.

But you’ll remember that even in that period of time, there were voices who argued that we shouldn’t simply accommodate or resign ourselves to domination of Eastern Europe and the loss of freedom. Senator Henry Jackson, for example, was one of the few voices of that era who dissented from the conventional wisdom and the conventional orthodox. He argued compellingly that it was wrong to appease our enemies, to give away freedom, and that doing so would not, in fact, bring us closer to a lasting peace or a lasting sense of security.

Another of the public figures of that era who shared this unwillingness to accept the conventional wisdom was, of course, Ronald Reagan. After becoming president, President Reagan began to press more vigorously against this conventional wisdom of accommodation and resignation - challenging the idea that Soviet-American relations should simply be frozen in a détente that accommodated an Eastern Europe under permanent Soviet domination.

So, in 1982, speaking before the British Parliament, Reagan departed from the euphemisms of the 1970s, declaring that the Soviet Union “runs against the tide of history by denying human freedom and human dignity to its citizens.” He pledged to “foster democratic change.” As one observer remembered, President Reagan’s speech to Parliament rejected the Cold War “as some permanent condition.” And, of course, President Reagan backed up those words with action, as when he deployed upgraded Pershing missiles in Europe, despite strong demonstrations and criticism.

How did the conventional wisdom view Reagan daring to talk about human freedom and human dignity as values that trump what domination there was in Eastern Europe? How did they view his prediction and his promise to foster democratic change, that the Cold War was not a permanent condition? Well, the conventional wisdom viewed Reagan’s approach as dangerously simplistic.

Reflecting those conventions, the late historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who had also been a presidential advisor under President Kennedy, had this to say in his contemporaneous diary entries about Reagan’s policies: “Those who think the Soviet Union is on the verge of economic and social collapse are kidding themselves.”

He went on to criticize the “Reagan people” who “want an unlimited arms race on the theory that it will either wreck the Soviet economy or result in unquestioned American nuclear superiority.” And he added scornfully, “These people don’t seem to realize they are playing with the future of humanity.”

But in fact, President Reagan had a vision of the future for humanity, but it was not a vision of a humanity in permanent thrall in large parts of the world to domination by dictatorship and totalitarianism. It was a view and a vision of the future for humanity rooted in hope rather than defeatism. And he had a powerful conviction that this vision of hope, rather than the vision of defeatism, would ultimately come true.

President Reagan’s climactic challenge to conventional wisdom came, of course, in the 1987 Brandenburg Gate speech, when Reagan called for Gorbachev to “tear down” the Berlin Wall, which separated the world of tyranny from that of freedom.

So who was right, as between the conventional wisdom and the Reagan view? Who was vindicated by history? I think it was President Reagan. Who was kidding himself about the Wall? And by the way, I’ve seen a National Security memorandum written in 1987, shortly before President Reagan gave this speech, where his speechwriters, in despair over what they described among themselves as a mediocre speech, complained that he wouldn’t take out the language, “tear down this wall.” That was their view. But President Reagan, trumping his own speechwriters, saw better. And he was right, because we know now, within a few years, that the Wall came down, and as Reagan promised, the Cold War ended, and the Soviet Union itself went out of existence as an empire.

So, looking back on this history, I propose that many who are simply treated as idealists are actually realists, and some who describe themselves as realists are really nothing more than fatalists.

How do I define the difference, when I look back historically? Well, I think idealists, like Churchill in the ’30s or Reagan in the ’80s, are keenly aware of reality and the constraints imposed by circumstances. They don’t kid themselves about what dangers there are in the world out there. Indeed, they’re crystal clear - even blunt - about the constraints that we all face. But their response to bad news is neither to sugarcoat it, nor to shrug in resignation and urge a fatalistic strategy of accommodation and managed decline. Instead, idealists of the kind I’m talking about have the vision to formulate strategies that seek to “change the game” entirely, through fundamental realignment of the circumstances that appear to be so grim.

Now, how does this concept of idealism translate to the current struggle of our new century? Well, first we have to have a clear-eyed view of the threat that we face today, in the first decade of the 21st century. And, like Ronald Reagan, we must not hesitate to call evil by its true name.

The evil we face is an ideology of violent Islamist extremism that declares its hostility to all who disagree, including most Muslims. In 1998, bin Laden issued what amounted to a declaration of war, starting with the false accusation that America had declared war on Islam, and ending with a command, and I quote, “to kill the Americans and their allies - civilian and military quarters in any country where it is possible to do it.”

And in the decade that followed, bin Laden and his cohorts did exactly that - plotting strikes not only against our own country but against our global system of security, safety and prosperity.

Spread by a sinister network of cult-like entities that span the world, this evil ideology sanctifies the slaughter of innocent people, denying the dignity and humanity of its opponents, including Muslims who dare to reject its pseudo-religious message of hatred and bigotry.

Clearly, the terrorists who embrace this ideology do not represent mainstream Islam. Instead, they target Muslims themselves with bullets and bombs. Need I remind you that two years ago in Amman, Jordan, a groom, his bride, the fathers of both newlyweds, and as many as 10 more relatives in the group were among dozens of Muslims slaughtered in the middle of a wedding celebration in a triple suicide bombing, ordered by al Qaeda in Iraq. These were Muslims who were celebrating one of the most important religious events of their faith - and they were mindlessly killed by fanatics with a perverted sense of what their religious mandate was.

Of course, these terrorists do more than simply violate the sanctity of human life. They seek to destroy human liberty by intimidating people everywhere into submission.

There is no force on this planet more antithetical to freedom and liberty than that of ideologues who face us with weapons of terror. And whenever they’ve gained power, they’ve sought to extinguish freedom, from women’s rights to liberty of conscience.

Now, this threat that I’m talking about is not merely a theoretical threat; it doesn’t merely reflect the grandiosity of ideas held by bin Laden [and his fellow travelers] and his henchmen. As we know, al Qaeda once partnered with the Taliban to run Afghanistan. That’s, of course, what helped create the platform for launching September 11th. And that’s why it was vital to depose that regime. We remember what that was like - the absence of liberty, the oppression of women, their rigid rules. And, although driven out of Afghanistan, the terrorists, al Qaeda and the Taliban have not given up their desire to reclaim that land they have lost. They want to overthrow the Iraqi government as well and carve a safe haven for themselves and parts of Iraq, although, thankfully, the people of that area are beginning to reject them as a foreign host.

And that’s why our armed forces are working very hard with the people of Iraq to counter al Qaeda in Iraq, even as I speak.

But the activity of al Qaeda and its fellow henchmen is not limited to Afghanistan or Iraq. Associated groups from North Africa and throughout South Asia are fighting for and sometimes achieving control of tangible territory from which these terrorists hope to be able to train, assemble advanced weaponry, impose their own vision of repressive law, and dominate local life.

It’s clear that just as al Qaeda and its allies want to reclaim Afghanistan, so too they want to reclaim Somalia. Al Qaeda, in fact, wants to extend its franchise across North Africa and beyond. And just last year, bin Laden threatened to fight any attempt by the West to stop the mass murder in the Sudan.

So, the first step to a reality-based idealism in this 21st century is to clearly identify the threat we face today in an honest and straightforward manner, and that is this threat of violent extremism that I’ve described.

And the second step is to have a vision of a strategy that aims not only to manage the problem but to transform the problem.

How do we do that? How do we transform the problem? Well, we begin by exhibiting continuing strength and resolve. Almost immediately after September 11th, we destroyed al Qaeda’s headquarters in Afghanistan, we deployed our intelligence assets across the globe, we captured and killed terrorists on nearly every continent, we partnered with our allies on information sharing and intelligence, and we adapted in numerous ways to the evolving threats that had emerged, both overseas and at home. And of course, part of that adaptation here at home was the establishment of my own department, the Department of Homeland Security.

But to go beyond merely that stalemate position, to truly transform the battlefield and landscape, we have to fight a battle of hearts and minds, recognizing that the way out of an endless struggle with an ideology of hate is the pursuit and promotion of freedom.

Here is a true American strength. As we fight our war against those who commit acts of terror in the name of extremist ideology, we have to remain committed to the values that I’ve discussed that define who and what we are as a nation.

Whether it was fighting the Nazis in World War II or communism during the Cold War or extremist Islamist ideologues today, we draw great strength from our country’s creed, a creed that says no to tyranny, no to oppression and no to enslavement. And we’re empowered by our conscience, our conscience that says yes to freedom, yes to justice, yes to civil rights and yes to emancipation for all humanity - not emancipation only reserved for the lucky few who reside in the West.

When we went into Afghanistan to evict the Taliban and dismantle bin Laden’s headquarters, what our soldiers found there confirmed what human rights groups had been saying for years. The ruling Taliban had hijacked Islam, turned its clock back many centuries, and combined it with the brutal methodologies of a modern totalitarian police state.

Political opponents were jailed. Ancient statues portraying a different religion were demolished or desecrated. Women were forced out of every arena of public life, stripped of every modern right and privilege, and made virtual property of husbands and fathers.

And so by ejecting the Taliban from power, we struck not only a military blow against an enemy, but we freed millions of people and enfranchised women so they could be full participants in that society. That was ultimately the strength of what has been achieved in Afghanistan.

But even in light of that today, in other pockets of the Middle East and Asia, in Afghanistan itself, al Qaeda and the Taliban and their henchmen dream of once again eliminating the fundamental rights we have brought to these corners of the world and returning a thousand years ago to a different vision, a darker vision, of what human existence should be.

And that’s why it’s essential we continue to make clear that we support the right of people everywhere to be free. For not only is that right in principle, but it will go a long way toward winning the hearts and minds in a long battle against the perpetrators of September 11th and the malignant ideology they represent.

And for those who say it’s a pipe dream, that most of the world isn’t ready to be emancipated or be free, let me remind you again of the example of Eastern Europe, where our sustained public support for the solidarity movement in Poland unleashed a greater movement which led to a decisive victory for the forces of liberty against those of communist tyranny.

Once the people of those nations knew we were going to keep standing up for them, and they knew Senator Jackson and President Reagan were going to keep standing up for them, they were emboldened to stand for their own freedom. And their history, of course, is now clear.

So it follows from everything that I’ve said, that in our post-9/11 world, we must continue to respect the civil rights of people everywhere, including the rights of Muslims right here in our own country, and that includes rejecting racial, ethnic and religious profiling, which is not only wrong in principle, but it doesn’t work very well in practice.

By respecting individual and civil rights, we’re not only making this a better country, but we’re positioning ourselves to speak to people around the world who are seeking a real alternative to the pseudo-religious extremism that is being promoted by our enemies.

Now I need to add, of course, that with rights come responsibilities. Americans of every background and heritage must continue to stand with us in our efforts to secure our homeland. They must provide law enforcement with the information needed to identify and apprehend individuals who pose a clear threat to this country. And people of all heritages and faiths must continue to recognize that we’re all in it together, that what the terrorists want to destroy is everything that all of us as Americans hold dear.

And so as part of an ongoing dialogue with leaders of all the communities that make up the United States, we want to continue to talk about the rights and responsibilities which define us as American people. We continue to ask - and we will continue to ask all Americans to remain vigilant and to report to the authorities activities that they believe to be suspicious, activities that are directed indiscriminately against people of all faiths and all creeds.

And we pledge a continued open-door policy that respects the ideas and is sensitive to the concerns of every community so that none feel excluded in this country, and all feel that they are part of the solution to the problem.

In the end, human rights are at the heart of who we are, what we’re fighting for and what we need to protect as we prosecute this war against the ideologies of oppression and terror.

It’s my pledge to you that we’ll continue to pursue a vision of homeland security that balances durable and comprehensive security with the values we cherish and the freedoms we enjoy as Americans.

It’s my promise that as we defend America, we will remain - in every sense of the word - Americans.

Thank you.

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In our title to this posting www.SustainabiliTank.info included - “About Realism, Idealism, Fatalism, and Views of America as Defined By Freedom or Materialism.” Now we would like to add to this the three letters of “oil.”

We surely agree with the large sweep of the Chertoff presentation, but we miss any reference to the simple fact that Osama Bin Laden was helped by the US CIA directly, and also directly by the Washington imposed addiction to oil that is the main disease of America even these days. Indirectly, it is materialism - as in oil business - that involved and still involves US top Administration figures in activities that were a top brass impediment to fighting the perpetrators and the funders of those extremist Islamic agitators. Churchill, Reagan, and Jackson were talking about fascism and communism, but today the talk is about access to oil. Further, the fact that the people of the East European countries were placed under Soviet supervision stems from the Yalta meeting between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. As we mentioned in the past - that is where the west traded East Europe to the Soviets in exchange for the oil of the Middle East - that at the time meant Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. These are our follow up remarks to an otherwise outstanding speech.