An explosion during overnight strikes on Taliban’s positions at the mountain of Bagram, near Kabul on October 11. U.S.-led forces launched their first afternoon raid on Kabul, extending a bombing blitz on Afghanistan.
ATTACKING THE TALIBAN
An explosion during overnight strikes on Taliban’s positions at the mountain of Bagram, near Kabul on October 11. U.S.-led forces launched their first afternoon raid on Kabul, extending a bombing blitz on Afghanistan.
President Bush Pays Tribute at Pentagon Memorial
THE PRESIDENT: Please be seated. President and Senator Clinton, thank you all for being here. We have come here to pay our respects to 125 men and women who died in the service of America. We also remember 64 passengers on a hijacked plane; those men and women, boys and girls who fell into the hands of evildoers, and also died here exactly one month ago.
On September 11th, great sorrow came to our country. And from that sorrow has come great resolve. Today we are a nation awakened to the evil of terrorism and determined to destroy it. That work began the moment we were attacked; and it will continue until justice is delivered.
Americans are returning, as we must, to the normal pursuits of life. But we know that if you lost a son or daughter here, or a husband, or a wife, or a mom or dad, life will never again be as it was. The loss was sudden, and hard, and permanent. So difficult to explain. So difficult to accept.
Three schoolchildren traveling with their teacher. An Army general. A budget
analyst who reported to work here for 30 years. A lieutenant commander in the naval reserve who left behind a wife, a four-year-old son, and another child on the way.
One life touches so many others. One death can leave sorrow that seems almost unbearable. But to all of you who lost someone here, I want to say: You are not alone. The American people will never forget the cruelty that was done here and in New York, and in the sky over Pennsylvania.
We will never forget all the innocent people killed by the hatred of a few. We know the loneliness you feel in your loss. The entire nation shares in your sadness. And we pray for you and your loved ones. And we will always honor their memory.
The hijackers were instruments of evil who died in vain. Behind them is a cult of evil which seeks to harm the innocent and thrives on human suffering. Theirs is the worst kind of cruelty, the cruelty that is fed, not weakened, by tears. Theirs is the worst kind of violence, pure malice, while daring to claim the authority of God. We cannot fully understand the designs and power of evil. It is enough to know that evil, like goodness, exists.
And in the terrorists, evil has found a willing servant.
In New York, the terrorists chose as their target a symbol of America’s freedom and confidence. Here, they struck a symbol of our strength in the world. And the attack on the Pentagon, on that day, was more symbolic than they knew. It was on another September 11th—September 11th, 1941—that construction on this building first began. America was just then awakening to another menace: the Nazi terror in Europe.
And on that very night, President Franklin Roosevelt spoke to the nation. The danger, he warned, has long ceased to be a mere possibility. The danger is here now. Not only from a military enemy, but from an enemy of all law, all liberty, all morality, all religion.
For us too, in the year 2001, an enemy has emerged that rejects every limit of law, morality, and religion. The terrorists have no true home in any country, or culture, or faith. They dwell in dark corners of earth. And there, we will find them.
This week, I have called the Armed