The Battle for Our Future

Earlier today, I had the honor and privilege of speaking at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, the site for one of the greatest speeches of modern times, Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” address.

Delivered in 1946, Churchill’s speech eloquently outlined Soviet communism’s threat to the free world and called for firm and principled resistance. Like his warning a decade earlier about Nazi Germany, his words that day were roundly criticized. On both sides of the Atlantic, Britain’s greatest statesman was called a fear-monger for his efforts.

A half century later, in 1996, the words of Margaret Thatcher, another great former British prime minister, were also unheeded after she had come to Westminster and warned of the rise of Islamic radicalism.

But as I mentioned today, time has vindicated them both.

Appeasing Nazi Germany in the 1930s led to World War II. Containing the Soviet Union following the Second World War led to its downfall. Downplaying the threat posed by Bin Laden a decade ago led to the horrific 9/11 attacks.

Incredibly, we face exactly the kind of complacency in our post-9/11 world that Churchill and Thatcher confronted in decades past.

As I said today, too many members of our “thinking” classes deny or downplay the fact that war has been declared against us by an ideology that is as ruthless and fanatical as that of Nazism or communism. Spread by a network of cult-like entities that span the globe, this ideology denies the dignity and humanity of its opponents, and sanctifies the slaughter of innocent people, especially mainstream Muslims, for rejecting its hateful and bigoted message.

Members of Al Qaeda and their fellow travelers seek not only revolution in their own countries, but domination of many countries. Beginning in the Middle East, South Asia, and North Africa, they seek control over actual territory where they can train, assemble advanced weaponry, impose repressive law, and plan further attacks against our nation and its allies.

How have we responded? Under President Bush’s leadership, we’ve destroyed Al Qaeda’s Afghan headquarters, deployed our intelligence assets globally, captured or killed terrorists on nearly every continent, partnered with allies on information sharing and intelligence, and adapted to the evolving threats we continue to face here and abroad.

By responding in strength, we’ve applied Winston Churchill’s words at Westminster to our enemies today. As Churchill said of the communists, “There is nothing they admire so much as strength and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness.” Whether it’s Hitler or Stalin, Bin Laden or Iranian President Ahmadinejad—for ideological fanatics, weakness is provocative.

Were Churchill alive today, he would encourage us to maintain our resolve, preventing our enemies from launching further attacks, gaining control of nation states, and obtaining weapons of mass destruction. He would tell us that we must have a clear vision of the threat, not one colored by wishful thinking.

I’m also certain that Churchill would recognize that ours is ultimately a battle of ideas, a clash between the forces of reason and modernity and those of medieval fanaticism. Through the liberation and exercise of reason, we’ve witnessed wondrous things – the conquest of ancient diseases, the freeing of legions of people from poverty and starvation, and the unleashing of the information age. Ours is not a struggle against religion, for there is no necessary contradiction between reason and faith. Indeed, reason is God’s gift to humanity.

This is a battle that we must win, and one that calls on all of us to be engaged.

Michael Chertoff