Welcome to 201k.com - A Commonwealth Perspective.

This guy is a hoot.

Sometimes decisions come to your desk unexpectedly. Part of the job of a President is to be able to plan for the worst and hope for the best; and if the worst comes, be able to react to it. On September the 11th, the worst came. We got attacked. We didn't ask for the attack, but it came. I resolved on that day to do everything I can to protect the American people.

You know, a lot of us grew up thinking that oceans would protect us; that if there was a threat overseas, it really didn't concern us because we were safe. That's what history had basically told us -- yes, there was an attack on Pearl Harbor, obviously, but it was a kind of hit-and-run and then we pursued the enemy. A lot of folks -- at least, my age, when I was going to college, I never dreamed that the United States of America could be attacked.

So, despite Pearl Harbor, people George Bush's age didn't think the United States could be attacked, because, after all, Pearl Harbor was "a kind of hit-and-run". As opposed to 9/11.

But more importantly, notice the precision of language: "..decisions come to your desk unexpectedly", "...a lot of us grew up thinking that...if there was a threat overseas, it really didn't concern us because we were safe", "..when I was going to college, I never dreamed that the United States of America could be attacked..."

Mr. Bush did, in fact, know that the United States could be attacked, because the government knew --and he was specifically warned--of an impending attack. But he didn't know back when he was growing up, or when he was in college.

I knew right after September the 11th, though, that the attacks would begin to fade in people's memory.

In other words, "The people who disagree with what I've done since 9/11 have really just forgotten."

I knew that at times people would say, you know, it may be an isolated incident, let's just don't worry about it.

Has anyone heard anyone anywhere say that?

[The terrorists'] vision of the world is dark and dim. They have got desires to spread a totalitarian empire. How do we know? Because they told us. Mr. Zawahiri, the number two in the al Qaeda network, told the world such. He might not have wanted us to read that particular thing he was sending, but nevertheless we did.

Good thing we're spying without warrants! But--shouldn't Bush have kept it a secret? Didn't he just tell Zawahiri that we're listening?

...they have no heart, no conscience. They kill innocent men, women and children to achieve their objective.

Which we never do.

These folks cannot be appeased. We can't hope that nice words will change their point of view.

Again--has anyone ever heard anyone anywhere suggest that?

But [this effort] requires a different kind of response than the old days of nations fighting nations....But since we're not able to track vast battalions or armadas, we've got to have intelligence, good intelligence, to help us locate the dark corners of the world where these people hide. A lot of the decisions I make, and decisions future Presidents make, will be based upon the capacity of our intelligence services to find the enemy and to understand the intentions of the enemy and to share information with our allies. This is a different kind of struggle and requires the best intelligence possible. That's why we're reevaluating, constantly reevaluating, how best to use our intelligence services to be able to protect the American people.

See, in the old days we didn't need to spy on Americans without warrants, because we were fighting Germans and Japanese--and Italians, sort of--who had armies, but today we're fighting Arabs, some of whom have carpet knives and can buy airplane tickets, so you see, we have to be able to spy on Americans without warrants, even though there exists a court which was set up specifically to issue warrants for that purpose, which we ignored, in clear violation of federal law.

...what I'm telling you is, we're using all assets at our disposal to protect you in a different kind of war.

All assets at our disposal, except, of course, the huge tax refund I gave to the wealthiest Americans--the first tax cut during "war" in the history of the nation.

Secondly, right after they attacked us, I laid out a doctrine, and it said, if you harbor a terrorist, you're equally as guilty as the terrorists. The reason I said that is because I understand that a terrorist network can sometimes burrow in society and can sometimes find safe haven from which to plot and plan.

They could be anywhere..burrowed in...anywhere. So absolutely anything I do is ok because, as I say, the enemy could be anywhere...burrowed in.

Like the 9/11 hijackers, who were so deeply "burrowed in" that the FBI field agents who'd been tracking them couldn't get the head office in Washington to do anything about them. So deeply burrowed in that the specific threat of their attack only made it as far as a Daily Presidential Briefing.

The perfect example of that was Afghanistan. For those of you who didn't pay much attention to the initial stages of this war, it became apparent to the world that Afghanistan became a safe haven. You'll hear stories about people that went into Afghanistan to be trained -- trained as to how to brutally kill people, trained in different methodologies, trained in how to communicate.

But definitely not trained by the CIA. Definitely not.

And today, today in Afghanistan, think about what has happened in a brief period of time -- today in Afghanistan there is a fledgling democracy. Al Qaeda no longer has run of the country; the Taliban is routed; there's an elected parliament and a president dedicated to democratic institutions.

So don't believe what you read in the papers about it.

The doctrine still stands: If you harbor a terrorist, you're equally as guilty as the terrorists who commit murder.

Just don't ask me to define "harbor" in public.

Thirdly --and this is very important for the students to understand, and others -- because oceans no longer protect us, the United States of America must confront threats before they cause us harm. In other words, in the old days we could see a threat and say, well, maybe it will cause harm, maybe it won't. Those days changed, as far as I'm concerned. Threats must be taken seriously now, because geography doesn't protect us and there's an enemy that still lurks.

Because prior to 9/11 the United States had no enemies that could suddenly attack us, and even if we did, no one ever considered preemptively attacking them. Nope, it's never come up before. Why, before 9/11 there weren't even any terrorists out there planning to attack us. This is all completely new.

And so early in my first term, I looked at the world and saw a threat in Saddam Hussein. And let me tell you why I saw the threat.

...He was a state sponsor of terror. In other words, the government had declared, you are a state sponsor of terror. And, remember, we're dealing with terrorist networks that would like to do us harm.

There's a reason why he was declared a state sponsor of terror -- because he was sponsoring terror.

Well, that clears that up.

He had used weapons of mass destruction.

On his own people, and possibly in his war against Iran, which we supported.

And the biggest threat that this President, and future Presidents, must worry about is weapons of mass destruction getting in the hands of a terrorist network that would like to do us harm. That is the biggest threat we face.

But not past Presidents, apparently. Because everything is different now.

The world thought Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

It did?

It wasn't just me or my administration. Our predecessor thought he had weapons of mass destruction.

At one point. Before inspections and new intelligence indicated that he did not.

And there's a logical reason why -- the data showed that he likely had weapons of mass destruction, and he'd use them.

What data, and when? Oh, you mean the data you made sure was the only data you saw?

And so Saddam Hussein was given a choice. He chose war.

When, and how, exactly? When we ordered inspectors out? Or when Saddam was unable to account for the documentation that may or may not have ever existed and that may or may not have accounted for weapons that didn't exist?

And so we moved and he was removed from power. And there is absolutely no doubt in my mind, America is safer for it, and the world is better off without Saddam Hussein.

No doubt in his mind. On paper it's a little harder to establish, but in his mind--we're safer.

And the definition of success, by the way, is for there to be a country where the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten the democracy, and where Iraqi security forces can provide for the security of their people, and where Iraq is not a safe haven from which the terrorists -- al Qaeda and its affiliates -- can plot attacks against America.

Actually, the question was, and is: is Iraq a country from which "terrorists and Saddamists" can threaten America and its interests? There doesn't seem to be much question that as it is now, Iraq is a much greater threat than it was under Saddam, who had no WMD and was economically and militarily contained.

Look, this enemy cannot beat us. They cannot defeat us militarily. There's no chance. The one weapon they have, which is a lethal weapon, is the willingness to kill people. I remember the story -- and it just broke my heart to think about the young soldier that was giving candy to a kid, and they set off the car bomb next to the kids. I mean, it's just -- I cannot describe to you how brutal these people are. And they understand that their scenes will get on TV. And I don't know if they can adequately understand the compassion of the American people. But we're compassionate.

Except for the "shock and awe" part--that was just a matter of unfortunate collateral damage necessitated by the need to free Iraq.

Oh, and also, except for Abu Ghraib. We might have come up a little short on compassion there. And in Gitmo. And on all those CIA flights that render prisoners to countries that torture. But hey, you've got to break a few eggs if you want to be really compassionate.

One of my favorite ways to describe my belief in the capacity of freedom to help achieve peace -- not only security for the American people, but peace -- is to give people the example of my dad and me, in terms of Japan.

Except insofar as it points out that we've also used weapons of mass destruction. We were the first, actually--and did it twice.

...a lot of folks here, relatives...were called into action because the enemy had attacked us. They were the sworn enemy of the United States of America. It was a brutal war against the Japanese. Took a lot of lives -- Japanese lives and American lives -- to win that war.

Yup, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and we went to war with Japan. So you can understand why, when a bunch of Saudis and Egyptians attacked us on 9/11, I invaded Iraq.

Part of my decision-making process is my firm belief in the natural rights of men and women; my belief that deep in everybody's soul is the desire to live free. I believe there's an Almighty, and I believe the Almighty's great gift to each man and woman in this world is the desire to be free. This isn't America's gift to the world, it is a universal gift to the world, and people want to be free.

So don't think of me as acting on behalf of America--think of me as acting universally, on behalf of God.

Some day an American President will be sitting down with elected leaders from a country like Iraq talking about how to keep the peace.

Just as, once upon a time, an American President sat down with the Shah of Iran. And look how well THAT turned out.

...I want to talk about two tools necessary to protect you. First, before September the 11th, our law enforcement and intelligence services weren't able to share information. For example, within the FBI, you had your law enforcement division and your intelligence division -- and for a lot of reasons, if they had information about a potential terrorist, they couldn't share it. That's hard to fathom, but it's the truth. There was a wall built up, and there's a lot of reasons why the wall was built up -- some of it historical, obviously, legal ramifications.

Yeah, historical, legal "ramifications"--hard to fathom, really. Fortunately, we've busted down the wall between domestic criminal investigations and foreign intelligence gathering--to protect you.

And I didn't think you could ask our front-line officers to defend us if they didn't have all the tools necessary to share intelligence, and to share information -- by the way, tools which have been granted to use in tracking down drug dealers, for example. My attitude was, if it's good enough -- these tools are good enough to find a drug dealer, then they ought to be good enough to protect us from the new threats of the 21st century.

First, the War on Drugs, then the War on Terror. Next? The War on Porn, then: The War on UnPatriotism. Drugs, violence, sex, dissent--all those "new threats of the 21st century".

I like to remind people the Patriot Act may be set to expire, but the threats to the United States haven't expired. And exactly what has changed, I asked out loud, after the attack of September the 11th and today?

Well, let's see: you busted a federal union, lied in a State of the Union speech, misled the public, invaded Iraq, authorized illegal wire-tapping, tried to drill for oil in Alaska, privatized the airport screeners, tried to privatize Social Security, tried to scuttle an investigation into 9/11, leaked the name of a CIA officer whose husband called you on your lies...

Let me talk about one other program -- and then I promise to answer questions -- something that you've been reading about in the news lately. It's what I would call a terrorist surveillance program. After the enemy attacked us, and after I realized that we were not protected by oceans...

...even though I was specifically warned beforehand, and the government had known of the threat for years...

I asked people that work for you--work for me, how best can we use information to protect the American people?

Sorry--just want to see that line again: "I asked people that work for you--work for me, how best can we use information to protect the American people?"

See, this is just a question of how best to use information.

You might remember there was hijackers here that had made calls outside the country to somebody else, prior to the September the 11th attacks.

Information we had--without warrant-less wire-tapping--and ignored.

And I said, is there anything more we can do within the law, within the Constitution, to protect the American people.

And they said no, but we can come up with a lame-ass rationalization for claiming it's Constitutional, and then not tell anyone we're doing it, and I said "Great!"

And they came back with a program, designed a program that I want to describe to you. And I want people here to clearly understand why I made the decision I made.

But will he explain why he lied about it, claiming all wire-tapping was done with warrants years after the "program" started?

First, I made the decision to do the following things because there's an enemy that still wants to harm the American people. What I'm talking about is the intercept of certain communications emanating between somebody inside the United States and outside the United States;

Read it again: "communications emanating between somebody inside the United States and outside the United States"

and one of the numbers would be reasonably suspected to be an al Qaeda link or affiliate. In other words, we have ways to determine whether or not someone can be an al Qaeda affiliate or al Qaeda. And if they're making a phone call in the United States, it seems like to me we want to know why.

Read it again: "a phone call in the United States".

This is a -- I repeat to you, even though you hear words, "domestic spying," these are not phone calls within the United States.

"These are not phone calls within the United States."

It's a phone call of an al Qaeda, known al Qaeda suspect, making a phone call into the United States.

"...a phone call into the United States."

Confused? You're supposed to be. The truth is that the phone companies have already acknowledged that they turned over call information and access for entire trunk lines, which includes "domestic" calls, and several members of the intelligence community have indicated in testimony that the extent of the spying--the so-called "black-ops"--is far greater than even that.

I'm mindful of your civil liberties, and so I had all kinds of lawyers review the process.

The very same lawyers who we asked to justify the invasion of Iraq, the abrogation of the Geneva Conventions, and the holding, torture and rendition of people without representation. They've been very useful, these particular lawyers.

We briefed members of the United States Congress, one of whom was Senator Pat Roberts, about this program. You know, it's amazing, when people say to me, well, he was just breaking the law -- if I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?

Well, that's easy. You told a few cronies in leadership positions some version of the truth so you could later claim you "briefed them" in speeches like this. Duh.

Federal courts have consistently ruled that a President has authority under the Constitution to conduct foreign intelligence surveillance against our enemies.

...and that the President must follow the law--which forbids warrant-less wire-tapping of Americans--and the FISA act, which sets up a secret court specifically charged with granting such warrants, which grants nearly all requests, and which the government doesn't even have to consult in advance as long as they present a case within 72 hours of the wire-tapping--all of which was set up because of past real abuse of power, and all of which George Bush ignored completely, and lied about directly.

And the Court ruled, the Supreme Court ruled that it gave the President additional authority to use what it called "the fundamental incidents of waging war" against al Qaeda.

Um...sorta kinda..but not...

I'm not a lawyer, but I can tell you what it means.

We can't wait.

It means Congress gave me the authority to use necessary force to protect the American people, but it didn't prescribe the tactics. It's an -- you've got the power to protect us, but we're not going to tell you how.

No it didn't. It didn't remotely authorize him to do whatever he wanted--including breaking the law--and no one but his same hack lawyers thinks it did.

And one of the ways to protect the American people is to understand the intentions of the enemy.

I thought they hated freedom?

I told you it's a different kind of war with a different kind of enemy. If they're making phone calls into the United States, we need to know why -- to protect you.

Oh right, this is totally different--we keep forgetting. No enemies of the United States have ever made phone calls before.

And now: time for questions!

Q Mr. President, we salute what you have done, your aggressive stance on terrorism. But more than that, as you know, Kansas is a beef state..We sincerely appreciate your efforts in regaining our markets with Japan, your aggressive stance on trade. We support that tremendously.

Q Hello, Mr. President. I am an American Iraqi Kurd. I would like to salute you and salute all the troops are freeing 27 million people. They are free. (Applause.)

Q Mr. President, I would like to share this thought with all our nation and everybody who is questioning what happened to the chemical weapons. Saddam burned 4,500 villagers. I lost more than 10 members of my family under the ground. We found their bones after, when we freed Iraq. Saddam, himself, and his people, his followers, they are chemical weapons. Please stop questioning the administration and their decision. It was the best decision anybody could take. Freeing 27 million people. (Applause.)

Q Mr. President, all I could tell you, I have two members of my family, they are in the Iraqi parliament. And both of them are women. My sister-in-law and my aunt, they are in the Iraqi parliament. And I would like you to share this happiness with me and with all the Iraqi people. Thank you, Mr. President. (Applause.)

Q Us British, were a querulous people and we know that we're one of your greatest supporters in the world, and Tony Blair, who I have the greatest respect for, is my leader.

Q I have a question less with politics and more with leadership, in general. You're in a situation where you're under a lot of flack, especially for your character. And that's something that, it seems to me, means a lot to you, as it does to many of us here. As a leader, as many of us are going to need to know here because we're going to be leaders in just a few years, what's the best way that you go about preparing yourself for attacks on your character, and how do you deal with others in those matters?

Q Mr. President, thank you for being here. I served under your father, he was my Commander-in-Chief in Desert Storm. And it was with great interest that I followed your campaign; my husband and I both are great fans of yours. I thank you for making the hard decisions, for making -- not listening to the critics and keeping your campaign promise.

And I've been following the confirmation hearings of Judge Alito. And I certainly hope he's confirmed.

Q Hi. First I'd like to say that when I was first able to cast my vote for President, it was my honor to vote for you.

Q Again, I just wanted to thank you for coming. Your speech was very good. I'm a big admirer of your wife.

The White House website says this speech was given "at Kansas State University", but this is the picture of the crowd: