Text of Ret. General John Shalikashvili's speechThank you very much, General Kennedy. It is a great honor to stand here before you this evening and to experience first hand the enormous energy of "democracy in action." But I do not stand here as a political figure. Rather, I am here as an old soldier and a new Democrat. I am a new Democrat because I believe that John Kerry and John Edwards are the right choice for America's security -- and the right choice for America.
We live in a dangerous time. Terrorists have attacked us at home and they continue to strike around the world. And the greatest danger before us is that these terrorists will somehow get their hands on weapons of mass destruction. If that were not enough, some nations continue to threaten regional stability while pursuing their nuclear ambitions which threaten all of us. Throughout his campaign John Kerry has shown time and again that he understands these dangers and is fully prepared for the challenges ahead. He knows that to be truly safe at home we must significantly strengthen the protection of our homeland and that we must not again allow ourselves to be distracted from the relentless pursuit of these terrorists. At this moment thousands upon thousands of our brave troops are deployed in Afghanistan and in Iraq in a protracted and bloody struggle. Still countless other soldiers remain deployed around the world upholding the cause of freedom and representing what is best about America. John Kerry was the first to warn that these worldwide military deployments are dangerously overstretching our military and particularly our Army. That unless we appreciably increase the size of the Army and restructure it to give it new capabilities needed in the new war against terrorism, we are in real danger of returning to the days of a hollow Army. And, John Kerry has made it crystal clear that no matter how strong we might be, success in the war on terror or in bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan and to Iraq will likely elude us unless we bring friends and allies to our side both for the fight and for the long, hard work of reconstruction. We must do this not because we need anyone's approval when we act to protect our security but because we are more effective when friends and allies stand by our side as together we share the burden and the risks. There is no doubt that capable allies and strong alliances are today more important to our security than ever before. I am no stranger to war. Before I was 10 years old I had lived through the brutal occupation of Poland, the country of my birth, and the total destruction of my hometown during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. Years later, like John Kerry and so many other young Americans, I participated in a very different kind of war in the rice paddies and jungles of Vietnam. And still later, when at the end of Desert Storm Saddam Hussein with unbelievable brutality turned against the Kurds, I was asked to lead an international operation to stop the dying and the misery and to return some 700,000 Kurds to what was left of their villages and their homes. Continued... |
