So, this morning I was reading the chapter about Clinton's predecessor, President George Herbert Walker Bush, when I came upon what has become known as the Bush New World Order Speech.
The New World Order Speech was spoken on September 11, 1990. This is a very optimistic speech rendered very ironic by how the 24 years that followed it have actually turned out. Ironic lines, particularly for a speech given on September 11, like "a new world order -- can emerge: a new era -- freer from the threat of terror..."
What follows is an excerpt from President George H. W.Bush's Address before a joint session of Congress on the Persian Gulf Crisis caused by Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iraq---
We stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment. The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation.
Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective -- a new world order -- can emerge: a new era -- freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world, East and West, North and South, can prosper and live in harmony.
A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor. Today that new world is struggling to be born, a world quite different from the one we've known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak.
This is the vision that I shared with President Gorbachev in Helsinki. He and other leaders from Europe, the Gulf and around the world understand that how we manage this crisis today could shape the future for generations to come.
Once again, Americans have stepped forward to share a tearful goodbye with their families before leaving for a strange and distant shore. At this very moment, they serve together with Arabs, Europeans, Asians and Africans in defense of principle and the dream of a new world order. That's why they sweat and toil in the sand and the heat and the sun.
If they can come together under such adversity, if old adversaries like the Soviet Union and the United States can work in common cause, then surely we who are so fortunate to be in this great Chamber -- Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives -- can come together to fulfill our responsibilities here. Thank you. Good night. And God bless the United States of America.
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How horribly ironic that the first President Bush would give this optimistic speech and then exactly 11 years later his son would be president when America suffers the worst terrorist attack in history, an act of barbarism no one could have imagined, until it occurred.
Followed by even more acts no one could have imagined, such as the second President Bush leading America into its first pre-emptive war, a war based on what turned out to be a false premise, that being the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat to America. Thousands of Americans, Iraqis and others died, and continue to die as a result of that ill-advised war, far more dead than any number ever alleged to have been killed by Saddam Hussein by weapons of mass destruction.
And then we have the Russian part of the New World Order in 2014. Apparently Vladimir Putin did not get the New World Order memo. Or he just decided to use Joesph Stalin rather than Mikhail Gorbachev as his ruler role model.
The one part of the New World Order that has seemed to work out well is the rise of China. Who would have thought back in the days of the Cultural Revolution and mass famines that China would become the nation it is today?
For more of the New World Order speech by the first President Bush watch the YouTube video below....
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