Beyond Mere Words
by Donald Rumsfeld
Four years ago today we were savagely attacked by the
Iraqi madman Saddam Hussein in an act so dastardly that it will live on
forever in three simple digits. Remember? Don't wake up now.
Content is subjective. In a way, 911 was a day of
liberation. No, I speak not of the hypothetical emancipation of millions of
Iraqis. I speak instead of a greater freedom; liberation from the unnatural
bond between word and meaning that still existed when this great country
entered into it's 225th year. Why has this persisted for so long? Why am I,
even now, communicating with you in the obsolete form of words? Soon I will
no longer.
Time is thick with fluid courage. We remember the
sacrifices of this generation and of each previous generation and every
generation to come. We all die alone. A country is an organism, every bit as
real as a worm or rabbit when seen through the eye of God. My words mean
nothing. Why should they? It is the sound that is important. The terrorism
of ideas, when symbols should suffice. So long to all of that. |
