Democracy Versus Tyranny
Bush stated that America's involvement in Afghanistan is a necessity, part of an overall historical goal of trying to end tyranny worldwide, because "problems originating in a failed and oppressive state seven thousand miles away" orchestrated the September 11th attacks and continue to "shelter terrorists, feed resentment and radicalism, and seek weapons of mass destruction" whereas Democracies give hope and "respect the rights of their citizens and their neighbors."
The president pointed out that there are 98 more Democratic countries in 2006 than there were in 1945, in addition to Women's suffrage in Afghanistan, the Purple Revolution in Iraq, and political discourse in Lebanon and Egypt, as evidence that Democracy, freedom, and self-governance have grown throughout the world. Although many social and political analysts would agree that more people live in free and fair societies than at the end of World War II, all of the examples Bush provided lay in the Middle East.
He went on to say that the "demands of justice, and the peace of this world, require... freedom" for the citizens of nations in the Axis of Evil; Syria, Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Iran.
Read more about this topic: 2006 State Of The Union Address
Famous quotes containing the words democracy and/or tyranny:
“In a democracy—even if it is a so-called democracy like our white-élitist one—the greatest veneration one can show the rule of law is to keep a watch on it, and to reserve the right to judge unjust laws and the subversion of the function of the law by the power of the state. That vigilance is the most important proof of respect for the law.”
—Nadine Gordimer (b. 1923)
“A modern democracy is a tyranny whose borders are undefined; one discovers how far one can go only by traveling in a straight line until one is stopped.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)