If it's the thought that counts....

By Lee Russ

Tuesday, September 05, 2006 at 05:25 PM

Check out these four excerpts from national leaders speaking about wars of ideology.  Can you match the speech with the speaker?

++Note: the bracketed terms have been slightly altered to keep from revealing too much identifying information.

Number 1:

But we...do not wish that our military resources should be employed to impose by force on other peoples what those peoples themselves do not want. Our army does not swear on oath that it will with bloodshed extend the [democratic] idea over other peoples, but that it will with its own blood defend the [democratic] idea and thereby the [country], its security and freedom, from the aggression of other peoples...

Number 2:

Every hope of compromise is childish: Victory or Defeat!
...
Without attack this war is not to be ended victoriously. I consider it as possible to end the war only by means of an attack.

Number 3:

I am grateful to fate that I may lead this fight. I am convinced that no understanding can be reached with these men. They are mad fools...

Number 4:

We will never back down, we will never give in and we will never accept anything less than complete victory. . .We will defeat [them] and their hateful ideology by spreading the hope of freedom across the world. The security of our nation depends on the advance of liberty in other nations.

Epic battles that will be remembered forever, choosing side in the battle between good and evil (we all chose good, of course)....stirring rhetoric, all right.  In the right setting, with good lighting, you could probably get a whole boatload of young men to follow their testosterone to the enlistment table.  

So here are the speakers:

Number 1:  Hitler speech of  SEPTEMBER 14, 1936, at Nuremberg

Number 2:  Hitler speech of 23 November 1939, to all "Supreme Commanders," as reflected in the notes of  Colonel Schmundt

Number 3:  Hitler speech of 3 October 1941 (via radio)

Number 4:  President George W. Bush, July 4, 2006

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I couldn't resist throwing this one in.  You know how free market types still despise FDR, still speak of his New Deal era as the beginning of the end of "real Americanism?"  Well check this out:

Roosevelt's New Deal legislation was all wrong: it was actually the biggest failure ever experienced by one man. There can be no doubt that a continuation of this economic policy would have done [in] this President in peace time, in spite of all his dialectical skill. In a European State he would surely have come eventually before a State Court on a charge of deliberate waste of the national wealth; and he would have scarcely escaped at the hands of a Civil Court, on a charge of criminal business methods.

Hitler's declaration of war against the U.S., on 11 December 1941.

And for those who think that admiration for and adherence to Christianity is a vital difference between good authoritarianism and bad authoritarianism:

In the same way, the Government of the Reich, which regards Christianity as the unshakable foundation of the morals and moral code of the nation, attaches the greatest value to friendly relations with the Holy See, and is endeavoring to develop them.

Hitler's speech of MARCH 23, 1933, in the Reichstag.