(News Analysis)
In what may have been one of his finest moments to date, President Donald J. Trump delivered a speech to the United Nations this morning that made many Americans want to stand up and cheer. After extolling America’s virtues instead of apologizing for its existence, the president stated:
In America, the people govern, the people rule, and the people are sovereign. I was elected not to take power, but to give power to the American people where it belongs. In foreign affairs, we are renewing this founding principle of sovereignty. Our government’s first duty is to its people, to our citizens, to serve their needs, to ensure their safety, to preserve their rights, and to defend their values. As president of the United States, I will always put America first. Just like you, as the leaders of your countries, will always and should always put your countries first.
Reminding the U.N. delegates of America’s moral authority, the president continued:
America’s devotion is measured on the battlefields where our young men and women have fought and sacrificed alongside of our allies. From the beaches of Europe to the deserts of the Middle East to the jungles of Asia, it is an eternal credit to the American character that even after we and our allies emerge victorious from the bloodiest war in history, we did not seek territorial expansion or attempt to oppose and impose our way of life on others.
Trump also reminded his audience that these measures were taken because decent people across the globe have a moral obligation to reject passivity when tyrants seek to destroy human rights. As he stated:
If the righteous many do not confront the wicked few, then evil will triumph. When decent people and nations become bystanders to history, the forces of destruction only gather power and strength.
With that backdrop, President Trump shined a clear light in the dark corner of Kim Jong-un’s madness:
No one has shown more contempt for other nations and for the well-being of their own people than the depraved regime in North Korea. It is responsible for the starvation deaths of millions of North Koreans. And for the imprisonment, torture, killing, and oppression of countless more. We were all witness to the regime’s deadly abuse when an innocent American college student, Otto Warmbier, was returned to America, only to die a few days later.
Invoking no imaginary red lines or hollow doublespeak, the president plainly articulated his position with resolute conviction, leaving the rogue tyrant and any who may support him no doubt where the United States now stands.
No nation on Earth has an interest in seeing this band of criminals arm itself with nuclear weapons and missiles. The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime. The United States is ready, willing, and able, but hopefully this will not be necessary. That’s what the United Nations is all about. That’s what the United Nations is for. Let’s see how they do.
Trump was no less clear in his message to Iran. Again, he articulated what so many thinking Americans know but what political leaders have for too-long lacked the courage to express:
The Iranian government masks a corrupt dictatorship behind the false guise of a democracy. It has turned a wealthy country, with a rich history and culture, into an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed, and chaos…It is time for the entire world to join us in demanding that Iran’s government end its pursuit of death and destruction. It is time for the regime to free all Americans and citizens of other nations that they have unjustly detained. Above all, Iran’s government must stop supporting terrorists, begin serving its own people, and respect the sovereign rights of its neighbors. The entire world understands that the good people of Iran want change, and, other than the vast military power of the United States, that Iran’s people are what their leaders fear the most.
In response, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump, saying, “In over 30 years in my experience with the UN, I never heard a bolder or more courageous speech. President Trump spoke the truth about the great dangers facing our world and issued a powerful call to confront them in order to ensure the future of humanity.”
Unfortunately, the leaders of both countries seem to have an insatiable appetite for war and destruction, and that’s why America must remain strong if we want to remain free. One critical spoke in the wheel of our strength is a missile defense system developed right here in Alabama. In fact, the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense program (GMD) is the only one capable of intercepting and destroying the kind of intercontinental ballistic missiles the “rocket man” would use to deliver nuclear warheads to the United States.
As national security expert Lorne Thompson wrote in an article for Forbes:
It seems there is only one step the Trump administration can take that would not increase the likelihood of war and materially improve the safety of the American homeland. That step is to accelerate and expand the modest missile defense system called Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) that operates interceptors in Alaska and California.
On the offensive side of the ball, America’s largest deterrent is the Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (MM3). These MM3’s would be used if the U.S. should strike Kim Jong-un. Like the GMD, the MM3 was also predominantly developed by Boeing. Finally, Boeing is working on the next generation of offensive weapons—the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), which will yield better performance using technology that didn’t exist when the Minuteman missiles were developed.
While we all hope these defense systems and offensive weapons will never need to be deployed, it’s reassuring to know they are locked and loaded to defend our homes should the call come. In the meantime, the President closed his speech today with a powerful vision of hope and peace:
In remembering the great victory that led to this body’s founding, we must never forget that those heroes who fought against evil, also fought for the nations that they love. Patriotism led the Poles to die to save Poland, the French to fight for a free France, and the Brits to stand strong for Britain. Today, if we do not invest ourselves, our hearts, our minds, and our nations, if we will not build strong families, safe communities, and healthy societies for ourselves, no one can do it for us. This is the ancient wish of every people and the deepest yearning that lives inside every sacred soul. So let this be our mission, and let this be our message to the world. We will fight together, sacrifice together, and stand together for peace, for freedom, for justice, for family, for humanity, and for the almighty God who made us all. Thank you, God bless you, God bless the nations of the world, and God bless the United States of America.
