I går aftes var der en debat i gang på BBC News, som handlede om briternes engagement i Irak. En af foredragsholderne var en for mig ukendt ældre britisk professor, som havde den her meget specielle form for britisk (humor), som kan være så ætsende “ond”. Metoden var at afslutte indlægget på nogenlunde følgende vis:
“Hvad er så det rigtige, at gøre i Irak? Der var engang en amerikansk præsident som sagde følgende kloge ord:
– Every nation’s right to a form of government and an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable.
– Any nation’s attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.
Præsidenten var for øvrigt republikaner…
Han hed Dwight D. Eisenhower…”
Talen er blevet kaldt “The Chance for Peace” og blev holdt d. 16. april 1953. Her er hele sammenhængen, som den gang var baseret på sitiationen under den kolde krig:
This occasion calls for my first formal address to the American people since assuming the office of the presidency just twelve weeks ago. […]
Finally, I am happy to be here at this time before this audience because I must speak of that issue that comes first of all in the hearts and minds of all of us — that issue which most urgently challenges and summons the wisdom and the courage of our whole people. This issue is peace.
In this spring of 1953 the free world weighs one question above all others: the chances for a just peace for all peoples. To weigh this chance is to summon instantly to mind another recent moment of great decision. It came with that yet more hopeful spring of 1945, bright with the promise of victory and of freedom. The hopes of all just men in that moment too was a just and lasting peace.
The 8 years that have passed have seen that hope waver, grow dim, and almost die. And the shadow of fear again has darkly lengthened across the world. Today the hope of free men remains stubborn and brave, but it is sternly disciplined by experience. It shuns not only all crude counsel of despair but also the self-deceit of easy illusion. It weighs the chances for peace with sure, clear knowledge of what happened to the vain hopes of 1945.
In that spring of victory the soldiers of the Western Allies met the soldiers of Russia in the center of Europe. They were triumphant comrades in arms. Their peoples shared the joyous prospect of building, in honor of their dead, the only fitting monument — an age of just peace. All these war-weary peoples shared too this concrete, decent purpose: to guard vigilantly against the domination ever again of any part of the world by a single, unbridled aggressive power.
This common purpose lasted an instant and perished. The nations of the world divided to follow two distinct roads.
> The leaders of the Soviet Union chose another.
The way chosen by the United States was plainly marked by a few clear precepts, which govern its conduct in world affairs. First: No people on earth can be held, as a people, to be an enemy, for all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and justice.
Second: No nation’s security and well-being can be lastingly achieved in isolation but only in effective cooperation with fellow-nations.
Third: Every nation’s right to a form of government and an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable.
Fourth: Any nation’s attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.
And fifth: A nation’s hope of lasting peace cannot be firmly based upon any race in armaments but rather upon just relations and honest understanding with all other nations.
In the light of these principles the citizens of the United States defined the way they proposed to follow, through the aftermath of war, toward true peace.
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