At West Point, Cheney Describes the Enemy

Speaking at the Commencement ceremony at West Point, Vice President Dick Cheney gave a first class address giving context to what these new Army officers will face in the field.

Since the 2000 campaign, one could always count on Dick Cheney to sum up a situation in just a few, well chosen words. To that end, the Vice President had this to say about the enemy in the Global War on Terror:

As Army officers on duty in the war on terror, you will now face enemies who oppose and despise everything you know to be right, every notion of upright conduct and character, and every belief you consider worth fighting for and living for.

Capture one of these killers, and he'll be quick to demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States. Yet when they wage attacks or take captives, their delicate sensibilities seem to fall away.

These are men who glorify murder and suicide. Their cruelty is not rebuked by human suffering, only fed by it. They have given themselves to an ideology that rejects tolerance, denies freedom of conscience, and demands that women be pushed to the margins of society. The terrorists are defined entirely by their hatreds, and they hate nothing more than the country you have volunteered to defend.