George W. Bush on 9/11: A Forgotten Vision

George W. Bush

From unity we grow strength, while division leads only to weakness.

When President George W. Bush addressed the Unites States on television the night of September 11, 2001, shortly after the terror attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, his theme was national unity. In the most famous passage of that speech, he said:

“A great people has been moved to defend a great nation. Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve. America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining.”

Nothing unites people more than a common threat. He did not talk about any one group or ethnicity or political faction. Instead, he talked about “American resolve.” He attributed the attacks to the forces that oppose “the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world.” The 9/11 attacks were, in Bush’s view, an attack against humanity’s most basic values.

As I re-read this speech, I found myself only able to mourn the United States’ loss of unity. We are now divided family against family, friend against friend. What has gone wrong?

Yes, Bush soon followed this value-laden speech with badly managed and cruel wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the repercussions of which still revisit us today.

But what has happened to our values, our idealism? For two decades after 9/11, a sitting president told a bunch of lies and tried to overthrow his election defeat. Millions of otherwise decent people support him in this. The Freedom Index now lists the United States of America as a “flawed democracy” because of our divisions and political instability. When we speak of American values, of liberty, of justice—of unity—do we still believe in them? Or not? 

By William D. Harpine

Earlier Posts: 

George W. Bush on 9/11: A Message of Unity; Have We Forgotten?

George W. Bush and the American Vision

George W. Bush Used His Prestige to Call Out the January 6 Terrorists

© Copyright 2023, William D. Harpine