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Full Transcript: President Obama gives speech addressing Europe, Russia on March 26 [View all]
... Today what would have seemed impossible in the trenches of Flanders, the rubble of Berlin, a dissident’s prison cell -- that reality is taken for granted: a Germany unified, the nations of Central and Eastern Europe welcomed into the family of democracies ...And this story of human progress was by no means limited to Europe ... After the second world war people from Africa to India threw off the yoke of colonialism to secure their independence. In the United States citizens took Freedom Rides and endured beatings to put an end to segregation and to secure their civil rights. As the Iron Curtain fell here in Europe, the iron fist of apartheid was unclenched and Nelson Mandela emerged upright, proud, from prison to lead a multiracial democracy; Latin American nations rejected dictatorship and built new democracies; and Asian nations showed that development and democracy could go hand in hand ...
So I come here today to insist that we must never take for granted the progress that has been won here in Europe and advanced around the world ...
... Russia has pointed to America’s decision to go into Iraq as an example of Western hypocrisy. Now, it is true that the Iraq war was a subject of vigorous debate, not just around the world but in the United States, as well. I participated in that debate, and I opposed our military intervention there.
But even in Iraq, America sought to work within the international system. We did not claim or annex Iraq’s territory. We did not grab its resources for our own gain. Instead, we ended our war and left Iraq to its people in a fully sovereign Iraqi state that can make decisions about its own future.
Of course, neither the United States nor Europe are perfect in adherence to our ideals. Nor do we claim to be the sole arbiter of what is right or wrong in the world ...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/transcript-president-obama-gives-speech-addressing-europe-russia-on-march-26/2014/03/26/07ae80ae-b503-11e3-b899-20667de76985_story.html
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