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Sixty years after the airlift . . . you tore down that wall that divided East and West. Walls came tumbling down around the world, from Kiev to Capetown. Markets opened, too. While the 20th century taught us that we share a common destiny, the 21st century taught us . . . that very closeness has given rise to new closeness that cannot be contained.
The terrorists of Sept. 11 trained in Hannover, Kandahar and Kurachi before ¨wreaking havoc (in the US). Poorly secured nuclar material in the Soviet Union could help build a bomb that detonates in . . . The genocide in Darfur shames the conscience of us all.
In this new world, such dangerous currents are swept along faster than our efforts to contain them. That is why we cannot afford to be divided. No one nation, no matter how large, can defeat these challenges alone. Yet in the absence of Soviet tanks and a terrible wall, it's easy to forget this truth. On both sides of the Atlantic, we have drifted apart and forgotten...
In America, there are voices that deride Europe's role in our security and our future. Europeans today are bearing new burdens and taking new responsibilities . . . so does our country sacrifice greatly for freedom around the globe.
Yes, there have been differences between America and Europe. But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more, not less. Partnership and cooperation between nations is not a choice -- it's the only way to protect our common (inaudibile) and humanity.
That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow walls to divide us. The walls between the countries with the most and the least cannot stand. The walls between natives and immigrants, Christians and Muslims and Jews cannot stand. These are the walls we must tear down.
We know that these walls have fallen before. We meet in the center of a Europe at peace. Not only have walls come down in Berlin (but) in Belfast, the BAlkans, . . . in South Africa where the struggle of a people defeatede apartheid.
True partnership, and true progress, requires constant work and sustained sacrifice. They require sharing the burdens of peace and progress ... trust each other.
That is why America cannot turn inward. That is why Europe cannot turn inward. America has no better partner than Europe. Now is the time to build new bridges across the globe as strong as the one that binds us across the Atlantic. Now is the time to join together . . . in a global commitment to the 21st century.
This is the moment when our nations and all nations must summon that spirit anew. This is the moment when we must defeat terrorism and dry up the well that supports it. If we can create NATA to defeat Communist, we can stand with the vast majority of Muslims who reject the extremism that leads to hate instead of hope.
No one welcomes war. I recognize the enormous (challenges?) in Afghanistan. The work must be done. America can't do this alone. The afghan people need our support and your support to defeat the Taliban and Al Queda (rebuild their economy, etc). This is a moment when we must renew a world without nuclear weapons.
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