President Bush marked the 20th anniversary of President Reagan’s “tear down this wall” speech Tuesday by vowing to defeat Islamic terrorism the way Reagan defeated communism.
“Like the communists, the followers of violent Islamic radicalism are doomed to fail,” Bush said at the dedication of a memorial to communism’s victims.
“The evil and hatred that inspired the death of tens of millions of people in the 20th century is still at work in the world,” he said. “We saw its face on September the 11th, 2001.”
Bush made his remarks at the Capitol Hill site of the new memorial, which consists of a statue of a woman holding a torch. The design was based on the “democracy statue” erected by Chinese student protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
“This statue was selected because it recalls the Tiananmen Square massacre and the continuing communist oppression in the world’s most populous country,” said Lee Edwards, president of the foundation that built the memorial. “Plus, it was based on the Statue of Liberty, a global symbol of freedom and democracy.”
Among the dignitaries at the dedication were such renowned anti-communists as Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., the only Holocaust survivor in the House.
“Here in the company of men and women who resisted evil and helped bring down an empire, I proudly accept the Victims of Communism Memorial on behalf of the American people,” Bush said.
The president noted that on June 12, 1987, Reagan went to the Berlin Wall’s Brandenburg Gate and exhorted Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”
“Two years later, the wall fell and millions across Central and Eastern Europe were liberated from unspeakable oppression,” Bush said. “It’s appropriate that on the anniversary of that speech that we dedicate a monument that reflects our confidence in freedom’s power.”
More than 100 million people are estimated to have been killed in the 20th century by communist regimes in the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Cuba and elsewhere. Bush vowed that Islamic terrorism would never claim so many victims.
“By remaining steadfast in freedom’s cause, we will ensure that a future American president does not have to stand in a place like this and dedicate a memorial to the millions killed by the radicals and extremists of the 21st century,” he said.
