USAID: USAID Administrator's Message

This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.

Statement by Andrew S. Natsios,
Administrator

>> USAID Home >> September 11th

September 11 Remembrance Event
8:30 a.m.
September 11, 2002

USAID Administrator Andrew S. Natsios delivers his address at September 11 Remembrance Event

Good morning.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was the Commander of the Japanese Fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. He had lived in the United States and knew the power of American democracy - something that the General Staff of the Imperial Japanese Army did not understand.

He had warned the General Staff against the secret attack on the United States. He warned them of the consequences, and they ignored him and gave him his orders. He carried them out. He is reported to have said, after the conclusion of the attack on Pearl Harbor, "I fear we have awoken a sleeping giant."

And those words have moved through history because they were, of course, absolutely correct, as both Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany came to realize.

I think the same thing has happened here now. The fact is that al Qaeda, if you read the intelligence reports and the analysis by scholars, believed that the United States would run away from what happened - that we would be incapable of uniting as a country and responding with powerful force.

They were terribly mistaken, as they have come to learn. But the war is not over. Extremists and fanatics seldom give up so easily. We must remain vigilant.

There are different ways of reacting to violence and tragedy. One way is to turn to the darker side of human nature and to become more intolerant, to be more fearful, and to turn on those whose religion or ethnic background we suspect.

USAID: Helping Afghanistan

USAID Programs in Asia and the Near East

In the last year we have proven to the world that we would not turn to the darker side, but that instead we would follow the advice of President Lincoln in his second Inaugural Address, one of the great orations in American history and in world history, in which he called forth "the angel in men's souls" to begin to rebuild America after the terrible tragedy of the Civil War in which half a million of our young men and women died.

We now need to be guided by the angel in our souls, to turn to that brighter side of the American soul that we are now showing around the world through our humanitarian programs.

President Bush has proposed a fifty percent increase in foreign assistance to reduce the level of poverty and hopelessness in the world. I was with the President yesterday at the Afghanistan Embassy where he met with 18 leaders of the Arab-American and Muslim-American communities.

And he listened. He gave a powerful talk to the assembled groups - and then listened to them for an hour about their concerns, about their fears, and also about the great things that have happened - that have protected the Muslim-American and Arab-American communities.

President Bush Holds Roundtable with Arab- and Muslim-American Leaders
Embassy at Afghanistan
Washington, D.C.

I attend an Eastern Orthodox Church, an Antiochian Church, a predominantly Arab Orthodox Church, even though I am not an Arab-American myself. Our priest said, the week after the attack on the United States, to the members of our congregation, "Do not make assumptions about those who have immigrated to the United States, about who they are or their ethnic background: Judge them for who they are as individuals by their own character or lack of it." That is a very wise and prudent way of reacting to the terrorist threat in our society - and that is exactly what President Bush said yesterday to the Arab-American and Muslim-American communities at this meeting and at a press conference after the meeting. We should avoid type-casting Islam or Arab-Americans.

And so I leave you with the notion that how Americans respond to difficulty will be with us for a very long time. It will affect how we view ourselves, and it will affect how the rest of the world views us. I think we have a lot to be proud of, but we need to be vigilant that we do what President Bush, and President Lincoln, urged us to, which is to look toward the angel in our soul.

Thank you.