1112 ★ CHAPTER 28 A New Century and New Crisespublic servants like firemen and police-
men became national heroes. After
two decades in which the dominant
language of American politics centered
on deregulation and individualism, the
country experienced a renewed feeling
of common social purpose.
The Bush administration benefited
from this patriotism and identification
with government. The president’s pop-
ularity soared. Bush seized the oppor-
tunity to give his administration a new
direction and purpose. Like presidents
before him, he made freedom the rally-
ing cry for a nation at war.
On September 20, 2001, Bush
addressed a joint session of Congress
and a national television audience. His
speech echoed the words of FDR, Tru-
man, and Reagan: “Freedom and fear
are at war. The advance of human free-
dom... now depends on us.” The coun-
try’s antagonists, Bush went on, “hate
our freedoms, our freedom of religion,
our freedom of speech, our freedom to assemble and disagree with each other.”
In later speeches, he repeated this theme. Why did terrorists attack the United
States? the president repeatedly asked. His answer: “Because we love freedom,
that’s why. And they hate freedom.”The Bush Doctrine
Bush’s speech announced a new foreign policy principle, which quickly became
known as the Bush Doctrine. The United States would launch a war on ter-
rorism. Unlike previous wars, this one had a vaguely defined enemy— terrorist
groups around the world that might threaten the United States or its allies— and
no predictable timetable for victory. The American administration would recog-
nize no middle ground in the new war: “Either you are with us, or you are with
the terrorists.” Bush demanded that Afghanistan, ruled by a group of Islamic fun-
damentalists called the Taliban, surrender Osama bin Laden, the architect of the
9/11 attacks, who had established a base in the country. When the Taliban refused,
the United States on October 7, 2001, launched air strikes against its strongholds.“Is This the End?” by the artist Owen Freeman,
offers a warning about global warming, one of
whose consequences in coming decades will
be a rise in sea levels, flooding many low- lying
coastal communities.