Irony

Skimming through the transcript of the U.S. "president's" speech to some body called the National Endowment for Democracy, I found stuff like the following (I made no effort to be fair or impartial, just cherrypicked):

• Evil men obsessed with ambition and unburdened by conscience must be taken very seriously, and we must stop them before their crimes can multiply.

  Defeating a militant network is difficult because it thrives like a parasite on the suffering and frustration of others.

  The radicals exploit local conflicts to build a culture of victimization in which someone else is always to blame and violence is always the solution....

• ...we're not facing a set of grievances that can be soothed and addressed. We're facing a radical ideology with unalterable objectives: to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world.

  No act of ours invited the rage of the killers, and no concession, bribe or act of appeasement would change or limit their plans for murder.

  On the contrary, they target nations whose behavior they believe they can change through violence....

• We have seen this kind of shameless cruelty before, in the heartless zealotry that led to the gulags and the Cultural Revolution and the killing fields.

  Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy pursues totalitarian aims. Its leaders pretend to be in an aggrieved party, representing the powerless against imperial enemies.

  In truth, they have endless ambitions of imperial domination, and they wish to make everyone powerless except themselves.

  Under their rule, they have banned books and desecrated historical monuments and brutalized women.

  They seek to end dissent in every form and to control every aspect of life and to rule the soul itself.

  While promising a future of justice and holiness, the terrorists are preparing for a future of oppression and misery.

  Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy is dismissive of free peoples, claiming that men and women who live in liberty are weak and decadent....

• By fearing freedom, by distrusting human creativity and punishing change and limiting the contributions of half the population, this ideology undermines the very qualities that make human progress possible and human society successful.

  The only thing modern about the militants' vision is the weapons they want to use against us. The rest of their grim vision is defined by a warped image of the past, a declaration of war on the idea of progress itself.

  And whatever lies ahead in the war against this ideology, the outcome is not in doubt: Those who despise freedom and progress have condemned themselves to isolation decline and collapse....

• The United States makes no distinction between those who commit acts of terror and those who support and harbor them, because they're equally as guilty of murder.

  Any government that chooses to be an ally of terror has also chosen to be an enemy of civilization. And the civilized world must hold those regimes to account....

• As Americans, we believe that people everywhere -- everywhere prefer freedom to slavery and that liberty, once chosen, improves the lives of all....
• By standing for the hope and freedom of others we make our own freedom more secure....

• We're standing with dissidents and exiles against oppressive regimes, because we know that the dissidents of today will be the democratic leaders of tomorrow.

  We're making our case through public diplomacy, stating clearly and confidently our belief in self-determination and the rule of law and religious freedom and equal rights for women; beliefs that are right and true in every land and in every culture....

• With the rise of a deadly enemy and the unfolding of a global ideological struggle, our time in history will be remembered for new challenges and unprecedented dangers. And yet the fight we have joined is also the current expression of an ancient struggle between those who put their faith in dictators and those who put their faith in the people.

  Throughout history, tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that murder is justified to serve their grand vision. And they end up alienating decent people across the globe.

  Tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that regimented societies are strong and pure until those societies collapse in corruption and decay.

  Tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that free men and women are weak and decadent until the day that free men and women defeat them....