Clinton: Berlin Wall Festivities Not Just A Party

BERLIN — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged Europeans and Americans on Sunday to see the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall as a call to action against new global threats.

On the eve of celebrations marking 20 years since the collapse of the wall that divided East and West Berlin, Clinton said the hard work that went into ending the Cold War must be channeled to meet fresh challenges, including the fights against extremism and climate change.

As the Obama administration looks to often reluctant European allies to bolster their NATO forces in Afghanistan, Clinton said Monday's commemoration of Nov. 9, 1989, the night "when history pierced the concrete and concertina wire," must look forward and not back.

"Our history did not end the night the wall came down, it began anew," she told a group of U.S. and European dignitaries while accepting a Freedom Award on behalf of the American people from The Atlantic Council, a group that promotes trans-Atlantic ties.

The moment the festivities begin "should be a call to action, not just a commemoration of past actions," Clinton said. "That call should spur us to continue our cooperation and look for new ways that we can meet the challenges that freedom faces now."

"We owe it to ourselves and to those who yearn for the same freedoms that are enjoyed and even taken for granted in Berlin today," she said.

Clinton praised U.S.-European collaboration on ending the world financial crisis as well as steps to cooperate on global warming. She also hailed NATO security operations, from Afghanistan to fighting piracy off the coast of Somalia.

But she said the spirit of the Berlin Wall's destruction – the symbolic end to the Cold War – had to be reinforced.

"We need to form an even stronger partnership to bring down the walls of the 21st century and to confront those who hide behind them: suicide bombers, those who murder and maim girls whose only wish is to go to school, leaders who chose their own fortune over the fortune of their people."

Clinton will lead the U.S. delegation to Monday's ceremonies in Berlin.

Other speakers at The Atlantic Council event on Sunday were more blunt.

Former U.S. national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, who served under Presidents Ford and George H.W. Bush, lamented that trans-Atlantic cooperation and understanding had fallen off in the two decades since the Berlin Wall fell.

"We no longer have an intimacy of dialogue like we had in 1989," he said. "It's important that we restore that closeness in order that we can all in unity face the challenges confronting us."

Other U.S. foreign policy veterans at the event included former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Comments

[AlanMaki]

Many "new found freedoms" came to those living in East Germany when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down.

Hillary Clinton seems to have overlooked some of those "freedoms:"

The freedom to go hungry.

The freedom to be unemployed.

The freedom to hate.

The freedom to pay for university educations.

The freedom to pay high rents.

The freedom to pay high electric bills.

The freedom to read about how good their lives have become.

I am sure the people are enjoying thinking about all their new found "freedoms.­"

I wonder what kind of "freedom" workers will be subjected to when tey decide they want to return to socialism? Perhaps Barack Obama will rent out the specially trained freedom fighters he is deploying to Afghanistan for the war nobody wants but one they are getting anyways.

We should cherish our democratic freedoms we have in this country like the right to vote for corporate bribed politicians who will oppose single-payer universal health care... freedom, its a terrible thing to lose.

[Siebenstein]

What are you talking about dude?

I am from West Germany (which is an old term).

Can you explain? Never mind, you can't .

[party-of-one]

if the report is accurate, Secretary Clinton was lecturing again, and mixed so many metaphors her message seems scattered. Terrorism is a "wall of the 21st Century" ? Climate change is like communism? Her pedantic style sounds arrogant, whether intended or not. Is Sid Blumenthal writing her speeches?

Secretary Clinton's critcism of "leaders who chose their own fortune over the fortune of their people," seemed ironic. President Clinton negotiated and then signed the law in 1999 deregulating the financial services industry, opening the door to economic abuses that exploited most Americans, and led to financial collapse. Yet the Clintons left office, reportedly, deep in debt, and were mega millionaire within 5 years.

[placpje]

Really? Is that what it "sounds" like, to someone whose spent the last couple years of their life obsessing over the Clintons and posting over 12,000 attacks on them?

No kidding?

BTW - It almost "sounds" like you want to make an accusation with that last paragraph, but can't quite get there. Do you think that makes the fact that you have no evidence to support the allegation less obvious?

Maybe if you put a question mark after it, as you usually do .... you know, ....... your usual "F0x Newz" technique.

[party-of-one]

I don't know anyone who as spent "the last couple of years of their life obsessing .. and neither do you. So what is the point of your question? To distract from an oberservation that the Secretary of State has a problem communicating clearly?

[Siebenstein]

There are two possibilities; either these posters have no clue what Clinton is talking about but disagree with what they do not understand, or they do understand it and just make it look as if nobody else could. Either ways are frontal lobe disturbances and require hospitalization.

[rissole]

Will you be talking to anyone in your condensing way while you are there Hillary?

[placpje]

Yes .... the dairy farmers.

Then they put it in those little cans.