But I have come to Norman today to speak about another clear and present danger to civilized peoples around the world. It is a danger that would be ignored at our peril. Crimes against humanity and war crimes are all too frequent in modern conflict and internal power struggles. Genocide has occurred in Cambodia, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, and perhaps other places as well. The absence of justice is too often the norm rather than the exception in lands where armed conflicts and atrocities proliferate.
Combatants are as likely to know as much about the laws of war as they do about quantum mechanics.
The severity of mass killings in our own time, on the eve of the millennium, reflects how little we know of ourselves, of our neighbors, and of our future. Neither our faith in the impressive march of technology nor our other aspirations of the next century can overshadow the grotesque reality of the massacres that characterize civilization, or the lack thereof, in today's troubled world. But America has tried to lead the way since the Civil War to codify international rules to govern armed conflict and to outlaw the slaughter of civilians. Our soldiers fought to defend those principles in two world wars and throughout the Cold War, and they stand prepared to sustain those principles today. Our principles are at stake today when we look at the track record of the present Iraqi dictatorship.