I am here at West Point eight years after we began our war against those who so brutally attacked our country on 9/11.  I am here at West Point to specifically say to you here in the Army and indeed in all of our services that you have done your job and you have done your job well.

You West Pointers will be come the officer cadre of the Army just as Annapolis is for the Navy and Marines and the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.  As officers you will be expected to lead.  You will be expected to develop strategies of war that will win and you will be held responsible for any unwarranted expenditure of blood to accomplish those goals in the future.  Yours will not be an easy task but you have accepted it and like those before you, you will prevail in that task.  Your decisions many times will not be well accepted or understood in the heat of battle.  You will make errors of judgment and if you are good at your job, you will examine not your successes but rather your mistakes, your errors of judgment and you will correct them.  Battle plans of the future based in concrete are battle plans that our enemies can anticipate.  You must be flexible in your thinking, be willing to think out of the box for sure and determine how to best defeat an enemy that knows no geographic boundaries, no installed targetable leadership but is every bit as dangerous as a Hitler or a Tojo.  We must take at face value threats by those leaders who aim to destroy us.

As your Commander-in-Chief I am announcing the immediate withdrawal of all troops from the Mid-east Theater of operations effective immediately.  We urge our allies to do the same.

After careful analysis and intensive debate from within and without my administration the decision as to how to proceed in this war is on my shoulders.  I take that responsibility and now I give you my rationales and how we will deal with these countries and these threats in the future.

A country must determine with careful consideration what its primary and secondary interests are.  Failure to determine these priorities leads to poor allocation of important national assets and most importantly how and when to enter into war and when it is necessary to put in harm’s way those men and women of our armed services who are obligated to enforce all lawful and just actions of our country.

We entered Iraq under a stated analysis from the Executive Branch of our government that was based upon totally false and misleading information.  It was a mistake to have attacked Iraq and it is a mistake to stay there.  Iraq has duplicity in this regard; they could have at any time opened up their country to total inspection and disproved these false allegations.  They did not and share in the responsibility of the aftermath.  We offer no apology but we will now correct that mistake and leave.

The stated rationale for our incursion into Afghanistan was to attack the bases from which we were attacked on 9/11 and to arrest those responsible.  I have determined that “nation-building” by the United States in Afghanistan is not in our primary interest and therefore order all our military to exit that theater as soon as possible in a manner that will protect our troops.

One of the primary strengths of our country is our ability defend ourselves.  That takes money and capital.  To squander that asset in a war that is not in our primary interest is to damage our national security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have done exactly that over the past eight years.  I am going to immediately end the squander of $100 billion/year in this region.

In regard to war and our ability to wage it we have two primary advantages:  1.  Our technology and,  2.  Our asset base of capital and highly educated people.

In future conflicts we will use those assets to promote our primary interests.  We warn any country that attempts to attack our primary interests that they will be met, not with troops on the ground as they would like, but with a technology that will give them great pause and with collateral damage that will be on the shoulders of those who do not now heed my warning.

Additionally, I am removing all U.S. troops from Europe, Okinawa and South Korea.

These measures will attempt to bring our fiscal house in order.  Finally, in regard to heath care, I am urging the congress to continue to advance the taxing of those with high incomes but at the same time to impose a 3% Federal Health Sales Tax so that every legal person in our country is afforded adequate health care and has an awareness of its costs.  If we are successful in squeezing out efficiencies and these taxes are not needed then I am sure Congress will find a way to reduce or eliminate them.  But the time of the great “handout” is over.  We are going to run a balanced budget. We are gong to pay for things we want up-front, as we go.  Our kids and grandkids will not carry our wasteful burden.  We are going to put the Social Security system in the black and we are going to eliminate all Federal debt.

In so doing, our defense capability will be the strongest in the world, the most flexible and if needed, the most feared and respected.

I anticipate that the county will intensely debate these new proclamations that I have made here today.  Many will disagree.  It is the way.  But I am the leader of this country; I was elected to guide us for these four years or perhaps longer and the people have a right to see their leader use circumspection and rationality.  I do this because I think it is right.