... Now the second thing I want to say is, it's not enough to win the fight we're in. You've probably had some arguments on campus. If not, you've certainly read them, you've seen on television, there are a lot of people who just don't see the world the way we do and certainly don't see America in a very favorable light. And it is quite important that we do more to build the pool of potential partners in the world, and shrink the pool of potential terrorists. And that has nothing to do with the fight we're in. That has to do with what else we do, and that depends upon basically how you analyze the world. I've been going all over the world and I've been all over America going through this exercise so I'll take you through it.

... Imagine yourself on September the 10th. Nothing's happened on September 11th. Try to remember how you viewed the world on September 10th. If I had asked you on that day, "What is the single most dominant element of the 21st Century world," what would your answer have been? What would you have said? Since you're living here and we've been doing reasonable well the last few years, I can think of one of four answers you might have given if you're a positive sort of person. You might have said, "Well, the global economy." The globalization of the economy is the most dominant element because it's made America 22 and a half million jobs and it's lifted more people out of poverty in the last thirty years than were ever lifted out in all of human history. Or you might have said, "No, it's the information technology revolution because that's what's given us all the productivity that has driven the economic growth." When I became president in January of '93 there were only fifty sites on the worldwide web. When I left office there were 350 million. In eight years. Today, before the Anthrax scare, there were thirty times as many messages transmitted by email as the postal services every day in America. Or you might have said, "Oh, no, as impressive as those things are, the most significant thing about the early 21st century will be the advances in biological sciences." It will rival the significance of the discovery of DNA. It will rival the significance of Newtonian physics. We sequenced the human genome; we're developing microscopic testing mechanisms. Soon we'll be able to identify cancers when they're just a few cells in size. Soon we'll be able to give young mothers gene cards to take home with their newborn babies and in countries with good health systems, children will have life expectancies in excess of ninety years. Or you might have said, if you're like me and you're into politics and this kind of thing, you might have said, "No, the most important thing about the modern world is the growth of democracy and diversity, because that is the environment within which all the economic growth, all the technological growth, and all the scientific advances flourish best.

... I was honored to be president at the first time in history when more than half the world's people lived under governments of their own choosing, and when America, as witnessed by your presence here today, and other advanced countries became far more diverse racially, ethnically, and religiously than ever before, and the societies were actually working, and working better, and I might add, a lot more interesting because of our diversity. So, you could have said any of that.

(Some Remarks as delivered by President William Jefferson Clinton Georgetown University). November 7, 2001