(Jonathon Van Maren/LifeSiteNews) — When Vice President JD Vance took the stage at the Munich Security Conference on February 14 to speak to the political, military, and business leaders gathered to discuss international security policy and the future of the West, most expected him to focus on the Russia-Ukraine war and Europe’s badly neglected security obligations. He barely mentioned them.
Instead, Vance delivered a bombshell speech rebuking Europe for their rejection of freedom of speech, enthusiastic censorship, and increasingly anti-democratic attempts to suppress political outcomes they do not like.
Vance began by offering his prayers for the victims of the terrorist attack in Munich the day before, in which a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker drove a vehicle into a crowd near the central train station, injuring at least 28 people. He then offered a mere two sentences on Europe’s security obligations and the Russia-Ukraine war and stated that the concern he most wanted to address was: “The retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.”
