[Dark_crow]

Have you read it... what do you think of it?

By Barack Obama
October 2, 2002
Good afternoon. Let me begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil. I don’t oppose all wars.
My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton’s army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain. I don’t oppose all wars.
After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration’s pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again. I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism.
What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.
What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income - to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. Now let me be clear - I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.
But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.
So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the President today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings. You want a fight, President Bush?
Let’s fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe. You want a fight, President Bush?
Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells. You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn’t simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil. Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.
The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not — we will not — travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain.

October 2002 Speech: Against Going to War With Iraq - CommonDreams.org

[BABRAM]

Bravo. He's got my vote.

[Skell]

He said it perfectly. Like almost everything he says.

What do you think think DC?

[tomder55]

With war looming in the fall of 2002, Obama was preparing a long-shot run for an open U.S. Senate seat, which he would not formally announce until the following January. At least two other Democrats were also gearing up, including a wealthy white businessman. Obama's best shot at the Democratic nomination involved consolidating a coalition of lakefront liberals and African Americans. "He knew, and I knew, that the liberal progressives were key in any Democratic primary," says Dan Shomon, Obama's then-campaign manager. Shomon insists politics were secondary to Obama's sincere antiwar ardor. Still, though it may have been unpopular to oppose the war in Washington, that was not the case among liberals in Chicago--among the first cities to pass an antiwar resolution. (Obama also had an interest in pleasing Saltzman. The spunky grandmother was an important local ally who has since raised more than $50,000 for his campaign.)Nor was opposing the war likely to threaten Obama in a general election. Illinois is a reliably blue state, carried easily by Al Gore and John Kerry. The state's only Democratic senator at the time, Durbin (as well as eight of Illinois's nine Democrats in the House), ultimately opposed the Iraq resolution. Moreover, Obama was a long-shot U.S. Senate candidate likely to lose and remain in his liberal Hyde Park State Senate district, probably among the nation's least pro-war enclaves.
There's no reason to think that Obama's war position was anything but sincere. But, given how many people have noted the perceived political calculation of Clinton's vote for the Iraq resolution, it's only fair to note that Obama's war position happened to dovetail with his own ambitions. Moreover, even Shomon concedes that Obama discussed the politics of his speech beforehand. "What about the people that are for the war?" Obama asked him. "Am I gonna have damage politically?"

In 2004 he refused to say flatly that he would have voted against the 2002 congressional war resolution. "I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports," Obama told The New York Times on July 26. "What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that, from my vantage point, the case was not made." In other interviews that week, Obama said, "[T]here is room for disagreement" over initiating the war, and that "I didn't have the information that was available to senators."......"I'm always careful to say that I was not in the Senate, so perhaps the reason I thought [the war] was such a bad idea was that I didn't have the benefit of U.S. intelligence," he told The New Yorker's David Remnick in October 2006. "And, for those that did, it might have led to a different set of choices."

Obama's repeated emphasis on classified intelligence is curious. He never questioned Saddam's possession of weapons of mass destruction. In October 2002, he acknowledged that Saddam has "developed chemical and biological weapons, and [has] coveted nuclear capacity." But, Obama argued, Saddam "poses no imminent and direct threat" and, "in concert with the international community, he can be contained until...he falls away into the dustbin of history." The power of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) lay in its firm assertion that Saddam had a frightful WMD arsenal. But the NIE did not cast Saddam as an imminent threat. If Obama already accepted that Saddam had WMD, why would the intelligence have changed his view about war? It's a mystery--one that drives the Clintonites mad. "To make the argument that your candidacy is premised on your superior judgment on this issue and then to fudge it a half-dozen times means you weren't so sure of your judgment," says a pro-Hillary former Clinton administration official.

Cinderella Story


So in other words ;it was easy for Obama being in the bluest of blue states ,and not being in a position to make a decision on the issue to come out opposing the war . It was an absolutely no lose position for him to take. It is also impossible to prove that he would've been publicly against the war if he was in the position to vote on it. Indeed I think just the opposite. Like Hillary ;he would've put his finger in the air... seen that the coming war was overwhelmingly popular ,and would've voted accordingly.
To me this does not show leadership and foresight;even if he was right... which he is not. .

[tomder55]

But let's see what has happened when Obama was placed in a leadership position . He has been for over a year the Chair of the subcommittee on Senate Foreign Relations responsible for NATO and Europe. In his position he has complained about NATO participation in Afghanistan (undermining the so called cooperation he seeks with allies) but by his own admission he has been too busy running for President to hold any oversight or exploratory hearings on the issue. In fact ;not only has he held no hearings on Afghanistan... he has held NO COMMITTEE HEARINGS AT ALL!! NONE!! There is leadership Obama style... all fluff and no substance.

Clinton at least has shown up during the campaign .She chaired hearings of the Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health and attended many others as a member of the Armed Service Committee.Obama has been an absentee Senator for the whole campaign. All he has done is criticize Hillary from the peanut gallery after she votes on issues like naming the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization . Obama was a no show for that vote also.Oh by the way ;he had previously co-sponsored the "Counter-Proliferation Act of 2007," which contained explicit language identifying the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization.

[excon]

Hello tom:

I don't know about all that stuff. I don't care, really. The job has a way of reshaping a person... Or it should. It does with most folks. It didn't with your dufus in chief. He didn't know anything about the world before he left Texas, and he didn't learn a thing during his 8 years.

Do you know how miserable you feel right now about Obama?? That's how miserable I felt about George Bush 8 years ago. The day it changed was when he was asked about his favorite guy, and he said Jesus. I about puked - just like you're ready to puke now.

Maybe if your dude wasn't such a right wing disaster, the country wouldn't be looking so far left now.

excon

[tomder55]

I think today Hillary will dub herself the come back kid as Democrats begin to get a feeling of buyer's remorse. I am looking for a knock down drag out all the way to the summer convention resulting in a weakened divided Democrat party.

[speechlesstx]

"I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports," Obama told The New York Times on July 26. "What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that, from my vantage point, the case was not made." In other interviews that week, Obama said, "[T]here is room for disagreement" over initiating the war, and that I didn't have the information that was available to senators."... "I'm always careful to say that I was not in the Senate, so perhaps the reason I thought [the war] was such a bad idea was that I didn't have the benefit of U.S. intelligence," he told The New Yorker's David Remnick in October 2006. "And, for those that did, it might have led to a different set of choices."

Before the knee-jerk responses about my aversion to Obama at any cost begin, I think Obama supporters just need to read that again.

"I was opposed to Iraq from the start. And that -- and I say that not just to look backwards, but also to look forwards, because I think what the next president has to show is the kind of judgment that will ensure that we are using our military power wisely." -Barack Obama at the LA debate.

OBAMA: But it also means using our military wisely. And on what I believe was the single most important foreign policy decision of this generation, whether to go to war in Iraq, I believe I showed the judgment of a commander in chief. And I think that Senator Clinton was wrong in her judgments on that.

Now, that has consequences -- that has significant consequences, because it has diverted attention from Afghanistan where al Qaeda, that killed 3,000 Americans, are stronger now than at any time since 2001.

You know, I've heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon -- supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq.

OBAMA: And as a consequence, they didn't have enough ammunition, they didn't have enough humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.

Now, that's a consequence of bad judgment. And you know, the question is, on the critical issues that we face right now, who's going to show the judgment to lead? And I think that on every critical issue that we've seen in foreign policy over the last several years -- going into Iraq originally, I didn't just oppose it for the sake of opposing it. -Barack Obama at the Texas debate

Obama is making a major issue of his ability to make the judgments of a president, and yet he admits his choice may have been different had he been a Senator privy to intelligence? He then throws out some bizarre story about our troops capturing Taliban weapons to use because they weren't sufficiently armed? Throw in the Rezko deal and I think we have reason to question his judgment.

[Dark_crow]

He said it perfectly. Like almost everything he says.

What do you think think DC?

I would be hard pressed to find any fault in his speech.

I am not qualified to make large range future projections as to what would be best for the country. But my hind-sight I do trust and I know of only one sure guide…we may know the tree by the fruit it produces, and he was right on about the consequence of going into Iraq with-out the full support of our allies, and the fruit it has brought fourth... a divided nation.

Bin Laden and Al Qaeda have grown stronger as a result; there has been a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, and a drop in the median income…our economy is a mess.