The following was recently sent to me in an email. It was taken from a post here. In light of the election, I’ve decided it it is my duty to post this for others to read and critique. Enjoy.

–Phil Meagher

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An excerpt from Obama’s speech on the war in Iraq. He gave this
speech just before that fateful senate vote in 2002—which gave
President Bush the authority to wage preemptive war. He was not yet a U.S. Senator. People arguing against obama say that he is just words:

“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.”