With all that has happened in the past week or two, I felt the need to go and read "the speech," the one Barack Obama gave on October 2, 2002, at an anti-war rally in Chicago, opposing the impending war in Iraq, even as Congress and President Bush were coming to an accommodation on the resolution.
I found the speech on Wikipedia, and it is pasted in below for all who wish to read it. (I am shame-faced to say that I had never taken the time to read it before.) After reading it, I was overwhelmed by how accurate were his predictions about what would happen in such an ill-conceived war. He predicted that the war would be of indeterminate length (100 years, anyone?), unknown cost ($2 trillion and counting), and untold sacrifice (as of today, 4000+ deaths, over 20,000 injured). He also predicted that the war would create new opportunities for al-Qaeda.
One tends to forget how difficult a stance this was at the time. The drumbeat for war was incessant. It was really considered almost unpatriotic not to favor war. No one I knew outside of my family did not support the idea of going to war.
So, I advise you to read the speech. Remember the time. Think of the kind of courage it takes for a man to swim against the tide and the time, and speak out for what he truly believes in.
Then, after you have done all that, think of the character of a person who had not done all they could to prevent this awful war -- a person who had, in fact, greased the wheels for this war -- coming out 6 years later with the following statement:
"No one who hasn’t been president has done that [i.e. made a '3 a.m. decision']. That’s not the right question. The question is what have you done over the course of a lifetime to equip you for that moment. Now I think you will be able to imagine many things Sen. McCain will be able to say. He has never been the president. He will put forth his experience. I will put forth my experience. Sen. Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002."
(http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/03/clinton-reduces.html)
Yup. To Hillary Clinton, this is just "a speech he made in 2002." Yet, it's a speech of such courage, conviction, and intelligence as to be rarely seen in our politicians.
So here it is.
Against Going to War with Iraq (2002)by Barack Obama 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 a 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 arm-chair, 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.
(http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Barack_Obama's_Iraq_Speech)
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Now, if you wish to compare this speech to what Hillary was saying on the Senate floor about the same time, right around the time she voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq, go here.
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