We were not fighting a war that should have never been authorized and waged in 1992.
Obama did not support this war, both Bill and Hillary did.
The War is a dire issue, and the decision to be allowed to go there is a serious one. We are still fighting this war.
Someone we both Admire, Wes Clark, worked hard to have congress hear his view on Iraq, and was making last minute phone calls, working with Ted Kennedy to change minds on Bush's blank check (Ted of course voted NO on the Blank check). Clark also supported the Levin amendment (another senator who heeded Clark's words and voted no), which Hillary voted against.
Let me be very clear with you that the reason I supported Wes Clark above all else was because he was prescient, and because he stood up while many others were sitting down due to the prevalent popular opinion at that moment. I support Obama for the exact same reason that I supported Wes Clark. Obama had the courage to stand for what was right, and he did it in a clear and irrevocable manner. Obama has a vision for America, the way Wes Clark had in his 100 year vision.
Hillary did not read the NIE, so she wasn't doing her homework....
Hillary voted yes on the IWR, and so she did not have good judgment.
Hillary voted nay against the Levin amendment, so she wasn't interested in a reasonable approach that would entail a real effort to work with the U.N.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I was a military analyst and so I looked at everything in great detail. I wasn’t allowed on television to talk politics at all. I testified in front of the senate, but the “Boston Globe” did a long piece on my military stuff about three or four days ago. You can find it there. Joanna Weiss wrote it, and she said what’s changed is my rhetoric. My rhetoric has changed, because when I wasn’t a politician, I couldn’t speak out this forcefully, because I didn’t have any basis for doing it. I had a military commentary that I gave.
I said from the beginning of the war with Iraq, that Iraq wasn’t an imminent threat. I said in the beginning that we shouldn’t rush into war. http://www.democracynow.org/2004/1/26/exclusive_democracy_now_confronts_wesley_clarkDelivered on 26 October 2002 at an anti-war rally 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 Hillary is a Clinton. Obama is no Clinton. Not even close.