Barack Obama's October, 2002 Speech

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.