my answer to my challenge to Obama supporters what he said

[BenDavid]

before the war and how fierce did he speak about it before it all went wrong.

Yep, it was as milquetoast as I thought it would be.That speech had all the passion of "Take Riverside, no, take the highway." Now that Iraq has turned into the shitstorm of our generation, Obama is acting like, "I told you so," but I didn't see that in this speech.
He said lots of things like, "I don't oppose all wars, I oppose dumb wars,"but where was his passion then? He has positioned himself as the man who tried his damndest to stop this, but nobody would listen to his reasonableness.Why didn't he say something like, "We must stop - right now - and use our heads - we must avoid this war at all costs because the Middle East is an unpredictable powderkeg and we could be stuck over there in an endless war for years with hundreds or thousands of dead soldiers and, as of right now, there's NO PROOF that we need to go to war so I call on the president and this congress to stop and think about the potential for disaster here."

If your kid was about to walk into traffic, would you scream, "Stop this instant!" or would you say to your child, "I don't oppose crossing the street, I just oppose dumbly crossing the street" as your child marched towards certain doom? Obama may have been as opposed to the war as he wants us to believe,but do we have anything besides his word that he tried to stop it? BC

[XemaSab]

1. So even though he was the only one of the top three to oppose the war

you're upset because he didn't oppose the war adamantly enough? :shrug:

How does that work? :shrug:

[sandnsea]

2. You didn't read the speech - AT an anti-war rally

If every DUer who ever ranted about politicians not showing up at anti-war rallies, and now opposing Obama, would just send me a dollar...

"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."

"..
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

[ingac70]

3. What utter bullshit....

a President should have just cause for going to war. Making up lies to enrich your pals is not just cause.