What Are We Fighting For?

Obama's candidacy would have never made it past Iowa if he had not made this speech in October of 2002:

I don’t oppose all wars...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.

What's the principle behind Afghanistan at this point?

Protecting a Chinese copper mine?

Capturing Osama bin Laden?

By his own 2002 criteria, Afghanistan can't be judged as anything but a war of passion and politics at this point, rather than principle and reason.

Hopefully his meditations today on the sacrifices of American citizens in wars of both types will help him realize (as usual) Joe Biden is right.