Barack Obama for the future.

Four thousand one hundred and fifty-five U.S. service men and women dead.
Thirty thousand five hundred and sixty-eight U.S. service men and women injured.
In 2002, months before war was declared on Iraq, only one of the major candidates from both parties had the courage and conviction to stand up to the ignorance of the many from the very beginning. He said, "I don't oppose all wars. 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." Obviously, not many heeded his words because in the U.S. senate only days later 77 senators and more than 2/3's of Congress vote Yea to authorize this misguided, costly, mundane, and dangerous war. Among these senators were Christopher John Dodd (D-CT), John Edwards (D-NC), John Kerry (D-MA), Fred Thompson (R-TN), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Joe Biden (D-DE), Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), John McCain (R-AZ), and last but not least (former Democrat) presently "Independent" Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. Though at the time Barack Obama was not yet in the U.S. Senate I am certain he'd have voted against the war. It was not only because of what Obama said at the time, but also because a majority of the junior senators voted with their state's senior senator at that time they both were of the same party and Senior Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) voted against the War. There have been many times when Obama has stated he looks to Durbin for advice and guidance on how to vote on many issues. So the argument that "Who knows how Obama would have voted had he been in the senate at the time." is somewhat weak judgment and barack voting yea was less likely to have happened from what we already know.

It's no doubt that a big factor in the plummet of President George W. Bush's historically high approval rating (which was once at 89% in September 2001, and now barely maintains 28%) is the war in Iraq. The war in Iraq which was declared mission accomplished 5 years ago. The war in Iraq which costs our country $343 million a day to fund. The war in Iraq which was conceived on a notion that Saddam Hussien had weapons of mass destruction that were never found. The war in Iraq which took away our time, money, and attention off of a war in Afghanistan that we were already engaged in. A war that John McCain says we're close to victory in, but then says he doesn't mind if we are there in some manner or form for a 100 years. And to quote Barack Obama on the issue, "[It's] A war that should have never been authorized, and should have never been waged." Barack Obama wants to get us out of there and has repeatedly mentioned a time table to withdraw troops from Iraq. John McCain and the republicans oppose a time table because to them it would mean we surrendered the War on Terror. What John McCain and his supporters don't realize is that the Iraq war was more of an illegal invasion than anything else. Even the President of Iraq Al Maleki said he wants us out soon.

John McCain likes to portray himself as a foreign policy and national security buff based off of his prisoner of war experience and his 26 years in the senate. However, based on the last 8 years under George W. Bush's sanction John McCain never talked foreign policy which onlyresulted in irritating our advisories further and helping to diminish our standing in the world. It would be unwise not to meet with our advisories right away if John McCain became president. By meeting with themwe can atleast start to mend broken fences and show them that the United States as a nation is at least be willing to listen to what they have to say even if we don't agree with it. That is what Obama at least pledged to do.

Unlike John McCain, Barack Obama can speak Arabic because he spent a period of his life living in Indonesia where the majority of the people additionally are Muslim, which helped him understand the concepts behind their religious views and the beleif of most of the Middle East . With that he can see from a similar perspective of people in that region as well as what they're values are. He can relate to people from those areas and they like him a lot. Many people from countries around the world pray that we elect Barack Obama. Not John McCain. The reason why that is important is because we have no choice but to deal in depth with the Middle East since President Bush has declared this war on terror. We are in two of their countries already and will probably be invading a third one if John McCain is elected. I say this because the American Government refuses to let Iran have nucelar weapons and Iran has the desire for them. Obama knows that diplomacy should be our most important weapon, not our capacity to fight in wars. This brings us back to why it's so important for our next president to meet and sit down with our enemies as well as with our friends right away.

I'm not saying Obama is perfect. He's not. Nobody is. Although, when it comes down to the two choices we have it shouldn't be this difficult for people to see who the better choice is. Now that isn't to say John McCain is incompetent or evil or anything like that. I'm sure beneath it all he is a good person at heart (and maybe a few years ago he was sharp as a tack) but let's be real here. He's old. Seventy-two years old in fact. Old not just physically, but mentally as well. When McCain was addressing the press in Iraq a few months ago he couldn't even identify the Sunnis from the Shiites and needed assistance from Joe Lieberman (who was standing next to him at the time) in making the distinguishments between them for McCain . John McCain's increasing mental decline can also be distinguished by the fact that he keeps saying he will follow Osama Bin Laden to the gates of Hell and bring him to justice. What he does not realize is by doing that it would just make Osama Bin Laden a martyr for his cause because that is what it means to die for Islam in their religion as a result of killing non-muslims in the name of Alla. The U.S. would not want to give him that glory after all the distruction that he already has committed towards us. Another reason why McCain shouldn't be president is because he lives in the past. Through out his campaign he has never been hesitant to mention that he had once been a prisoner of war back in Vietnam. What relevance that has with the presidency I don't know. Regardless, that was 40 years ago. His p.o.w status should further emphasize why he shouldn't be president. The beating he took back then for 5 and a half years probably will resurface in numerous ways. Examples of these involve horrible aches and pains as well as psyciatric illness percipitated as a result of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This disease is most prominant in Vietnam Veterans who went through such ordeals as McCain experienced. These effects can only progessively dibilitate McCain and make him less likely to fulfill his potentialpositions responsiblities to their fullest.

I notice many skeptics of Obama always say he speaks in generalities and never explains what he plans to do as president, but the same can be said for McCain. Besides Vietnam he mentions almost nothing in his speeches and at town hall meetings. McCain will stand up in front of a crowd and tell his war stories that his congress spends too much time ranting on, which he memorized completely so every time you hear his statements they sounds exactly the same as the last time. Then he will tell a joke or too, and seem real humble, but he never gets into the specifics either, instead he will be blunt and use tough talk to get the crowd on his side. The crowd will buy it every time because at some point he mentioned he was a p.o.w, and they feel sorry for him or based on their age and/or whether or not they themselves are veterans, comradery with him. It is funny how that is, because in 2004 the Republican party did nothing but slash and burn a Vietnam veteran who had actually served his country a.k.a John Kerry who may not have been a p.o.w but he at least did not try to run his whole campaign based on something that happened 40 years ago and is irrelevant to what is happening now.
Another thing Obama has that McCain doesn't is judgement. The best possible example to use is his running mate Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) whom he chose at the very last possible minute because the person whom he most wanted by his side was Joe Liberman and he knew that would be political suicide. He would lose too many supporters. Many will argue that McCain picked her simply because she is a woman, but I disagree. It's obvious he picked her because he wants to win at any cost and her candidacy will do three important things. First picking her will galvanize his base, based on the issues like God, guns, and abortion. He needed someone conservative to back him up or else many Republicans who are leery of him would have stayed home on November 4th. Second he needed someone new. Someone nobody including the media knew about. Thus, the media and press could spend their time talking about her and not Obama. The republicans know the less attention Obama gets, the better it is for the Republicans. Lastly, he wanted someone young and what better choice than picking someone three years younger than Obama. McCain wanted the attention taken away from his age. The bad judgement in this selection however lies in many things average people can pick up on right away. Until just a week ago McCain's campaign hammered on Obama's "lack of experience." They worked tirelessly to convince the American public that because of Obama's lack of scars and grey hair, and years in the senate proved that he was unfit for the presidency. Now that argument is dead because McCain has chosen a woman who was mayor of a town with a lower population than South Windsor's and the governor of a state where there are more moose than people. To top that off she's only been Governor for about 20 months. In that time it has been reported that she has not had to veto or approve much legislation due to the factthat not much has come to her desk in that short amount of time. Compared to Obama's eight years in the Illinois state Senate and the four years he's been a U.S. senator she has even less experience than he does. God forbid she is literally only a heartbeat away from being the president if McCain is elected. Obama at least thought carefully about who he wanted to step into the presidency should he become incapacitated. Regardless of Biden's flaws, you have to admit it's a good choice. Biden has 36 years of foreign policy experience from being a six term senator on the foreign relations committee. Obama knows many people out there are uncomfortable with the prospect of someone like himself becoming president, so he better prepared our country for the future if the worst happens.

As a nation of people ruled by the media, money, ignorance, and nostalgia we never really get the kind of leaders we need, which is why you'll always hear someone say "I'm not voting." or "I don't like either candidate." We use wedge issues, and other nonsense to turn our own leaders into puppets. They can never say all the things they really want to say because they know we will react negatively to it and vote against them. In the year 2000 when John McCain was running for president for the first time he championed himself as the maverick statesmen. Someone who reached across party lines and ideas. He was middle of the road on all the issues that mattered. He was honest and was heralded for taking on the radical left (speaking out against people like Al Sharpton and Luis Farrahan) and the religious right (people Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell who are all know well are discriminators of people who are different and share different views based on religion). In 2000 during the Republican primaries he was up against former Governor George W. Bush (R-TX) who used wedge issues, religion, and ignorance to beat out John McCain for the nomination. John McCain was furious with George Bush at first, but now votes with him 90% of the time. One of the big issues he sided with Bush on is the Iraq war. Not just the invasion, but the funding, the serge, and not leaving the Middle East even now when their leaders want us to. In short: He's not a Maverick anymore.

As I stated earlier it should not be this hard of a choice for people to make. Obama has the judgement, the international experience, the health, the ideas, and combined with Biden the leadership experience to make our country better. John McCain really only has a p.o.w status, naval service, and 26 years in the senate with no major accomplishments that are widely known. Now with our country in jeopardy from our issues on oil dependency to the national debt which is now at approximately $9,500,000,000,000 and rising rapidly resulting from the Iraq War. This debt is slowely bringing our economy to a hault. If we stop progression in war like Obama wants we can then work on giving people jobs, get the real estate market flowing aagain and work for renewable sources of fuel such as increasing it by 10% by 2012 and progressing from there. Picking John McCain is without a doubt insane because he is one of the people who helped get America into the mess we are in and will allow it to progress. The debt would continue to grow and McCain will still lean to the use more fossil fuels over renewable resources. Thus increasing dependence on other nations which will increase the debt further because of importing expenses. Instead voting for Obama will help to ensure that the mess will be dealt with instead of being carried out (with a great chance of failure) and at the same time imporve our nation by aiding the economy.