21 Mar 2011 You Want a Fight, Mr. President? Let’s Finish the One With Bin Laden, Leader Says

One of our nation’s leading politicians made the statement below. Can you guess who?

…I am opposed to… a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by… 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… to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income… 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…

I suffer no illusions about [this dictator]. 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… and coveted nuclear capacity. He’s a bad guy. The world, and [his country’s] people, would be better off without him. But I also know that [he] poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that… 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… will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion… 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, [Mr. President]? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda…

If you guessed Dennis Kucinich, you’ve come up, um, short. It was Barack Obama objecting to another U.S. military action back in 2003. See the full speech here.

So what’s difference? Oh, yeah… no one is even alleging that Libya has WMD that endangers American citizens.