In October of 2002, Hillary Clinton voted for the resolution authorizing George W. Bush to take military action in Iraq. I want to get past it, but I can’t. And this is one huge reason that I feel passionately about Barack Obama, who showed courage that few others did by opposing the war from the beginning.

I have no doubt that Clinton would be an able president. I believe she genuinely cares about issues that I care about –health care and education. Her insider knowledge of how Washington works and her political savvy might give her a real advantage in terms of getting things done.

But I worry that the same political savvy that might make Hillary Clinton a force to contend with in the White House is what caused her to vote for going to war with Iraq in the first place. Maybe she thought it was necessary, in the aftermath of 9/11, with the presidential campaign looming in her future, to take a tough stand against terrorism.

But the invasion of Iraq was never a stand against terrorism, no matter how anyone tries to spin it. Iraq didn’t attack us, al- Qaeda did. Our military efforts should have focused on purging al-Qaeda and finding Osama bin Laden (that once-ubiquitous apparition who remains at large, seemingly forgotten by the administration), not stirring up trouble elsewhere. I believed this so strongly back in 2001 that I started a website, American Citizens Against War, stating categorically the reasons for my conviction that we should not invade Iraq.

I remember being stunned at the support for military action against Iraq in Congress and the Senate. When the resolution passed in 2002, I felt as though all of Washington was living in some weird post 9/11 version of Oz, where no one questioned George W. Bush’s motives, and no one dared pull aside the curtain to expose the true nature of the inept little wizard; they took it for granted that, because the U.S. had been attacked, the wizard spoke for all of us. If they had doubts, most of them kept those doubts to themselves. To me, the massive support for military action among powerful Democrats was an unforgivable case of cowardly politics. Because no matter how one feels or felt about Saddam Hussein, any rational course of thought would lead one to the conclusion that launching a “preemptive” (i.e. unprovoked) attack against a relatively secular Muslim nation–especially at a time when religious fanatics had killed thousands of Americans and were vowing to kill thousands more–could never end up well.

But Bush decided to attack Iraq, turning a largely secular nation into a hotbed of extremism. Talk about a melting pot. Bush’s war provided the perfect opportunity for any extremist who hated the U.S. to pack his bags, head to Iraq, and engage American soldiers in urban combat. The war has irrevocably damaged our reputation. It has resulted in the deaths of thousands of Americans and untold numbers of Iraqis. It continues to cost billions of dollars each month, when American schools and social services are in desperate need of funding.

And Hillary Clinton supported that decision. As much as I believe in her vision for health care and education, as much as I admire her accomplishments, I can’t come to terms with her vote on Iraq in 2002. Because the Iraq war is the ugliest and dumbest thing our country has done in a long time. If she is ultimately the Democratic candidate, I will vote for her, knowing that she is capable of bringing change to our country in key areas where it is desperately needed. But I would much rather cast my ballot, in the end, for Barrack Obama.

As for his record on Iraq, we can look at his own words, a speech he gave in Chicago on October 26, 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…

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.

When everyone else was afraid of appearing unpatriotic, Barrack Obama never deferred to the wizard. Everything that he said would happen, has happened. He’s young, but he’s smart, and he’s not afraid to say what he thinks. He may just be the one to lead us out of Oz.