Obama: Bush Giving Terrorists What They Want

In what may perhaps be the most thoughtful and eloquent foreign speech since the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama called the nation to confidently open a new chapter in recognizing "the war we need to win."

Speaking at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Sen. Obama pointed that the president is fueling, providing breeding and recruiting ground for the terrorist groups by not ending the "war of choice" in Iraq. In the same speech, he also outlined a contrast of his judgment and that of his rivals who voted for the war in 2002.

"By refusing to end the war in Iraq, President Bush is giving the terrorists what they want, and what the congress voted to give them in 2002: a U.S. occupation of undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences," said Sen. Obama.

Demonstrating his trifocal understanding of the threat the country face, he remarked that the current administration has lost its ways by making the country less safe than before Sept. 11, 2001-a contrast with his top rival, Hillary Clinton who said in a CNN debate in New Hampshire that the country is safer than before Sept. 11.

The Illinois senator pointed out that the war at hands is not a war against Muslims, but a war against a small faction of extremist violent group within the 1.3 billion Muslims around the world.

"Just because the President misrepresents our enemies does not mean we do not have them. The terrorists are at war with us. The threat is from violent extremists who are a small minority of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims, but the threat is real. They distort Islam. They kill man, woman and child; Christian and Hindu, Jew and Muslim. They seek to create a repressive caliphate. To defeat this enemy, we must understand who we are fighting against, what we are fighting for," said the presidential candidate.