I've been talking with a number of avid Obama supporters in recent days about his advocacy for widening the war in Afghanistan.  Their arguments are for the most part of the following sort.  Afghanistan is a breeding ground for terrorism, so the U.S. has something between a right and an obligation to conduct warfare there to clean up this breeding ground.  Sometimes the argument also includes some notion about how we should introduce democracy there and/or liberate women, but the basic argument is that we need to clean up the terrorist breeding ground.  I could write about why the democracy and women's rights arguments are mistaken (and these arguments were made, in particular, by Laura Bush in 2001), but that would require a post in itself.
Let me suggest that we think through this advocacy of what Obama somtimes calls "the right war" as opposed to the wrong war in Iraq.  Of course, as in all wars, those who will suffer and die are for the most part not responsible for anything and are absolutely innocent.  Further, I don't remember Afghanistan or any Afghanis attacking the U.S. Yes, Osama probably was living there--at least I have no reason to doubt this, but he didn't control Afghanistan and wasn't part of a government there.  I'll get in a minute to the question of why he was there.  But first, let me point out that the Taliban was reported to have asked the Bush administration after 911 for evidence to support what Bush was accusing Osama of doing and the Bush administration refused to provide such, preferring to go to war.  Indeed, these twin wars against Afghanistan and Iraq are now known to have been planned well in advance of 911.  So, what is the basis for this war in Afghanistan?
And why was Osama there?  Is his presence there evidence of Afghanistan of some sort of breeding ground that requires the US to conduct war there to clean up?  What history should one consider to understand the situation?  This "breeding ground for terrorism" has been the recipient of warmongering incursions of similar sorts for the better part of the past two centuries.  Britain and Russia played what was called at the time "The Great Game," in Afghanistan and Persia (now Iran) from early in Queen Victoria's reign until the early 20th century.  This Great Game concerned rival attempts to obtain colonial rule over these places.  I haven't time nor space here to discuss this great game, but a visit to your local library, or a quick Google or Wikipedia skim can reveal some of the basic sordid tale.  Basically, Britain and Russia played a murderous game over who would take colonial control of Afghanistan and Persia (two familiar recipients of war and war threats from the US today).  
Russia continued the game in Afghanistan under the Soviet government in the 1970s and 1980s, which invited Jimmy Carter to involve the US and the CIA, and it was then that Osama entered Afghanistan with CIA covert and financial support.  So, if we have to go in a clean up this breeding ground for terrorism, it's only because we need to go in a clean up the mess we played a central role in creating.
What's up with that?  The US plays a part, with Britian and Russia, in creating the situation in Afghanistan (and Iran and Iraq, but that would need to be another post, which would include the US and the CIA overthrowing elected governments and installing pro-US and Britain dictatorships), and the atrocious result of this meddling somehow bestows a right on the US and NATO to go to war there.  This sounds warped to me.  We wouldn't accept this argument if it were applied to justify some other country going to war there.
And remember, wars bring suffering and death for the most part to innocent people.  The villagers who are the recipients of the bombs dropped by US planes never attacked us and never were part of any breeding of terrorists.
But if one wants to create a breeding ground for "terrorists", if that's the word one wants to use for people who wish us ill and think about doing us harm, then continue the sorts of Great Games that outside imperialist powers have been playing in Afghanistan (and Persia and Iraq) for almost two centuries.  Sounds like a losing policy to me, but I'm sure you know better. 
Never mind, for a minute, the poor politics of conducting war against the Afghani people.  Think for a minute about whether we want to be the kind of people who are too intellectually lazy to be a moral people.  I say this because to support a war in Afghanistan because one thinks we "need to clean up this breeding ground for terrorism" is revealing a lack of historical perspective and requires that we think of the mess simply as something that exists apart from our responsibility in creating it.  I also say it because we cannot morally justify doing what a war does.  Wars are not war movies and they are not portrayed on the TV news.  Wars are an astonishing suffering and massive death by violence.  We can refer to cleaning up a mess, but in fact we are blowing people brains and guts out of their bodies and our clean language cannot change this fact.
Cleaning up a mess sound like a good idea, I suppose, but remember that the verbal imagery is no different from the "ethnic cleansing" that we know is just a euphemism for committing genocide.
So, I find it hard to work up any enthusiasm for the present Obama candidacy.  Sure, McCain may be even more bloodthirsty, and indeed, Obama may not be bloodthirsty at all in his hear.  Maybe playing great games for political gain is only a game and we can call it cleansing.  But this doesn't change the fact that we are talking about brutality and death and it is the result of our political games that continue from long ago into today's political campaign.