When will we say that Iraq is stabilized, now that we have destabilized it so that the war hawks and oil profiteers keep pointing to this as reasoning for our continuing to illegally occupy it. For starts, we have no right to be there and invaded a sovereign country under false, misleading and illegal pretenses. Secondly, we can stay as long as it takes to “stabilize” it and then it could easily break-out into a civil war when we leave. No exit strategy will ever solve for this… we caused it and we are not the cure for fixing it. What is to say we are not making matters worse by staying… have we really been a stabilizing force, thus far… I mean, really… have we?

Third, the Iraqi people didn’t invite us there in the first place, they are not fond of our presence or of years of war, sanctions and instability under our watch, and there is not a ground swell of support for a timed exit. If the USA was bombed to smitherines and occupied by Iraq and Afghanistan… what would be our hopeful time line for their safely planned-out exit strategy?

Would over 4000+ American lives and over 30,000 wounded soldiers (not including mental scars and effects from depleted uranium) be tell tale signs that we are not welcome there? Are numerous road-side bombs and guerrilla-style fighting suggestions of a dead giveaway of lack of support for a well thought out plan of exit?

Are the people of Iraq and Afghanistan please with the “Surge” to maintain occupation or the “Mission Accomplished” in the war for their oil resources each cost the lives of their loved ones, their, neighbors, their way of life as they knew it?

Was a dictator all that bad considering the Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) to bring them their “grassroots democracy” in the form of an installed government not of their choosing? Did they really want our form of dictated government, our crafted constitution, our appointed people to head it up? By staying, we suppress democracy and a government of, by and for the People… but, perhaps, just maybe, that is the point in not exiting?

Who better to know how to govern than the Americans, right? On your chart of votes for war… take a gander at both Kucinich and Paul. Across the board on every single vote, they voted unanimously, either, NO or had a “No vote” on each of those roll calls! All of them! They show that voting NO is possible and desirable when you want to end a war.

When you want to end a war, you DON’T continue funding it when you have the power of the purse! Congress holds the checkbook… they say what gets funded and not. Voting yes when there is only an exit strategy has no effect, that takes a super majority to counter a Veto! War funding, whatsoever, takes a simple majority of 50 plus 1… that’s it… and they know it!

This war isn’t stopping, because they must want it. The Dems. have a majority and a mandate, but are out to lunch on the collective no vote. If elected… I would vote no on all war funding… period!