I was against the war as far back as Fall of 2002, when it was clear that the Bush administration wanted it. I always thought it was a foolish exercise in hubris and greed. But my and millions of others protests were dismissed as "a focus group," and it went down anyway. And so here we are.

We've got to end the occupation. It's not working. It's not going to work. In fact, it's making the situation worse.

Ending the occupation doesn't mean trying to dodge any national responsibility. It doesn't mean isolationism. It doesn't mean "cut and run." It means making the only moral choice we've got left, and taking to first step towards bringing down the curtain on this misbegotten American Empire.

We have two options: we can end the occupation in a process we have some control over and attempt to foster a more effective (read: international) means for helping the New Iraq find a balance, or we can wait until we can simply no longer afford to maintain the empire, let the permanent bases we're building be overrun, lose many more lives, kill many more people, and have nothing to show for it but more blood in the sand, more debts and more enemies.

Go vote next week. It won't solve everything, but it will help.