At the end of Vietnam the US had the best combat army in the history of the world.  It also had a seasoned, triumphant anti-war movement self-trained and baptized by fire.

All over this nation there are a thousands of people who have been here before, who know about mobilizing anti-war movements.  Today, they’re forty years older, but they still remember how it’s done.  Those people are wiping the sleep of four decades out of their eyes and raising their heads in puzzlement that this has happened again during our lifetimes.

This president needs to convene the US Congress and ask for a formal declaration of war against Iraq, defining our reason for being there.  Defining what the other side has to change to make us leave.  Defining what conditions have to exist to bring peace.  Defining what are the conditions of surrender, or capitulation.

Without a Congressional declaration the war is another suppurating wound to carry a president into oblivion and infamy if he doesn’t end it.  Once begun, the slide down the slippery slope of polarization it will be too late for this unlucky president who picked the wrong moment in history to fight another presidential war.

Jack