Global hegemony on steroids does not a war make. It equals imperial aggression. The simpletons of the land (Obama unwisely offended) reject the notion that our exalted flag-waving 'leaders' are anything other than well-meaning champions of the people. The ugly truth - that our corruptible elected representatives are in fact puppets for corporatism - be damned.

You are correct in noting that ordering American armed forces to Iraq as pseudo mercenaries to stand guard over vital corporate interests is anything other than a war. The same is true of our so-called war on terror. That drum-roll is nothing more than support BS flung about to feed the mushrooms. Carte blanche justification to vilify and forcibly 'neutralize' any and all who dare to refuse the benevolent gift of American imperialism is the true purpose.

A distinction without a difference except in the strictly legal sense. The United States Congress has not declared the legal state of war to exist in some 66 years, since war was declared on the Axis powers in December of 1941. But since then we have been in several wars since then involving invasion and occupation of some or all of the territory of another state.

In 1950 we went to war in the Korean peninsula without benefit of a legal declaration by a Democrat-controlled Congress - we had a hall-pass from the shiny new UN hall-monitor. President Truman, who took us to that war, angrily insisted that it was not a war but a "police action" - though I doubt that fine distinction would have impressed any of the 38,000 American dead of that war. Were the dead of Korea - on any side - somehow less dead than the millions of World War Two who had the dubious blessing of official declarations?

In 1964 we went to war in the Republic of Vietnam, led there by "guns and butter" Johnson, with the acquiesence - but not the legal declaration of war - by a pliant, Democrat-controlled Congress. Were the 58,000 dead GIs and the million dead Vietnamese somehow more alive because their was no legal state of war declared?

And in fond remembrance of our days of gunboat glory, we went to war in Grenada and Panama, with the White House squatter-in-residence again asking Congress for nothing but a blank check and with the Congress dutifully dropping its pants and bending over for the moment.

We went to war in Iraq in 1990, again with a hall-pass from the UN, but no declaration of war. Again with a UN hall-pass we slaughtered Serbs by intervening in their civil war, and again our Congress-sans-cojones dutifully signs the IOU and ignores its duty to the Constitution.

What we have now is essentially the same thing: The fact of war without the state of war. Like the prim Victorians with their attitudes toward sex and sexuality, if we do not acknowledge it, then it just isn't there, is it?

Are we the occupying power? Yes we are indeed, and the fact that no one else is stepping up to help foot the bill makes that rather painfully clear. Did we invade? Of course we did, and an invasion - like a blockade - is an act of war whether or not it is declared.

Was it an illegal action? Well, if one indulges in a bit of lawyerly Clintonesque double-speak, it is perfectly legal because the Congress signed off on it. Was it morally justified? If you think so, perhaps I can interest you in some Wyoming ocean-front property?

Most sincerely,

T. J. Flapsaddle

DUMBASS CONGRESS

I guess brains and common-sense are NOT a requirement to run for public office. YEEEESH!

We aren't 'at war' - come on!
We are the 'mall cops' for the big oil boys, no one doubts THAT, I hope.
And its legal because we say it is; they 'invited' us in.
Plus, we are propping up the corrupt/septic regime there with open bribes, graft and the lucrative conversion of stolen US property.