The second problem is that a formal declaration of war, under law,
amounts
to a war against all of the people of that political entity. In Iraq,
it
would mean we were at war with the Iraqi people. We didn't want to do
that.

The problem is that we are killing Iraqi civilians wholesale. There is
insufficient differentiation between Saddam Hussein's troops and
civilians. For every innocent civilian we kill, we make 2 enemies -
just like Vietnam.

Yup, war is hell.

--
Ed Huntress

Yes it is, but that's what we say when we really mean tough **** for the
innocent people we kill as we go after the ones we want. We offed a whole
lot of them in Panama when we went after one guy, Manuel Noriega. Our view
is if innocents get killed by us that's just the cost of doing business.
You'll notice that our attitude is quite different when our people get
killed as collateral damage. We make lots of enemies killing by so many
civilians. By now it's to the point where we're just about out of friends.
Talk about isolationists, we've isolated ourselves about as much as a
country can. Not by choice but by our actions. It's just more of the stuff
we've been pulling for years now.

Hawke