They have told us that, because their motives are so lofty, they will not be constrained by such obsolete legalities as international or constitutional law. And since it appears to follow that their self-proclaimed virtue gives them the right to lie to further their humanitarian goals, we have an urgent need to defend ourselves, our reason, and our humanity, the next time they launch such a crusade. We should not allow our judgment to be swayed by atrocity stories, no matter how extensively they are repeated by the media. Like the tale of the Kuwaiti infants thrown out of their incubators by the villainous Iraqis, their purpose is to get us to overcome our resistance to war. Once it has begun it doesn't matter that we learn that the entire story was fabricated by a public relations firm.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Like the presumption of innocence in a criminal trial, the default position on questions of war and peace is peace. It is up to the proponents of war to make their case beyond a reasonable doubt. There is no way we are going to be able to know enough of the history of some dispute in some foreign country to be able to fix it by force of arms. To this end we should insist that such momentous decisions be fully debated and voted on by our elected representatives. Although this is no guarantee that these representatives will indeed represent us, to allow the President to thwart this Constitutional safeguard is to destroy the little democracy we have left.