A Constitutional Mandate -- A Declaration of War: It is UTTERLY preposterous that the last war to be constitutionally declared was World War II. Are you kidding me? How many wars since then has the United States been involved? Answer: PLENTY. Saying the NATO bombing of Libya led by the United States is not war is like saying hamburger is not chopped sirloin. I beg to differ. It is!

I have one more reason other than it is explicitly stated within the Constitution that the president MUST ask the Congress and ONLY the Congress to wage war. Our Founders, I believe, put this requirement in for a reason. How many kings took their subjects to war on a whim, killed thousands and spent the public treasury to do so. Answer: MANY. It is the height of injustice to those who risk death fighting their country’s wars to so easily send them into the battle even if the battle is in the air.

To ask a person to actually give his only life up for a cause cannot and SHOULD not be done on the whim of one man. Those who are asked to fight it, through their representatives, should be the ones to decide their ultimate sacrifice.

How many of those excursions like Grenada (remember that one) during Reagan to the most egregious usurpation of power Vietnam and Iraq would have been fought IF a president when he dropped a bomb which kills human beings, asked the Congress for permission to do so through a declaration of war? I submit far fewer than we have entered since WWII.

Dropping bombs EVEN ONE BOMB means the taking of life and OFTEN innocent life in the form of so called collateral damage. Would YOU want your husband, your wife, your children who do not know foreign policy from a daisy be the ones to die for reasons they do not understand?

A declaration of war should be mandated and the War Powers Act should be amended to state that. It should ALWAYS be necessary and the consequence of abridgment should be severe!