Jeanne D'Arc asks the right questions (link courtesy of The Road To Surfdom)

* Does American public opinion matter? I've given up on trying to read polls. They're up, they're down, they're blowin' in the wind. But my instincts tell me most Americans have a sense that this war doesn't smell right. They can't explain why, but they know that if there's a necessity for war, it shouldn't be so damn hard to explain why we have to fight. Are Americans going to jump on board as soon as war starts, especially if it's "successful" – meaning few Americans die and the Ba'athists are a bad memory? What about when they realize the cost of the war?

I think this is as good a test as any. Going to war is the most serious action any nation can take. It should never be done lightly and needs the support of the people (especially in a constitutional democracy in which the citizenry is, nominally, the sovereign). Therefore, if the reason for going to war cannot be explained in a way that is convincing to most of citizenry, perhaps we should wonder if the reasons are very good to begin with. The Bushies like to say that it is up to Sadaam Hussein to prove that he has disarmed. They are correct when they argue that Hussein wants to turn it into a question of whether the inspectors have found enough. Well, couldn't it also be said that it is up to the Bushies to prove that we should go to war? Why should it be up to us, the ones who oppose war, to prove that we shouldn't go to war?