"..The Iraq intervention has also been compared with the war in Vietnam. On March 18, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy spoke against U.S. policy in Vietnam. His critique could apply to the Iraq affair today. He said, "We are entitled to ask -- we are required to ask -- how many more men, how many more lives, how much more destruction will be asked, to provide the military victory that is always just around the corner, to pour into this bottomless pit of our dreams?"

Kennedy added, "But this question the administration does not and cannot answer. It has no answer -- none but the ever-expanding use of military force and the lives of our brave soldiers, in a conflict where military force has failed to solve anything in the past . . . It is long past time to ask: what is this war doing to us? Of course it is costing us money -- fully one-fourth of our federal budget -- but that is the smallest price we pay. The cost is in our young men, the tens of thousands of their lives cut off forever. The cost is in our world position -- in neutrals and allies alike, every day more baffled by and estranged from a policy they can not understand."

Kennedy concluded, "Higher yet is the price we pay in our innermost lives, and in the spirit of our country . . . The costs of the war's present course far outweigh anything we can reasonably hope to gain by it, for ourselves or for the people of Vietnam." ("The American Reader: Words That Made A Nation," edited by Diane Ravitch, HarperCollins Publishers, 1991.)

In order to learn from history rather than repeat past mistakes, and to give our current national situation context, it helps to remember the lessons of Vietnam, Nixon's imperial Presidency, the Iran-contra affair and a period when monarchs were above the law -- the era that gave birth to our Constitution. When evaluated in the context of all these events, Bush's runaway Presidency, his administration's crimes against the people of this country and the repercussions of those actions appear so egregious that impeachment isn't merely Congress's option, but its constitutional duty. ..."

From "Impeachment: A duty, not an option"
By Carla Binion