Vietnam was that a war? when was that war declared? Or these for that matter; Nicaragua? Grenada? Panama?

Maybe the US didn't declare war, legally, in all those cases. As I recall, Japan didn't declare war before Pearl Harbor either.

The fact is that the US government, in all these cases, took it into its head to invade countries whose governments they disagreed with. They didn't declare war, they just went in and invaded them, without any agreement from the UN or the rest of the world that this should be done. Satisfies every definition of war that I know of, apart from that no-one stood up and said "I declare war on you". If the neighbourhood bully comes up to you and punches you, does it mean you're not fighting just bcos he hasn't said "I'm going to hit you"?

Graham.