As George W. Bush stands poised to strike the match that will ignite war in the Middle East, I feel I'm in a bad dream where people in power have fallen strangely silent except to mimic the frightening sounds of a bellicose President. Please, would somebody just scream stop! And wake me up. Silence in the face of war is not patriotic.

Nothing this important is simple. The threats that Saddam Hussein poses are real, although we don't know if they're imminent. Terrorism has taken a terrible toll on our country, but we don't know that Saddam shares responsibility for 9/11 or the earlier attacks. Nor do we know if he is capable of delivering catastrophic damages or something substantially less injurious than we'll suffer in a U.S.-initiated war.

We do know we're not square with the allies who supported us in the Gulf War.

Bush's one steadfast ally, Great Britain's Tony Blair, can't even muster the support of his own party. Israel will not hold back if attacked. Are we planning on sending troops to support this ally? How do we know we can kill or capture Saddam or that his troops and people will fall in line with us? Post-Saddam democracy in Iraq? Not a chance; so what's our exit strategy? How will this war impact our war on terrorism? How many Iraqi children will die, and how many American youth will be killed in Iraqi cities and deserts?

I want to know what this war is going to do to the price of oil. High gas prices might encourage conservation, but in this case I have to ask, at what cost to the economy? MEC is already hurting because the portfolios of supporters are so depressed. War talk has stomped on a stock market that's struggling to get up off the mat. Will engagement drive it down further and kill the economic recovery we're all anxiously waiting for? What environmental programs will Washington cut to pay for the war? Will they hold back on money to rebuild our crumbling sewer systems needed to clean up the Detroit River, Lake St. Clair and polluted waters around the state?

It's hard to fathom the Congressional silence or to be anything other than contemptuous of Democratic Minority Leader Richard Gephardt's easy acquiescence to Bush's unilateral war declaration. We pay Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow and Representatives Dingell, Kilpatrick, Conyers, Levin, Kildee, Ehlers, Hoekstra and the rest of the delegation, Democrats and Republicans alike, to get answers to these questions. Thankfully, Carl Levin has exercised the full measure of his office to slow down the Bush push for war and build consensus with the United Nation's Security Council. Senator Stabenow is supporting Levin's amendment.

Unbelievably, a massively-cynical crop of legislators seems poised to accept this ill-defined war, apparently in trade for perceived election advantage. Unless Congress discharges its responsibilities soon, we're going to awaken to a nightmare on the morning after the election, no matter which party ends up with majority control.