The Euros could have done this, but they didn't, and they won't. We now know that rather than opposing the rise of the Jihad, the French, Germans, and Russians were selling them arms.  We have found more than a million tons of weapons and munitions in Iraq .  If Iraq was not a threat to anyone, why did Saddam need a million tons of weapons?

Additionally, Iraq was paying for French, German, and Russian arms with money skimmed from the United Nations Oil for Food Program (supervised by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and his son) that was supposed to pay for food, medicine, and education, for Iraqi children.

World War II, the war with the German and Japanese Nazis, really began with a ''whimper'' in 1928.  It did not begin with Pearl Harbor . It began with the Japanese invasion of China .  It was at war for fourteen years before America joined in it.  It officially ended in 1945 a 17 year war and was followed by another decade of United States occupation in Germany and Japan to get those countries reconstructed and running on their own again a 27 year war. World War II cost the United States an amount equal to approximately a full year's GNP adjusted for inflation, equal to about $12 trillion dollars. World War II cost America more than 400,000 killed in action, and nearly 100,000 are still missing in action.

The Iraq war has so far cost the United States about $120 billion, which is roughly what 9/11 cost New York .  It has also cost about 1,000 American lives, which is roughly 1/3 of the 3,000 lives that the Jihad snuffed on 9/11.

But the cost of not fighting and winning World War II would have been unimaginably greater, a world that would now be dominated by German and Japanese Nazism. Americans have a short attention span, now, conditioned I suppose by 30 minute television shows and 2 hour movies in which everything comes out okay. The real world is not like that. It is messy, uncertain, and sometimes bloody and ugly. It always has been, and probably always will be.

If we do this thing in Iraq successfully, it is probable that the Reformation will ultimately prevail. Many Muslims in the Middle East hope it will. We will be there to support it. It has begun in some countries, Libya , for instance also Dubai and Saudi Arabia . If we fail, the Inquisition will probably prevail, and terrorism from Islam will be with us for all the foreseeable future, because the people of the Inquisition, or Jihad, believe that they are called by Allah to kill all the Infidels, and that death in Jihad is glorious.

The bottom line here is that we will have to deal with Islamic terrorism until we defeat it, whenever that is. It will not go away on its own. It will not go away if we ignore it.

If the United States can create a reasonably democratic and stable Iraq , then we have an '' England '' in the Middle East, a platform from which we can work to help modernize and moderate the Middle East . The history of the world is the clash between the forces of relative civility and civilization, and the barbarians clamoring at the gates. The Iraq war is merely another battle in this ancient and never-ending war. And now, for the first time ever, the barbarians are about to get nuclear weapons unless we or somebody does prevent them.

The Iraq war is expensive, and uncertain, yes. But the consequences of not fighting it and winning it will be horrifically greater. We have four options:

1.   We can defeat the Jihad now, before it gets nuclear weapons.

2.   We can fight the Jihad later, after it gets nuclear weapons (which may be as early as next year, if Iran 's progress on nuclear weapons is what Iran claims it is).

3.   We can surrender to the Jihad and accept its dominance in the Middle East, now, in Europe in the next few years or decades, and ultimately in America .

4.   Or we can stand down now, and pick up the fight later when the Jihad is more widespread and better armed, perhaps after the Jihad has dominated France and Germany and maybe most of the rest of Europe . It will be more dangerous, more expensive, and much bloodier then.

Yes, the Jihadis say that they look forward to an Islamic America. If you oppose this war, I hope you like the idea that your children, or grandchildren, may live in an Islamic America under the Mullahs and the Sharia, an America that resembles Iran today.

We can be defeatist, as many Democrats and liberals, peace activists, and anti-war types seem to be, and concede or surrender to the Jihad or we can do whatever it takes to win this war against them.

The history of the world is the history of civil clashes, or cultural clashes.  All wars are about ideas, ideas about what society and civilization should be like and the most determined always win. Those who are willing to be the most ruthless always win. The pacifists always lose, because the anti-pacifists kill them.

In the 20th Century it was western democracy vs. communism, and before that western democracy vs. Nazism, and before that Western democracy vs. German imperialism. Western democracy won, three times, but it wasn't cheap, fun, nice, easy, or quick. Indeed, the wars against German Imperialism (World War I), Nazi Imperialism (World War II), and communist imperialism (the 40-year Cold War that included the Vietnam Battle, commonly called the Vietnam War, but itself a major battle in a larger war) covered almost the entire century.

The first major war of the 21st Century is the war between Western Judeo/Christian Civilization and Wahhabi Islam. It may last a few more years, or most of this century.  It will last until the Wahhabi branch of Islam fades away, or gives up its ambitions for regional and global dominance and Jihad, or until Western Civilization gives in to the Jihad.

Remember, perspective is everything, and America 's schools teach too little history. The Cold War lasted from about 1947 to 1989 at least until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Forty-two years. Europe spent the first half of the 19th century fighting Napoleon, and from 1870 to 1945 fighting Germany .  World War II began in 1928, lasted 17 years, plus a ten year occupation and the United States still has troops in Germany and Japan . World War II resulted in the death of more than 50 million people, maybe more than 100 million people, depending on which estimates you accept. The United States has taken about 1,500 Killed-in-Action (KIA) in Iraq .  The United States took more than 4,000 KIA on the morning of June 6, 1944, the first day of the Normandy Invasion to rid Europe of Nazi Imperialism.  In World War II the United States averaged 2,000 KIA a week for four years.  Most of the individual battles of World War II lost more Americans than the entire Iraq war has done so far.

But the stakes are at least as high: a world dominated by representative governments with civil rights, human rights, and personal freedoms--or a world dominated by a radical Islamic Wahhabi movement, and by the Jihad, under the Mullahs and the Sharia.

I do not understand why many Americans do not grasp this. Too much television I guess.

Many Americans profess to be in favor of human rights, civil rights, liberty, freedom, and all that.  But not for Iraqis, I guess. In America , but nowhere else. The 300,000 Iraqi bodies in mass graves in Iraq , not our problem.  The United States population is about twelve times that of Iraq , so let's multiply 300,000 by twelve.  What would you think if there were 3,600,000 American bodies in mass graves in America because of our president? Would you not want another country to help liberate America ?

''Peace Activists'' always seem to demonstrate where it's safe and ineffective to do so: in America . Why don't we see peace activists demonstrating in Iran , Syria , Iraq , Sudan , and North Korea ; in the places in the world that really need peace activism the most?

Are we not supposed to be in favor of human rights, civil rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc?  Well, if the Jihad wins and wherever the Jihad wins, it is the end of civil rights, human rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc. Americans who oppose the liberation of Iraq are coming down on the side of their own worst enemy. If the Jihad wins, it is the death of ALL OTHER "ISM'S!" Too many Americans JUST DON'T GET IT!

I TRULY BELIEVE THE ABOVE TO BE A MOST REALISTIC THREAT, NOT TO THE REPUBLICAN NOR DEMOCRATIC PARTY, BUT, FAR MORE IMPORTANT....TO OUR CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN, DEAR FRIENDS AND ALL FELLOW AMERICANS!!!

About the Writer: Raymond Kraft is a lawyer and writer living and working in Northern California . Raymond receives e-mail at [email protected].

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