WHO IS TAKING THE BRUNT OF ISLAM'S ATTACK ON THE WEST?

Who is dying in the war against us by Islam? (Oh pulleeze! Not "Islamic extremism" or "radical Islam" or "a tiny minority of . . . ," etc., etc., etc.)

You can see their faces--those of the dead--in uniform, on some of our News channels (even the crappy ones that suck up to the Arab Moslems because they are watched in the Arab world and have Saudi investment [but one does have a socially redeeming feature by giving Glenn Beck lots of airtime.]) They show them on PBS to make us feel guilt--for our government having sent fighting men to Iraq. The faces are the faces of the fallen, the dead, our dead.

Most of them are the faces of the young, the brave, our finest. Never mind that Kerry arrogantly relegates them to the category of failures, those who couldn't cut it in academia; the senator is an anal orifice. These young men and women chose the military as a profession. In the United States their profession has a history stretching back to before our Revolution. Without fighters, there would not have been a Revolution, and we would today be subjects of the British monarch. (And the Moslem-placating sad remnant of what was once a glorious empire. [You do not like that empire--on which the sun never set? Why? Because there were people in its colonies that were not "free?" Well, my friends, today these self-same people are "free," of the British, but under oppressive rulers that may be of the same color and nationality but far worse than the British ever were.]) But I digress, back to our fallen heroes.

There is that congressman who with a gravelly voice tells us that the men and women in our volunteer armed forces come from an underclass, not from the elite, the people who govern our country. He hoarsely urges a draft--everybody goes, whether they want to or not. When push came to shove and we were fighting for our country's existence--as we did in World War II--a non-volunteer, citizen army was necessary. Whether people who are forced to go into the military are as effective as those who want to fight is questionable. Some have it in them to become warriors, others hide behind cover and never fire a weapon.

Highly trained contingents such as our United States Marines, Army Rangers, Navy Seals and other Special Forces are certain to use their weapons and do a professional job, whether they agree with the politics enveloping the conflict or not.

People enlist in a volunteer military for various reasons. If it is to further their education or to stay as professionals and retire earlier than the rest of the population, it is an honorable vocation.

Not all of the dead are in their late teens or their twenties. There are older enlisted men and officers equal in age to civilians back in the States that have wives and children. They will never see their loved ones again.

On PBS, Jim Lehrer showed twenty of the dead--with accompanying dead air--silence. Out of reverence for our dead? Or to make us feel ashamed?

Everyone publicly gives lip service to supporting our troops. Yes, they support the troops, but not the war. During Vietnam time, the anti-American Americans spat on our troops, derided them, or accused them of atrocities as did that same John Kerry, U.S. Senator, and an . . . you know what I said about him before.

Now, I am not a G. W. Bush fan, for a multitude of reasons, but our enemies want to kill Americans, as much as they hanker to kill Jews. If there are no Americans--armed Americans-- to discourage them from this yearning, where do you think they will find massed, unprotected Americans? They did on 9-11, and the jihadists will try to serve their allah by coming over here to placate him with human blood (ours or theirs).

This sounds like the Bush line justifying being in Iraq. (I would've liked it better had he attacked the Saudis.) During Bush's predecessors' tenure, however, a destroyer was attacked by the jihad boys, embassies were blasted, bodies of American fighting men were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu by howling Moslem mobs, a couple of hundred US Marines had to die in Beirut without firing a shot, and the greatest humiliation of all was when the toothy Jimmy Carter allowed the Iranians to take and keep American hostages and take over the American embassy in what should have been considered an act of war.

This is not the time to discuss whether we should stay in Iraq and what should've been done, could've been done. This is the time to honor our dead. They died defending our way of life, whether it was in Iraq or Afghanistan or on some mission against the enemy that must forever remain unknown.

Countries that do not have a fighting military, and that have what others want, cannot survive. If we rush to draft our men (and perhaps women), the elite will supply the officer class. Will these officers measure up to our professional officers? Some civilians turned officers become fighting men, others take cushy jobs (you've seen it in world War II movies.)

When I am near military installations, I see young men and women who volunteered, who enlisted. I talk to them and it saddens me that some will die, never having reached the age of twenty.

We did not want this war, we did nothing to justify Islamic jihadists crashing planes into our buildings and killing thousands of people. It is their war against us. Islam's eternal war seeking to make the entire world Islamic.

There is no glory in war. There is, however, honor, We must honor those that died in the war that has yet to reach its zenith, that we must hope and pray will not rage through our streets, in our mountains, our fields, our villages and towns.

First published at the now-censored and -locked "Islamic Danger" on 11/30/06