"This Is A Battle We Must Not Lose"

We have learned and memorialized the lesson: the weak and defenseless are doomed. Doomed are they who do not believe those who threaten to eradicate them. Doomed are they who remain complacent and do not prepare themselves to thwart the danger. Doomed are they who entertain the false illusion that they could escape harm and that they could rely on the mercy of strangers.

-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Berlin Holocaust memorial, December 2006

We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies, we want that we will be able to live in an entirely different environment of relations with our enemies. We want them to be our friends, our partners, our good neighbors.

-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, eighteen months earlier

Which was the real Olmert? Do you have to ask? No wonder last summer's Israeli-Hezbollah/Hamas war turned out the way it did.

Elwood McQuaid wasn't impressed, either. Writing in the March/April edition of Israel My Glory magazine, he harbinged a warning that has particular relevance in light of the defeatist antics of congressional Democrats this week:

Doomed are they who entertain a false illusion of peace and mercy at the hands of their enemies. The fact is, peace and mercy never arrive. And concessions to tyrants are never a way to obtain them.

Strangely, however, it is the consistent illusion of the West that concessions, accompanied by expressions of benevolence and goodwill, ultimately will initiate a new sense of civility from propagators of violence, mayhem, and malevolence. It doesn't work that way - not in the real world.

Fortunately, there are those who, like the prophets of old, tell us the truth. When someone threatens to kill you, believe it....This is especially true in the environment of the Middle East. Hamas members say they exist to annihilate Israel. Believe them. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he intends to incinerate Israel [and America]. Believe him. [Osama bin Laden vows to slaughter four million Americans - believe him as well]

The great failure of Western politicians prior to World War II was their refusal to face the facts, hiding instead beneath a "peace in our time" illusion. We can no longer indulge such fiction. To be tired is understandable. We are all tired of war, conflict, and sacrifice....But to give cause to our enemies to view our condition as a terminal weakness is not only surrender; it is treason. Furthermore, it violates every sacrifice made by every patriot - American, Israeli, and others - who gave their last measure of freedom.

This is a battle we must not lose. Or else....we are doomed.

It appears to be the intractible tendency of democracies to always seek the easy way out until the hard way is the only option left. But in an age of nuclear weapons in the hands of irrational, bloodthirsty theocrats eager to die for their demon god, we don't have the luxury of allowing history to repeat itself.

The War Against Islamic Fundamentalism is not a game. It is not an elective. It is not escapable. And it is not a disposal partisan political prop. If we quit Iraq, and do not move against Iran and Syria, America as we have known it - free, prosperous, and protector of global peace - is finished.

The Islamists shout "Death to America!" and are trying to carry it out. The Democrats want to turn off the alarm system and leave all the doors unlocked. This is the hideous predicament into which the American people have put themselves.

2008 will be our last chance to avert national suicide. We can only pray that our countrymen make the most of it. The fate of all mankind may well depend upon it.