Conventional wisdom is that whatever happens between Israel and radical Islam will also be the fate of Western nations, especially the United States. The continued appeasement of Hamas and Fatah by the Israeli government and its failure to thoroughly defeat Hezbollah in last summer’s war validates the contention that without strong political resolve it is impossible to be victorious over radical Islamofascists. As Congress moves forward in its renewed attempt at forcing the US military out of Iraq we would be wise to examine Israel’s current situation more carefully as it is a precursor of things to come.

DEBKAfile, a publication specializing in intelligence ignored by the mainstream media, reported that on July 8, 2007, Hamas and Fatah officials met in Stockholm to begin what should be a fairly expedited negotiation toward reconciling the differences that brought them to civil war in Gaza. The report stated that under the watchful eye of Iranian and Syrian ambassadors, Hamas operations Chief Imad al Alami met with PLO ambassador to Sweden Eugine Makhloof in an effort to hasten that reconciliation.

When this reconciliation concludes Israel will find itself in a most precarious situation. It will have militant Hamas, armed and funded by Iran, at its southeastern border complete with coastal access and Fatah, newly funded by the naïve actions of Israel and the international community, on its eastern border at what forms a choke point for Israel between the West Bank and the Mediterranean. To make matters worse, Iran’s proxy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Syria, sits ominously on Israel’s northern border, as does Hezbollah-heavy southern Lebanon.

As Syria issues calls for all of its nationals to evacuate Lebanon before July 15 in preparation for "an eruption of violence,” one can legitimately assume that this violence will involve Israel and Hezbollah and perhaps even see the newly reconciled Hamas and Fatah factions engaging Israel as well. Israel, under the weakened leadership of "dove” Ehud Olmert, would be forced to battle a re-enforced and rejuvenated Hezbollah in the north while having to protect its eastern and western flanks simultaneously.

Through it’s dovish approach to Hezbollah and its appeasement-based approach to Hamas, Fatah and the PLO, Israel has allowed itself to be surrounded by well-armed and financed terrorist factions whose charters include the extermination of the Israeli state, all three factions in symbiosis with the goals of a diabolical and genocidal mad man, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The lesson to be learned here is the same one that should have been learned at the end of World War II and at the end of the Vietnam War. Appeasement and a conciliatory approach to those whose stated goals are the violent defeat of free nations and the conquest of the world – for political, ideological or religious reasons, or perhaps all three – results in a greater loss of life, liberty and freedom. Pacification’s consequence is the establishment of a base of power and development for the fascist leaders who quest to achieve the domination of the world, the key word here being domination.

Sadly and astoundingly, those one dimensional, visionless ideologues who "wage peace” here in the United States – and in every country afflicted with a Fifth Column – have failed to learn the lessons brought forth by the death, destruction, barbarity and inhumanity of Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot. It appears all they can derive from the current conflict, all they can recognize is violence for violence’s sake. They either won’t acknowledge or can’t comprehend that, when faced with the virulent evil that only man can conjure, violence must be deployed in an effort to secure the good while defeating the evil.

It must be recognized, understood, accepted and declared – repeatedly – that those terrorizing the people of Iraq are not US and coalition forces but those of a totalitarian and oppressive ideology affiliated with al Qaeda.

As, one by one, the US Marines who were accused of atrocities in Haditha by the likes of John Murtha – accused without a hearing on the facts, accused without sound evidence – are vindicated, independent and revered battlefield reporter Michael Yon is covering the discovery of mass graves filled with decapitated male children outside of Baqubah. It isn’t US and coalition forces who are slaughtering Iraq’s youth and filling these graves, it is al Qaeda linked Islamofascists hell-bent on the domination of the Iraqi people.

One grisly and grotesque event that Yon reported on was so horrific that many who read it immediately doubted its validity, human nature not allowing for the comprehension of such barbarity. He reported having talked with political leaders in Baqubah who had emerged from hiding after Operation Arrowhead Ripper liberated that village. One political leader, speaking to Yon and US military personnel, commented on how al Qaeda toadies "persuaded” locals not to cooperate with liberation forces by "inviting them to lunch.” When lunch was served these locals, parents of a young boy who had been "recruited” by al Qaeda militia, were served, stuffed and baked, the decapitated head of their son.

Only pure, potent, heartless evil could conceive something so inhumane, so infinitely cruel, so stunningly devastating to civilized society. Yet that is exactly their goal, to achieve terror, to frighten the lesser among us so that we acquiesce without a fight.

When one accepts that al Qaeda henchmen routinely saw the heads of human beings while singing and dancing, while praising their god, it doesn’t take much to realize that this primitive and disturbed ideology is capable of such horrors. Further it becomes plain to see – at least to those of us willing to embrace reality – that this "religion of peace” is anything but. In fact, it would be more accurate to depict the death merchants of this over-glorified cult as practicing the "religion of rest in peace.”

As Democrats in the House once again try to force the Executive Branch into retreat, withdrawal and surrender on the battlefields of Iraq we would be wise to ask them, "What then? If you get your way and we withdraw our troops, what then?”

If we withdraw our troops will the American people be safer from the tactics of radical Islamofascism or will we have simply offered up the entire country of Iraq as a new power-base for radical Islamofascist forces?

If we withdraw our troops from the battlefields of Iraq, battlefields where we are currently waging war against al Qaeda militants, terrorists, those who serve the heads of children to their parents for lunch, will the anti-war proponents, guarantee that al Qaeda won’t continue their quest for a global Caliphate? Will they guarantee that al Qaeda won’t bring the battle to the streets of Chicago, New York, Los Angeles or Washington DC as they demonstrated they are willing to do in 1993 and 2001?

If we withdraw our troops from Iraq, will the anti-war faction in Congress guarantee that there will be no ensuing slaughter of the Iraqi people for daring to want liberty, for daring to embrace the idea of a free society? Will they guarantee there will be no repeat of the genocide that killed millions in Cambodia after the "peace movement” forced our weak-willed politicians into abandoning our treaty with the South Vietnamese people?

If we withdraw our troops from Iraq and abandon the most perfect staging base from which to combat Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s fascist Iranian forces and the tyrannical forces of Islamofascism, will the anti-war American Fifth Column guarantee that the word of the American government, in the form of treaties, won’t be valued as worthless because we have been forced once again to abandon a people to slaughter?

As Leftist, Fifth Column political leaders in Washington DC once again debate the removal of US forces from the Iraqi theater we should all demand the answers to these questions. Any leader who flippantly grants the guarantees demanded in the above questions is either a liar or a fool. Any leader who is standing in solidarity with the anti-war "troops out now” movement who can’t answer even one of the questions above is either an idiot or a political opportunist more concerned with his own political longevity than in making the world a safer place for our children and our children’s children.

We need to examine our past and the undeniable mistakes we have made at the altar of the "anything for peace, anything but war” movement before we condemn 13 million people to the mass graves of the Iraqi desert. We need to examine the situation Israel currently find itself in through its policy of appeasement and its dovish approach to those who want them exterminated.

We, the American people, need to examine just what the anti-war movement has achieved during its existence other than forcing the abandonment of our allies and the slaughter of millions in the aftermath of our departure.

From where I stand, we would all be better off if those who "wage peace” did it in Iran, Syria, Gaza and the West Bank instead of Washington, New York Chicago and L.A. But then, it wouldn’t be safe for them to do so, now would it. Gee, I wonder why?