That's More Like It

US President George W. Bush said the September 11 revolt of passengers against their hijackers on board Flight 93 had struck the first blow of "World War III."

It's worth recalling that a huge, unprovoked attack on U.S. soil prompted the U.S. to declare war on Japan -- as well as Germany, a country that had no involvement in Pearl Harbor and posed no direct threat to America.

Yet where were the cries of "Roosevelt lied"? "No blood for oil"? (After all, the U.S. oil embargo was Japan's pretext for the attack.) Who called Churchill "Roosevelt's lackey"? Who gave a rat's ass about German and Japanese civilians, in Dresden and Tokyo and Nagasaki? Who got the vapors over the summary trial and execution of 8 Nazi saboteurs? Who marched in the streets over U.S. v. Korematsu? Who whined about "victor's justice" at Nuremburg?

A handful of sympathizers and the occasional deranged crank, that's who. Every American was in the fight, buying war bonds, sweating in munitions factories, and getting by on slim rations of butter, meat, nylon, and rubber.

Now, four-and-a-half years into WWIII, maybe we can start putting things in perspective, and speaking frankly about the ideology and goals of the Islamist Axis.

And commit ourselves to smashing it -- before it smashes us.