A few knee jerk thoughts:

Japan & Germany were advanced industrialized nations, Al Qaeda 
operatives live in caves and mud huts. The comparison of the potential 
spread of the axis to the potential spread of al qaida is ludicrous.
Axis fought for land and resources. Terrorists fight over ideas using 
hatred and violence. You can defend the former with military strength. 
Fighting ideas with your own hatred and violence only makes them 
stronger.
Terrorism is criminal act by loosely organized individuals, not a 
coherent overall enemy. It can only be fought by a) isolating and 
removing individual criminals, and b) reducing the conditions that 
cause people to become criminals. This is how we fight crime in this 
country, and how it is fought around the world. Using our army to 
invade a sovereign nation does pretty much the opposite of both of 
these. If we used our army to fight crime here in this country, I 
predict that you would you see terrorism on a scale that makes Iraq 
look like child's play.

I don't think the person who wrote this actually read a textbook. I 
look forward to reading textbooks about this "war" 25 years from now, 
it'll be interesting to see how actual historians compare them.

On Nov 9, 2006, at 10:27 AM, Christine Kapusky wrote:

> I received this from my family and am still trying to figure out who 
> the author is and where they got their information...it scares me that 
> this is circulating...
>
> THIS IS HISTORY THAT HAS BEEN LEFT OUT OF OUR TEXTBOOKS. MOST OF YOU 
> ARE
> >NOT OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER THAT NEARLY EVERY FAMILY IN AMERICA WAS 
> GROSSLY
> >AFFECTED BY WWII. MOST OF YOU DON'T REMEMBER THE RATIONING OF MEAT, 
> SHOES,
> >GASOLINE, AND SUGAR. NO TIRES FOR OUR AUTOMOBILES, AND A SPEED LIMIT 
> OF 35
> >MILES AN HOUR ON THE ROAD. NOT TO MENTION, NO NEW AUTOMOBILES. READ 
> THIS
> >AND THINK ABOUT HOW WE WOULD REACT TO BEING TAKEN OVER BY FOREIGNERS 
> IN
> >2007.
> >
> >This is an EXCELLENT essay. Well thought out and presented.
> >
> >Sixty-three years ago, Nazi Germany had overrun almost all of Europe 
> and
> >hammered England to the verge of bankruptcy and defeat, and had sunk 
> more
> >than four hundred British ships in their convoys between England and
> >America for food and war materials.
> >
> >At that time the US was in an isolationist, pacifist mood, and most
> >Americans wanted nothing to do with the European or the Asian war. 
> Then
> >along came Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and in outrage Congress
> >unanimously declared war on Japan, and the following day on Germany, 
> which
> >had not yet attacked us. It was a dicey thing. We had few allies. 
> France
> >was not an ally, as the Vichy government of France quickly aligned 
> itself
> >with its German occupiers. Germany was certainly not an ally, as 
> Hitler was
> >intent on setting up a Thousand Year Reich in Europe. Japan was not an
> >ally as it was well on its way to owning and controlling all of Asia.
> >
> >Together, Japan and Germany had long-range plans of invading Canada 
> and
> >Mexico, as launching pads to get into the United States over our 
> northern
> >and southern borders, after they finished gaining control of Asia and
> >Europe. America's only allies then were England, Ireland, Scotland, 
> Canada,
> >Australia, and Russia. That was about it. All of Europe, from Norway 
> to
> >Italy, except
> >Russia in the East, was already under the Nazi heel.
> >
> >America was certainly not prepared for war. America had drastically
> >downgraded most of its military forces after WWI and throughout the
> >depression, so that at the outbreak of WW2, army units were training 
> with
> >broomsticks because they didn't have guns, and cars with "tank" 
> painted on
> >the doors because they didn't have real tanks. And a huge chunk of 
> our navy
> >had just been sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor.
> >
> >Britain had already gone bankrupt, saved only by the donation of $600
> >million in gold bullion in the Bank of England, that was actually the
> >property of Belgium, given by Belgium to England to carry on the war 
> when
> >Belgium was overrun by Hitler (a little known fact). Actually, Belgium
> >surrendered in one day, because it was unable to oppose the German
> >invasion, and the Germans bombed Brussels into rubble the next day 
> just to
> >prove they could. Britain had already been holding out for two years 
> in the
> >face of staggering losses and the near decimation of its air force in 
> the
> >Battle of Britain, and was saved from being overrun by Germany only 
> because
> >Hitler made the mistake of thinking the Brits were a relatively minor
> >threat that could be dealt with later, and first turning his 
> attention to
> >Russia, at a time when England was on the verge of collapse, in the 
> late
> >summer of 1940.
> >
> >Ironically, Russia saved America's tail by putting up a desperate 
> fight for
> >two years, until the US got geared up to begin hammering away at 
> Germany.
> >Russia lost something like 24 million people in the sieges of 
> Stalingrad
> >and Moscow alone... 90% of them from cold and starvation, mostly 
> civilians,
> >but also more than a 1,000,000 soldiers. Had Russia surrendered, 
> Hitler
> >would have been able to focus his entire war effort against the 
> Brits, then
> >America. And the Nazis could possibly have won the war.
> >
> >All of this is to illustrate that turning points in history are often 
> dicey
> >things. And now, we find ourselves at another one of those key 
> moments in
> >history. There is a very dangerous minority in Islam that either has, 
> or
> >wants and may soon have, the ability to deliver small nuclear, 
> biological,
> >or chemical weapons, almost anywhere in the world.
>  >
> >The Jihads, the militant Muslims, are basically Nazis in Kaffiyahs -- 
> they
> >believe that Islam, a radically conservative form of Wahhabi Islam, 
> should
> >own and control the Middle East first, then Europe, then the world. 
> And
> >that all who do not bow to their will of thinking should be killed,
> >enslaved, or
> >subjugated. They want to finish the Holocaust, destroy Israel, and 
> purge
> >the world of Jews. This is their mantra.
> >
> >There is also a civil war raging in the Middle East --for the most 
> part not
> >a hot war, but a war of ideas. Islam is having its Inquisition and its
> >Reformation, but it is not known yet which will win --the 
> Inquisitors, or
> >the Reformationists.
> >
> >If the Inquisition wins, then the Wahhabis, the Jihads, will control 
> the
> >Middle East, the OPEC oil, and the US, European, and Asian economies. 
> The
> >techno-industrial economies will be at the mercy of OPEC --not an OPEC
> >dominated by the educated, rational Saudis of today, but an OPEC 
> dominated
> >by the Jihads. You want gas in your car? You want heating oil next 
> winter?
> >You want the dollar to be worth anything? You better hope the Jihad 
> the
> >Muslim Inquisition, loses, and the Islamic Reformation wins.
> >
> >If the Reformation movement wins, that is, the moderate Muslims who 
> believe
> >that Islam can respect and tolerate other religions, and live in 
> peace with
> >the rest of the world, and move out of the 10th century into the 
> 21st, then
> >the troubles in the Middle East will eventually fade away, and a 
> moderate
> >and prosperous Middle East will emerge.
> >
>  >We have to help the Reformation win, and to do that we have to fight 
> the
> >Inquisition, i.e., the Wahhabi movement, the Jihad, Al Qaeda and the
> >Islamic terrorist movements. We have to do it somewhere. And we can't 
> do it
> >everywhere at once. We have created a focal point for the battle at a 
> time
> >and place of our choosing........in Iraq. Not in New York, not in 
> London,
> >or Paris or Berlin, but in Iraq, where we are doing two important 
> things.
> >
> >(1) We deposed Saddam Hussein. Whether Saddam Hussein was directly 
> involved
> >in 9/11 or not, it is undisputed that Saddam has been actively 
> supporting
> >the terrorist movement for decades. Saddam is a terrorist. Saddam is, 
> or
> >was, a weapon of mass destruction, who is responsible for
> >the deaths of probably more than a million Iraqis a and two million
> >Iranians.
> >
> >(2) We created a battle, a confrontation, a flash point, with Islamic
> >terrorism in Iraq. We have focused the battle. We are killing bad 
> people,
> >and the ones we get there we won't have to get here. We also have a 
> good
> >shot at creating a democratic, peaceful Iraq, which will be a 
> catalyst for
> >democratic change in the rest of the Middle East, and an outpost for a
> >stabilizing American military presence in the Middle East for as long 
> as it
> >is needed.
> >
> >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 a war for fourteen years before 
> America
> >joined it. It officially ended in 1945 -- a 17 year war -- and was
> >followed by another decade of US 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 GDP -- adjusted for inflation, equal to about $12 trillion 
> dollars.
> >WWII cost America more than 400,000 killed in action, and nearly 
> 100,000
> >still missing in action.
> >
> >The Iraq war has, so far, cost the US about $160 billion, which is 
> roughly
> >what 9/11 cost New York. It has also cost about 2,200 American lives, 
> which
> >is roughly 2/3 of the 3,000 lives that the Jihad snuffed on 9/11. 
>  But the
> >cost of not fighting and winning WWII would have been unimaginably 
> greater
> >-- a world dominated by German and Japanese Nazism.
> >
> >This is not 60 minute TV 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. Always has been, and probably always will 
> be.
> >
> >The bottom line is that we will have to deal with Islamic terrorism 
> until
> >we defeat it, whenever that is. It will not go away if we ignore it.
> >
> >If the US 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
> >barbaric are about to get nuclear weapons. Unless somebody prevents 
> them.
> >
> >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, of
> >course, be more dangerous, more expensive, and much bloodier.
> >
> >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.
> >
> >The history of the world is the history of civilization clashes, 
> 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.
> >
> >Remember, perspective is every thing, and America's schools teach too
> >little history for perspective to be clear, especially in the young
> >American mind.
> >
> >The Cold war lasted from about 1947 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 US still has troops in Germany and Japan. WWII resulted in the
> >death of more than 50 million people, maybe more than 100 million 
> people,
> >depending on which estimates you accept. The US has taken more than 
> 2,000
> >killed in action in Iraq. The US took more than 4,000 killed in 
> action on
> >the morning of June 6, 1944, the first day the Normandy Invasion to 
> rid
> >Europe of Nazi Imperialism. In WWII the US averaged 2,000 KIA a week 
> -- for
> >four years. Most of the individual battles of WWII 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, by the Jihad, 
> under
> >the Mullahs and the Sharia (Islamic law).
> >
> >It's difficult to understand why some Americans do not grasp this. 
> They
>  >favor human rights, civil rights, liberty and freedom, but evidently 
> not
> >for Iraqis.
> >
> >"Peace Activists" always seem to demonstrate here in America, where 
> it's
> >safe. Why don't we see Peace Activist demonstrating in Iran, Syria, 
> Iraq,
> >Sudan, North Korea, in the places that really need peace activism the 
> most?
> >
> >The liberal mentality is supposed to favor human rights, civil rights,
> >democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc., but if the Jihad wins,
> >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.
> >
> >
>
> -- 
> Fortune cookie gems:
> "Creating is the greatest proof of being alive."
>
> "Sometimes the best choice is to choose all options."
> ~ck~
>
David P. Morris, PhD
Senior Engineer, ElectroDynamic Applications, Inc.
morris Æ edapplications.com, (734) 786-1434, fax: (734) 786-3235