The political season brings out the worst in both sides. Too many people treat real world politics as a game. Not as a computer game, but a game of intellectual exercise. What they forget is that there are monsters out there. And once in a great while, a monster gets loose.

In the 20th century, Hitler and his ilk were allowed to run amok across Europe and besides the 30 million or so who died in actual in the war, another 12 million were executed simply because they weren't the correct race or creed. In Rwanda, nearly a million people were slaughtered for not being of the right tribe. That was only a few years ago.

You would think given these examples and others that people would recognize the obvious - there are monsters out there, and once in awhile, a monster gets a hold of the means to do great harm. Al Qaeda is one such monster. But you wouldn't know that based on some of the things you hear. The bombing in Spain seems to have woken up some people in Europe finally. Which is ironic because what happened in Spain was trivial compared to 9/11.

Luckily, adults are in charge. The kids can go hang out on-line or protest somewhere but the adults are the ones making the real decisions. And for them, they understand what Al Qaeda and its ilk really is. So let me share with you what the goal of Bin Laden is: The complete and total transformation of all the world to Islam. Those who are willing to be subjugated to their laws (Islam's not just a religion, it's a form of government) will be spared. Those who resist will be killed. It's that simple. The United States was attacked because it represents the largest obstacle to that goal.

Some people will say "Well, the US had that base in Saudi Arabia and if we hadn't had that, maybe he wouldn't have attacked." And why were we in Saudi Arabia? Because we were asked to by the government of Saudi Arabia. Why? Because Iraq had recently invaded Kuwait and wanted US presence in the area "just in case". We weren't there as part of some sort of imperialistic crusade. We were there to help protect others. Just like we did in Korea (and South Korea was a rural society in 1949, so don't delude yourself into thinking that was about some natural resource). And it's irrelevant anyway. Sooner or later we would have been targeted. Lucky they had to strike sooner, before they had nuclear weapons, rather than later so that we can begin actively resisting them now.

Al Qaeda makes it clear that it will do anything, and I mean anything to bring about its goals. It will kill innocents wholesale.  We should take them very seriously. Seriously enough to consider how 9/11 might have been with chemical or biological or nuclear weapons. And then perhaps the kids who treat this all as some far off intellectual game might come to understand maybe why Saddam had to be removed from power rather than fixating on whether he had actual stockpiles on hand at the end.

I wasn't willing to gamble the life of my wife and children to placate some college student or some European intellectual in Belgium. I know, and continue to know, that Al Qaeda will use whatever it has to murder people in large numbers to reach its publicly stated goals. And if Iraq didn't have WMD on hand, I don't care, because I do know what his intent was and what it was in the long term. I have always known that which is why I supported the war regardless of whether stockpiles were found. I understood and continue to understand that Iraq was part of the war on terror.

But not everyone understands because to them, it's still just a game. But it's not a game to Al Qaeda. To them, it's serious. Deadly serious.

Consider Bin Laden's own statement to the American people:

The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.

The religion of the Unification of God; of freedom from associating partners with Him, and rejection of this; of complete love of Him, the Exalted; of complete submission to His Laws; and of the discarding of all the opinions, orders, theories and religions which contradict with the religion He sent down to His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Islam is the religion of all the prophets, and makes no distinction between them - peace be upon them all.

It is to this religion that we call you; the seal of all the previous religions....

call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest...

You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator...

You are the nation that permits Usury, which has been forbidden by all the religions. Yet you build your economy and investments on Usury. As a result of this, in all its different forms and guises, the Jews have taken control of your economy, through which they have then taken control of your media, and now control all aspects of your life making you their servants and achieving their aims at your expense; precisely what Benjamin Franklin warned you against...

The full text can be found here.

The first thing Al Qaeda wants is the full conversion to Islam. He makes that clear. This isn't US propaganda. This isn't George Bush trying to scare you. This is what Al Qaeda specifically wants. This is what all the killing has been about. 

You can tell it's a game to some people because the same people who argue against US resistance to Al Qaeda are the people who would suffer the most under the rule of Islam.  The same people who can jump from one discussion supporting gay marriage or telling everyone that was unhappy about Janet Jackson's breast exposure should "get a life" are the ones who will then go on and say that he has a lot of good points.  Huh? They'll post how capital punishment is a "human rights violation" while pretending to understand that to be gay under Islam is to be executed? That usury (that's borrowing with interest) would be banned? You have a mortgage? A car payment? A credit card bill? Forget it.  In Iran, for instance, Janet Jackson would have been executed by the government, if she were lucky. Stoned to death if she were not. But some people will put Al Qaeda and the US on morally equal grounds? Clearly, these are unserious people arguing about serious things.

And don't forget that paranoid Jew hating thrown in there, just to make sure that there's no mistake about the would-be Fuhrer's intentions are.

But some people see all this is just another playing card in their game of philosophical objection to the United States or its leaders. So soft and so naive that they write from their places of luxury as if there really are no monsters out there. To them, George Bush is "the monster" even though they have no understanding of what real monsters would do to them.  They think it's all part of some quest for oil or <insert natural resource X here>. Or imperialism or whatever. It's not. It's about our way of life. Our existence outrages them.

These people want to eliminate our way of life. They find our way of life appalling.  They find it immoral and dishonorable. And they plan to make us change it either by voluntarily converting ourselves to their way or by killing every man, woman, or child that resists or may resist them. We're not just fighting some ideology or some far away concept. We're fighting for our lives.

You can't negotiate with a side whose primary demand is that you cease to exist. You can't ignore people who are working towards gaining the means to kill increasing numbers of people. You can't wait until it's a mushroom cloud over your city to act. Al Qaeda and its ilk were not created by the CIA or some American group as some smug yet ignorant people seem to think. I say smug because it demonstrates an arrogance -- that other peoples are incapable of putting together such a movement and such an organization on their own. They believe in what they're doing. They believe they're doing God's work and the only way they'll be stopped is if someone stops them.

Thankfully, the adults are in charge. Regardless of who wins in November, don't kid yourself that the US will change its course. Both candidates, luckily, know that there are monsters out there that have to be dealt with.