We had a wonderful extended Easter vacation, living in what the Swiss would call a mountain chalet, but what we Americans label a lodge. I was the guest of my sister-in-law and my late brother's family on the traditional Easter gathering of their family. For years, including last year, the family met in Destin, a halfway point between Central Florida and the Missouri homes of some of their children and grandchildren. But, this year they decided to forego the beachfront luxury condo scene for a more modest, three stories, ten bathrooms, twelve bedrooms, "cabin" atop one of the beautiful Smokey Mountains. One doesn't mention this "Republican" type living to boast, but rather to illustrate how my family, rabid staunch members of the Democrat Party, including my late brother's "Bush bashing," beautiful as she is brilliant, six-year-old granddaughter, have joined the financial mainstream of the leadership of our Democrat party. I, among them all, am the real Democrat! But, they tend to look on my views of the war in Iraq, the Middle East jihad, Jimmy Carter, and John Kerry, and Bill Clinton's new job (de facto lobbyist) as PR man for the United Arab Emirates, as the equivalent of the ravings of an old "spinster" auntie, who's let out of the attic only on Easter and Christmas. They love me to a fault, but still one can be intimidated by them, especially when they have one as a "political prisoner"in a huge house that can only be reached by driving miles up a barely two-way mountain road, that was perilously curvy, and scarcely black-toped. It was a road that slithered like a snake. The final portion of the ever upward, become one- way, "road" crumbled into crushed gravel. It was the road of ultimate salvation, because it forced one to embrace all the world's major religions, one blind curve at a time.

The political verbal abuse began at the first sunset. Yet, one had some defenses. For example, whenever stark remarks, like "I hate George Bush," were hurled into the magic final moments of a spectacular mountain-tinging sunset; one learned, as the lone dissenter, to peacefully escape such intimidating moments by skulking [that means slinking, boys] from the lodge's hugely elongated upper balcony, while mumbling something as simple as, "I think I'll have another martini." If I slept unusually well in those mountains, it might have been because of the frequency of those late evening anti-presidential policy remarks?

We're all back safely in our various homes, with most family members a thousand miles away. Thus, one writes this column with no fear of immediate, eyeball to eyeball, rebuke, nor political censor from them. That is, the worst that they can, and do, "do," is to send e-mails accusing me of being an apostate [means heretic, disloyal, boys] Democrat. So, let me get a few personal opinions on the record.

One starts with a question: Is the Bush administration's aim of making democracies of the Middle East essential to the defeat of terrorism? The answer is "no." I believe, however, that the Bush administration's appraisal of the "radical"Islamist threat is approximately correct. Yet, I deplore the use of the term "radical Islamist," because it is "fundamental" Islam that we're dealing with all over the world. Islam as Islam was meant to be. "Kill the unrepentent infidels" has been the recurrent theme from day one of "Islam."

Al Qaeda and its allies have put aside their individual "denominational" (to borrow a term from Christian religious heresies) differences in order to inflict as much "united" pain on us and our allies as possible. They have successfully frightened France and Germany (both countries have large Muslim minorities), and colluded with Russia, in their attempt to kick American power out of the Middle East. With threatening American power present, and with the strength and determination of Israel in the area, al Qaeda can't overthrow those Arab governments and kingdoms that we must " manage," for the sake of our oil enslavement. That means their dream of uniting all of the Middle East, and Indonesia, and states of the former Yugoslavia (except non-Islamic Serbia, that time will make us wish we had as an ally) into one huge Islamic caliphate cannot happen. A "caliphate" is a government under the strict control of a Caliph, a single spiritual leader. Such leaders are common in the history of Islam. The earliest Caliphs were direct descendants of Muhammad, but those "descendants" became in time victims of the Caliphs with the most power, most of whom were not related to Muhammad.

Osama bin Laden sees himself as the next great Caliph. He has concocted a half-assed (donkey-like?) religious (Islamic) justification for the terrorists to put no limit on the numbers they are willing to kill to achieve their goals. All that stands in their way is, for the moment, thanks to our intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the fear that we have put into such countries as Syria and Lybia, is the shortage of money to continue at the speed in which they were advancing before we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. But, as we have often written in this column since 9/11, the Saudi Arabians are still the main financiers of Islamic savagery, using their world capabilities for "laundering" money (often with the help of European branches of American banks) to be used by Islamic savages.

We Americans must be reminded that while al Qaeda can't defeat us militarily, they can, with a few well placed contaminated bombs or decanters of anthrax, impose terrible human and financial costs on us. Because the terrorists can strike us here at home at any time, and because there is really no way to prevent them from striking us here, they could force us to close down our open society, causing us to lose one basic freedom after another. A simultaneous anthrax attack, say, in Natchez and St. Louis, or the blowing up the bridges over the Mississippi river, from New Orleans to Caruthersville, could throw us into martial law for the next twenty-five years. Such attacks cannot be prevented. We are a target rich country. So vulnerable are we in so many thousands of places in this blessed land of ours, that it is virtually impossible to prevent al Qaeda sympathizers, already here, from acting. Our only hope is to consistently demontraate our willingness for cruel and swift, "shock and awe," destruction, as in Iraq, to the leadership of hostile Middle Eastern countries. They must be certain that al Qaeda type attacks on our homeland will cost them dearly in their country. It's an ugly scene to imagine, but be ready, for al Qaeda operatives, already here, will attack us the moment their governments in the Middle East think we are too "war weary" to strike back. Our willingness to strike any enemy quickly and viciously must be forever on the minds of those who would order and finance the murder of masses of our citizens.

Finally, politicians who would sacrifice the safety of every man, woman, and child in this country, just to win an election, by preaching "peaceful" solutions, when no such solutions exist, are the moral equivalents of Osama bin Laden. The last century gave us plenty of examples of where "pacifism" leads.

Kenneth Kinchen is an independent writer with a background in international business and foreign service contracting.