“DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Islamic Fascist. Papa says, ‘If you see it on Fox News, it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth; is there an Islamic Fascist?”

Virginia O’Hanlon

c/o Benador Associates

Washington, D.C.

VIRGINIA, your friends are twisted, sniveling, spineless little Chamberlains. They do not believe except what they see in the mainstream media. They have been affected by the cynicism and moral confusion of a post-9/11 age. Your little friends are WRONG! They want to toss in the towel, while the enemy is waiting and hoping that we will do just that.

Yes, Virginia, there is a transnational terrorist movement fueled by a radical ideology  Islamic Fascism. The Islamic Fascist exists as certainly as hatred, oppression, and murder exist.

Your little friends think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. But all minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, the American who gets his information from the mainstream media is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge  the global vision of people we can rely on  on Cheney, on Rice, on Rumsfeld and Bolton; on Perle, on Wurmser, on Abrams and Kristol.

The Islamic Fascists hate us for our freedom, Virginia.

The Long War we fight today is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century against an enemy who lusts to turn back the advance of freedom and impose a dark vision of tyranny across the world.

Tell your little friends that is why we are in Iraq. The Islamic Fascists made clear that the most important front in their struggle against America is Iraq  the “capital of the Caliphate.” Iraq is the central battlefield where the outcome of this struggle will be decided. They would have a new sanctuary to recruit and train terrorists at the heart of the Middle East, with huge oil riches to fund their ambitions.

If we give up the fight in the streets of Baghdad, we will face the terrorists in the streets of our own cities.

Tell your papa, Virginia, that this Caliphate would be a totalitarian Islamic empire encompassing all current and former Muslim lands, stretching from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. We know this because the enemy has told us. True, the enemy lies constantly  almost totally without penalty. They are actively manipulating the media in this country. They can lie with impunity. They portray our cause as a war on Islam when in fact the overwhelming majority of victims of their terrorism have been the thousands and thousands of innocent Muslims  men, women, and children  that they have killed.

When the enemy says things that, if true, would justify our Long War on Terror, why, Virginia, then we know they must be true! But when they say things that, if true, would not, why, then, we know they must be lies!

Alas! I know that you do not want to believe, Virginia  but imagine how dangerous would be the world if there were no Islamic Fascists to believe in! There would be no childlike faith then, no dread for the president to draw on to help you and your little friends understand that the War on Terror must be without shape and without end. We should then have no mission, accomplished or otherwise. The eternal darkness of fear which fills the world and keeps us in dread would be extinguished and leave us unprepared  until the final proof  the smoking gun  that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.

Not believe in the Islamic Fascist? You might as well not believe that Jesus will return to judge us all once Israel reigns from the Nile to the Euphrates!

You might get your papa to hire some ex-CIA contractors to watch all the borders of the homeland on Ramadan eve. But even if they did not see an Islamic Fascist coming across strapped in dynamite, what would that prove? Nobody sees Islamic Fascism  but that is no sign that there are no Islamic Fascists. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see evil fairies dancing on the White House lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the terrors there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

We tear apart Iraq and see if there are WMD  but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. There are known knowns, Virginia; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns, that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns  the ones we don’t know we don’t know. Only faith, fancy, and fear can push aside that curtain and view the terror beyond.

Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. No Islamic Fascist? Thank GOD! He lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to strike terror into the heart of childhood.

You see, Virginia, the Islamic Fascist is our strategy for this Long War.

I know you will believe, and will do your part too in the Long War. And tell your little friends  and your papa too  they better watch what they say. We are listening, Virginia. We are listening all year round.

Inspired by Francis Pharcellus Church, “Is There a Santa Claus?” New York Sun, Sept. 21, 1897; the Office of the President’s “National Strategy for Combating Terrorism,” September 2006; and the disturbed oratory of Bush, Rumsfeld, and Cheney, Aug. 30, 2006, through Sept. 9, 2006.