37 minutes ago the video was released of the beheading of the second of the three hostages.

The concept of jihad, or holy war, is alien to this country. Except for the ranks of evangelical and/or fundamentalist christians it has not been a part of our culture for two hundred years. Even then it was between Christian sects slaughtering each other. A well known minister in Salem Massachusetts was trying to have the Quakers drowned by the master of the ship that was bringing them to this country.

Every day I hear about outbursts from moslem fundamentalists threatening to take over Europe in the name of Allah. I have to check some rather obscure sites to find it, but it is out there. I find it frightening and horrifying.

I am not certain there was ever a solution to this situation. I am certain that invading Iraq did not help matters. I have also long held the belief that even if we isolated ourselves from the rest of the world, sooner or later jihad would land at our doorstep. In a world where the have nots out number the haves by such a large majority, it can be no wonder that people would look for a way to become one of the haves. To the Islamic fundamentalists, Allah promised control of the world and all of its good things to them. So they feel completely justified and remorseless in coming after us. They demonized us long ago.

Another thing that troubles me is the blindness of history. The Islamists talk about the crusaders who invaded their nations in the Middle Ages, but they ignore the fact that they first invaded Europe and were stopped in Spain and the edges of France by Charles Martel and Charlemagne. In the eastern sections it was people like Vlad the Impaler who stopped them in Europe. Long before the Crusaders landed on their shores, they had first gone to Europe, both the Western and the Eastern sections of it to convert with the sword the people like ourselves.

I don't have answers, only questions.