The Gazette is dealing with some extra challenges this morning. I regret I don’t have more time for this column. I’ll try to summarize some thoughts about Syria and how we are dealing with the conflict.

I don’t know when I have had to disagree with so many prominent conservatives whose opinions I usually agree with. The issue is whether or not America should use its military power to attack Syria for “alleged” poison gas attacks by President Bashar al-Assad on his own people, multiple times. The attacks are reported to have killed thousands including nearly 500 children.

For more than 12 years America has expended its gold ($trillions) and blood (tens of thousands) in wars to free and assist Islamic nations of the Near East from killing themselves in their civil and religious wars. For all of the hundreds of billions of dollars America has given (of our taxpayer’s money) to hate factories like Pakistan, we are hated all the more.

What America has to get into its head is the fact that ALL of this incessant bloodletting is due to one thing, religion. More particularly, it’s all due to the fundamental Koranic command of perpetual war (Jihad) against all unbelievers of Islam. We should emphasize the word “perpetual” which is war without end, until the world is subdued by Islam.

Who are the “unbelievers”? They are those who, for any reason do not believe in Islam or its Prophet; that’s more than 5 billion human beings. This is problematic for many reasons because Muslim believers have violently disagreed about who the true believers are for 1,400 years. Ask any Sunni Muslim if Shi’ite Muslims are true believers and see what happens. Ask any Shi’ite believer the same for Sunni Muslims and get an opposite answer. These two groups, for whom we have shed our blood and treasure to bring the blessings of peace and justice all these years, remain the primary targets of their own murderous hatred. After leaving Iraq and Afghanistan behind America can take little comfort in what its Christian beneficence has facilitated there. This is why, by Koranic command, Muslim nations will never know peace without complete Muslim homogeneity.

I’ve come a long way from the issue of whether to attack the Assad government in Syria. Assad is a criminal, as was his father and most of his immediate family. Syria has been accurately described as the Assad family business. But most Middle East dictators are thugs and criminals; nothing new there.

What is new, however, is the fact that the “family” has decided to inflict a different kind of terror on its Syrian people by the use of poison gas. This particular weapon has been banned since shortly after WWI as intolerably inhumane. It is designated a weapon of mass destruction, like atomic, biological, and radiological weapons. Would we act so reluctantly after the use of smallpox?

America has a profound moral duty to respond militarily to such an outrage, despite the fact that we are war-weary as a nation with self-inflicted military emasculations. Doing nothing to retaliate, or doing minimal damage to the enemy, invites more of the same crimes. Iran’s Muslim Jihadists are salivating for conflict. Western weakness energizes their bomb-making activity. Imagine the consequences of a weak military response, or no response, to Assad’s gas attacks on the Iranian government. Imagine Iran dispensing atomic weapons to all its terrorist friends. How could America control that proliferation? Miniature A-bombs have been produced since the 1950s (check-out the “Davy Crockett” atomic mortar). A few weeks ago Turkey arrested some terrorists at the Syrian-Turkey border. They were caught with a 2kg canister of sarin gas. Where might others be? They are apparently very transportable. But, maybe our strong southern border protections will prevent gas attacks in America.

Reluctant as America may be to engage in more Muslim conflicts, a strong retaliation is the only moral choice.