As Congressman Peter King ended hearings on a pertinent subject, danger signs are everywhere. Like Europe in the 1930s, America is sleepwalking towards world war. Our leaders and most of the mainstream press overlook or excuse them, or admonish those who spotlight the portents. Racists! Bigots. “Islam is a religion of peace,” they exhort. “The majority don’t want Jihad.”

Meanwhile, Militant Islam surges, infiltrating Europe in ever-widening enclaves, changing its Western culture and laws, threatening non-Muslim citizens. Its soldiers wage war in Africa and the Middle East, especially against Christians and Jews, the religions of the large majority of people it threatens. They behead and maim innocents and use their young as suicide bombers.

In the US, with their insulated communities growing, they’ve drastically changed cities like Detroit, Mich., where the Muslim call to worship is now a common sound. They push for dictatorial Sharia Law which outlaws homosexuals, woman’s rights, and dissenters – precisely the societal reforms their naive non-Muslim defenders champion.

Yes, the majority of Muslims seem peaceful, law-abiding and, in America, loyal. Yes, they may occasionally tip the police to wrong doing. But as Paul E. Marek, a Canadian blogger whose parents luckily awoke from Europe’s sleep to escape the Nazis, wrote: Peace-loving Muslims are largely “irrelevant…The fact is the fanatics rule Islam…It is the fanatics…who wage any one of 50 shooting wars world wide…systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa,” recruit as fighters treasonous or disgruntled Americans in Islamic gatherings, on the internet, and in prisons.

What if China, another growing threat, allies with Militant Islam? America could find itself isolated, just as Britain was in the beginning of World War II – but without a rescuer as the US was to England.

If you don’t think such an unlikely union can occur, you don’t know history.

Prior to the US allying with the Soviet Union in World War II, Nazi Germany and communist Russia, arch enemies, became sudden and unexpected partners in conquering Poland. Common foes and interests unite disparate elements. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” is both an Arab and Chinese saying. China is now arming, flexing its muscles. Why, when we owe them so much money, would they challenge? Like the skinny kid who gains muscles working out, newfound power begs testing.

It could happen.

Since 1979, beginning with the US embassy takeover in Iran, Radical Islam has increasingly targeted America. In the succeeding decades – including the bombing of the marine barracks in Lebanon, the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland, culminating in the horrific attack on the World Trade Center in New York City – it’s warriors have killed over 4000 Americans. Half that died at Pearl Harbor but the Japanese attack instantly awoke in Americans what had to be done.

Yet, what’s been the response to the Militant Islamic threat – tentative, measured, tit-for-tat actions that have done little to nothing to halt its advance and such actions have basically disappeared under the Obama Administration other than to continue waging a war that the previous president started. With borders remaining open, refusal to name the enemy beyond one of its many manifestations – Al Qaeda – and continually apologizing for past actions, this administration seems more concerned with placating the threat than defeating it.

The one president who got mad and decisive, George W. Bush, yielded to political correctness and muddled things by terming his effort the “War on Terror.” But terrorism is a tactic, not an enemy. As “undocumented worker” takes the meaning out of “illegal immigrant,” War on Terror obfuscates the mission. How can one defeat an enemy if one doesn’t know who the enemy is? Do you shoot a textbook, round up separatists, look for frightful acts?

Meanwhile we go deeper in debt, undercutting our economic strength. We restrict oil exploration making the country – and our defense – more dependent on the Middle East – the very cradle of our enemy, Militant Islam. How will our tanks roll if we run out of oil? Or oil is denied us at a crucial time against a threat. Yes, we have a reserve for that. But our foolish administration is already talking about using it for domestic shortage.

Perhaps most seriously we are cutting our defense. For instance, we’ve already halted the production of the F-22, the most advanced jet fighter plane in the world. In the hands of a good pilot, it can beat anything flown against it. If the US got in a shooting war with China, the hordes of planes they could fly against it might overwhelm us. The new jet fighters they are fielding, might soon match the F-22.

In addition, the culture of political correctness that now pervades the Pentagon is chasing warriors from our services. An example of the culture was provided by Army Chief of Staff, Gen. George Casey, in his reaction to the shootings of some 40 fellow soldiers and civilians at Ft. Hood, Tex., by a Moslem-American officer. Among the general’s first public statements was, “It would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well.”

Diversity?

What do you think General Patton would have said?

In by-gone days, admirals and generals nearly revolted when their primary purpose – national security – was threatened. Today, US military leadership has largely buckled to their purview being used as an instrument of social change. Pentagon officials have acquiesced almost without a whimper to repeal of Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell. Sensitivity training and reduced physical requirements for women are standard. But the role of the military, to be brutally honest, is to smash and kill things, not right society’s wrongs. When the shooting starts, only might is right, and combat warriors who will be sorely needed are exiting because of the change.

An air force wing commander recently quit because higher ups wanted to change the fighting culture he’d fostered. He wrote, “I am tired of fighter pilots suffering at the hands of…pencil pushing…ladder climbing opportunists…who think they are leaders just because the Air Force is currently more interested in feelings and sexual orientation than fighting. At this rate we may lose the next real war.”

It’s a perilous path we’re on and our leaders don’t seem to know it.