Orson Scott Card is one of the greatest Science Fiction Writers of all times, and our favorite. His masterpiece Ender’s Game is the best Sci-Fi we ever read, on par with Isaac Asimov’s Foundation and Arthur C. Clark’s Childhood’s End. In Ender’s Game, Card describes a future war between Man and the Hive, aliens who function like a beehive. All the thinking is performed by the Queen and instructions are instantly transmitted to anywhere in space. The humans win by developing an ingenious way to approximate the faster coordination inherent in the Hive societal structure.

In thinking about the Jihad War we have frequently used the Hive analogy. Since 9/11 Card has been writing exhaustively about Islam’s war on Western Civilization. His logical analysis is reminiscent of Victor Davis Hanson, but Card is a better story teller and needless to say more imaginative. His columns appear in the Rhinoceros Times and the Ornery American.

In a long June 3, 2007 column, Learning from History, Card uses two WWII book reviews as a jumping point for an excellent analysis of today’s Jihad War, with lessons from Hitler’s War. The first book, is ‘Troublesome Young Men: the Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England’ by Lynne Olson. It describes how a group of daring young backbenchers in parliament risked their political careers to depose Chamberlain and install Churchill as Prime Minister in 1940.

What we forget is that Chamberlain was, above all, a politician. As soon as war was declared, he understood that the voters would demand that Churchill be part of the government. So he took Churchill into the cabinet and gave him responsibility for the war.

From that moment, Churchill became a loyal cabinet member and never spoke a word against Chamberlain. Nor did he plot or conspire against him. His sense of honor would not allow it. Once he took office in Chamberlain’s cabinet, he became Chamberlain’s man.

Yet Chamberlain remained completely unwilling and incompetent when it came to war. He had to be booted out, and Churchill was the only one who could replace him. Yet Churchill would do nothing to accomplish this.

So who did it? Who changed the government and got rid of Chamberlain?

It was a group of brave young MPs whose names are almost forgotten. And what marked the ones who made a difference was their supreme courage and willingness to sacrifice their own political careers.

The second book is ‘How Hitler Could Have Won World War II: The Fatal Errors That Led to Nazi Defeat’ by Bevin Alexander. This book points out how close Hitler came to victory. If he exercised a bit of patience regarding Russia and accommodated General Rommel’s request for more troops in Africa, we would all be speaking German now, except for Jews, who wouldn’t be speaking at all.

This book not only points out Hitler’s mistakes, it also points out, over and over, the utter incompetence of the allies when, time after time, their mistakes virtually handed Hitler his early victories.

The great tragedy of the war was that in every case where the leaders made gross mistakes, somebody on the scene saw the danger and tried to forestall it. By the end of the book, you wonder how anyone ever wins wars!

Card’s description of the obfuscation and negligence by British politicians and press, just prior to and during the early stages of World War II, could be taken verbatim and applied to the West’s leadership and media today.

Nor was Chamberlain alone. Most of the press lords — the rich men who controlled the newspapers in Britain — firmly agreed with Chamberlain’s optimistic belief that Hitler was just another dictator that Britain could “do business with.” Give him what he needs in order to feel secure.

So there was a virtual conspiracy in England to keep the truth about Hitler from the common people. After all, we don’t want to build up any kind of anger or fear or war fever among the people — keep things calm.

Thus there was no readily-available, unexpurgated English translation of Hitler’s book Mein Kampf, in which he laid out his plan to conquer eastern Europe and dominate the world, whereupon he would exterminate the “races” that polluted the world — most especially the Jews.

And when Hitler and the Nazis took over country after country, the British press did its best to suppress the truth about what was going on. American readers knew that when the Nazis took over Austria, many anti-Nazis and Jews were simply murdered out of hand. British readers barely heard anything about it.

Card provides a clear headed critique of Bush’s strategy. He points out both successes and failures. His conclusion should be read by every American, including President Bush and his advisers.

OK. We made some mistakes. What do we do now?

1. Withdrawing from Iraq is not an option. Not to save face, not to save our honor (though those are actually not trivial goals), but because if we do not have our troops all over Iraq, we will not be in a position to deal with the main threat, which is and always has been Iran.

2. There is no way, by bombing alone, to neutralize Iran’s nuclear threat. After all the lessons of air-war history, it is astonishing to me that anyone still believes that air power alone can ever be decisive against a determined enemy.

3. Since, like Abraham Lincoln in 1863 and 1864, President Bush has no reason to believe that his successor will pursue the war to victory, he has no choice, for the good of America and the world, but to defeat Iran before he leaves office. Time is running short, and I see no sign that he recognizes this.

If we elect appeasers in 2008, we deserve what will happen to us.

But do our children deserve to inherit that hideous world?

Fanatical Islam is not a religion. It is the lust for power and control over other people. It is a destructive, evil force that will sweep away all that is good and fine in this world.

And right now, if we only have the courage and will, we — and only we — can save the world from that dire future.

So the question remains: Are we too stupid to learn from history? Must we, on the verge of victory, turn our future over to the fools and appeasers?

That’s what the polls are saying right now. Those polls will change. But, as with England in 1939, the polls will change too late. Without leadership, the people do not see the danger in time.

Americans just want to be left alone. Our enemies are determined not to leave us alone. But our media, our intellectuals, and the Democratic Party are trying to soothe us and assure us that we don’t actually have to fight anybody. We can win just by sitting still and … being America.

America didn’t get to be America by sitting still.