In modern times, no society has ever had to face the prospect of people willing to kill themselves to destroy their sworn enemies as has the nation of Israel. For the last five decades, the tiny Middle Eastern democracy has experienced life with death ever lurking in the shadows. Today, Israelis live with the daily reality of suicide bombers bent on killing as many innocents as possible.

Three years ago, America received a terrible dose of the same brand of Islamist fanaticism that has terrorized Israel since its modern incarnation, a harsh lesson that should have prepared us for a long-term war against terrorism. We now know that our future is fraught with a danger few nations have ever faced.

In the next four years, the President of the United States likely will face the prospect of a suicide state — an Islamic nation armed with nuclear weapons and the same fanatical, self-destructive hatred of an Osama bin-Laden. Iraq has been removed from that category, but Iran, which has threatened to attack Israel if their developing nuclear capability is disrupted, fits this description perfectly. How will the next president deal with such a dilemma?

A bitter political battle now rages between those who revere presidential wannabe John Forbes Kerry as a bonafide Vietnam War hero (a premise on which he has based his entire campaign) and fellow veterans who swear they witnessed him deliberately trumping up his war record to become the next JFK from Massachusetts, ala PT 109. This argument is pertinent to the character of the man, but another question lurks: Could Kerry pull the trigger on a suicide state?

Apparently, Kerry, while serving his brief tour of duty as a Navy swift boat officer in the Mekong Delta, found himself in the unenviable position of having to use his M-16 to kill other human beings, an experience, thankfully, few of us who served in the military ever had to face. Certainly, George W. Bush was never confronted with such a reality during his tour in the Texas Air National Guard. This is a not a matter to be dismissed lightly. Only the most hardened veteran would look you in the eye and tell you that killing another person did not profoundly affect how he sees the world. The question we must ask is this: How did this experience affect Kerry?

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Those supporting Kerry’s bid for the White House contend that the horror of war would serve to give him proper pause as commander in chief when confronted with the decision to send young Americans into harm’s way. This sounds like a logical argument. However, judging from his rabid anti-war activities and his outrageous tales of state-sanctioned atrocities upon his return to civilian life, the result of Kerry’s experiences could more aptly be described as profound pacification, a conclusion borne out by two decades of appeasement in the U.S. Senate.

This is the most important point to ponder when going to the polls in November. Rational Americans agree that all other issues in this presidential campaign pale in comparison to the failure of our federal government to adequately protect this nation from crazed individuals, groups or governments bent on our destruction.

Through the invasion and liberation of Iraq, President Bush has demonstrated that he will use force when necessary. Contrast this with Candidate Kerry, who thrust a finger into the political wind before voting first for the war, then against the funding for the troops he had helped to send into battle.

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George Bush has proven his willingness to pull the trigger against a terrorist state that poses a threat to the security of the United States. John Kerry’s temperament and experiences have caused him to side with the likes of Jane Fonda, Jacques Chirac and Michael Moore. Which man would you rather have as commander in chief?

Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a speechwriter, policy advisor and communications director for federal, state and local candidates, elected officials and public policy organizations. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet websites. Readers can e-mail him at [email protected].