Happy birthday, baby!

Indeed! Happy birthday, baby! Lookin' good at 228 years old! Not bad for the planet's oldest democracy.

You're not "old" by the historic standards. Other nations regard you as the new kid on the block – but the United States of America is different because of our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

You – we – >are unique. There's no other country on this planet whose governing principles are based on God-given freedoms for all its citizens. Government does not "give" us our freedoms. We are, by our very nature, free. The government has the responsibility, in fact the duty, to safeguard those freedoms as outlined in the Bill of Rights and elaborated on in the Constitution.

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Our government is charged with protecting the citizens of the U.S. It isn't easy. It's a constant battle between those who see government as a means to advance a specific agenda and those who believe in keeping that same government as lean and hungry as possible, with just enough resources to do the job and never enough to line the pockets of opportunists and crooks. It's a tough battle.

We made it through another year – now four years into the new millennium. Starry-eyed optimists speculated it would be a new era – with evil and strife left behind; we would be better people in a better world. Realists said it would be the same with more advanced technology. Pessimists predicted the worst – cataclysmic earth changes, bloody wars, political strife and ultimately, the end of it all.

Like it or not, bits and pieces of each have transpired with one huge caveat: We've found ourselves in a place our government never warned us about.

As we move into a millennium that should be filled with the benefits of the knowledge, technology and skills developed over decades, we find ourselves immersed in a battle for our very survival. The enemy is fueled from antiquity, fed by primitive hate and based in a religion that wants nothing less than victory and conversion, or death.

There's no reasoning with this enemy; there's no logic. There's no honor, at least not honor we recognize or value. There's nothing but facing people who follow the most base and elemental human instincts, the side of humanity too many have been conditioned to believe doesn't exist.

Yes, people are capable of duplicity. They're capable of betrayal, cruelty and wanton killing. And yes, evil. It does exist, despite objections to the contrary.

That we are facing an enemy whose strategies are diametrically opposed to our own is no better illustrated than by their tactics: kidnapping, hostage taking, violence against civilians, suicide bombing made worse by using women and children, terrorism as a routine weapon, no compunction about destroying human life and property to make a political and religious point, the use of the media to taunt and humiliate, and killing methods against military and civilians alike that's right out of the past: grotesque torture and beheading.

It's a scenario we didn't expect, but which was developing like a cancer along the edges of civilization for years. That our government did not see it and warn us is a failure of constitutional obligations of the highest magnitude.

That our government acted and reacted as though the instances of terrorist violence which killed and maimed (not only our own citizens but those of other countries) were aberrations and not what they really were – acts of war against us – is inexcusable.

But pointing fingers and attempting to place blame takes more energy, time and resources than we should expend. We don't have that luxury. The wolves are howling, and they're insatiable.

It brings to mind a chilling description I once read from the diary of a frontier woman in Kansas. Her husband had gone to California to earn money. She was alone with their children in their small cabin on a cold, windy night.

A pack of hungry wolves knew the family was inside the cabin, and they attacked the building with a vengeance – climbing the roof to get in through the chimney, chewing the walls and window frames and attempting to rip off the doors. It was one of the most frightening passages I've ever read.

That's where we are now. Our house/country is being assaulted with primitive fury. The enemy attacks on all sides -- across our borders, buried as sleepers in our towns and cities, using our freedoms to perpetuate their evil and targeting us around the globe.

It's an enemy like no other and one we must mobilize with a vengeance to fight. It will be a battle to the bitter end and we must win, because everything is at stake.

We have the means and the motivation. But we need the will. We must realize what's at risk: our way of life, our freedoms, our country, in fact, our civilization. If we lose, the world regresses to the first century. There is no second chance.

So fly Old Glory and salute this nation under God. Remember what it stands for and vow to protect it to the bitter end. That's the price of freedom.