War is hell, ends with dead people and is very real. The reality and necessity of war threatens Hollywood's benign world where everyone is nice, people are basically good (except George Bush) and negotiations are what agents do. An American friend who has lived in Germany for 20 years writes similarly of the Germans. They have an "optimistic view of human nature which blinds them to the reality of sin and evil in the modern world." To be sure, a world where people spend their waking hours in a fantasy medium for which they are wildly overpaid is not a recipe for clarity.

 But the world of Hollywood and most Germans is not now, nor has it ever been, the world as it is. The real, actual world contains people who contemplate evil, cruel and vicious acts and sometimes pull them off. And if no one will stop them, they will not be stopped. And if they are not stopped, what they will do, like what they have already done, is too horrible not to combat.

 Winston Churchill said, "When war comes, they call for the sons of bitches." He meant himself. After banishing him from leadership, the British people called him back, not only for his vision and toughness, but because Churchill actually believed that Hitler was an evil man who had to be stopped. Churchill convinced FDR over brandy and cigars at the White House to enter the European theatre, first with lend-lease, then with D-Day. Unlike Chamberlain, a Unitarian, Churchill could believe what Anglicans were supposed to believe, namely that the world was filled with "miserable offenders." Churchill knew that Hitler was evil, not just because of the evidence, but because he had come to terms with his own evil heart.

 Real people contemplating an actual world know that George Bush is doing what has to be done. For the limousine and latte crowd, war is unthinkable except over fur and meat. So the duty will fall to ordinary, honorable Americans who have engaged reality and are willing to deal with the world as it is, not as they wished it would be. Such is the theology of the post-September 11th world.

 No one wants to go to war. "It is not up to us," the president said. "It is up to Saddam Hussein." Until Saddam Hussein makes his decision, we will have to put up with more vacuous statements about war. "War is always wrong," they say. "War is the ultimate failure," they say. "We must find other ways to resolve our problems," they say. The truth is, the west has too often gone to war too late resulting in the unnecessary deaths of millions. Negotiations will not work with an unwilling partner.

 No, for as long as man exists, there will be war. Sadly, it is often war that helps good to triumph over evil and to set millions free. One of the big problems of the world is about to be solved. And if it is war, Saddam Hussein will have chosen it and Hollywood, no thanks to most celebrities, will be freer and more secure because of it.

 John Pendleton