The final debate between John McCain and Barack Obama was primarily about the economy.  That was appropriate and understandable.  The big winner was Toledo’s new favorite son, Joe the Plumber – who will now be able to charge a lot more for his pipe-wrench artistry.  And he will never again have a problem getting a table at Tony Packos.

It would be wise, however, for all Americans to remember something very important that is being overshadowed by the current cultural obsession.  We are all concerned about our money.  But the stakes right now are higher than mere dollars and cents.

In other words: It’s not just the economy, stupid. 

As the long and hard fought presidential election campaign moves into the final frenetic stretch, there is an important court trial underway across the Atlantic - in Scotland.  Two men have been charged with plotting terrorist bombings in Glasgow and London last year. 

Two Muslim men - Mohammed Asha is from Jordan and Bilal Abdullaf is from Iraq. 

Both are medical doctors. 

While Americans worry about the possibility of another Great Depression, it is worth asking if we are in danger of being preoccupied with a Great Distraction at a crucial moment in our history.

Of course, our economic woes are quite real – ominous, in fact.  And they cannot and should not be ignored.  Not watching the store is what got us into this fix in the first place.  But one has the sense that this nation is an increasingly soft target for something worse.  And if it ever were to turn out that while we focused like a laser beam on the economy, our enemies decided to exploit our myopia, we could be in a bigger mess than we have ever imagined.

I am not trying to be “gloom and doom” here – just saying that it has probably crossed the mind of an adversary or two that this would be a fitting time to unleash something bad. 

Bad, as in “where, oh where are you Jack Bauer?”

It is important for all of us to realize – even if it involves interrupting our current morbid fascination with the Dow and all things monetary – that the greatest strategic threat against our nation is not something that has been, or could be, done by people named Freddie or Fannie.  Not even close.  Our greatest enemy is, and will be long after the current financial mess is cleaned up, Islamism and its agenda to subdue all who persist in the audacity of being non-Muslim infidels.

In the sixth century B.C., Sun Tzu, in Art of War, said:

“So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will fight without danger in battle.  If you know only yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or lose.  If you know neither yourself, nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.”

He also said: “All warfare is based on deception.” 

There is an elephant in the big room under America’s spacious skies.  It has to do with the potential for us to eventually see some of the same things happen here that are happening more and more frequently in Europe.  I am referring to things like two presumably intelligent, and certainly well educated, doctors in a plot to bomb and kill.

Daniel Pipes is a widely read expert on the threat of radical Islam.  He is a director of the Middle East Forum and calculates that, "10 to 15 percent of Muslims worldwide support militant Islam."  Let’s do the math (a fine young man on my staff, who has a graduate degree in theoretical mathematics would remind me here that this is arithmetic, not math – but you get my drift). 

Estimates of the global Muslim population range between 1.3 and 1.6 billion – roughly one in five human beings.  This means, if Pipes is right (and it is possible his estimates may be on the conservative side) – that there may be between 130 and 240 million people in the world who, in the name of Islam, hate America.  These are the people who had a party on that sad September day seven years ago.

By the way, the total combined population of an earlier axis of evil enemies - Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan in September of 1939 - was approximately 194 million.  That’s total – as in every man, woman, and child. 

How about the statistics right here in the U.S.?  Well again, the estimates are all over the place, but it is generally accepted that between three and five million of our neighbors are Muslim.  An article in Newsweek last year used the figure eight million.  Applying the Pipes formula to here at home, we come up with the potential for anywhere between 300,000 and 1,200,000 people in this country who may be less-than-enamored of the rest of us.  Or worse, some may be longing for the day when the fruited plain becomes a Muslim caliphate. 

Here is where it gets complicated.  We are a nation of people fierce about liberty.  We believe in things like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to assemble, to vote, and hold these things to be precious.  We have no desire to become a police state, with neighbor turning on, or turning in, neighbor.  We do not want to become hysterical and paranoid. 

But there are bad people out there.  They have guns and bombs and ugly ideas.  And they have no problem “blending in” – even spending a long time cultivating a reassuring cover. 

Bear in mind that the guys on trial across the pond right now are doctors.

There is a precedent for this, and it is one Americans should study.  A few years ago, Margaret Thatcher, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979-1990, described an often-overlooked previous pattern for what we are now witnessing.  Continued...