As long as we're getting remakes of the Beverly Hillbillies and Dragnet, why not Hogan's Heroes? Germany can play Sgt. Shultz, the goose-stepping blowhard who stumbles onto Saddam's secret laboratory and says, "I see noth-INK!"

France can get a part in the remake of The Bob Newhart Show, playing a neurotic warophobic mental patient who disrupts the group therapy sessions at the United Nations.

An e-mail I got the other day said it all: "Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion." Yes. And fighting the war on terrorism without the United Nations is like skydiving without an anvil.

But the anti-war crowd insists we need permission from France and Germany. Patrick O'Brien of Blue Ash finds that puzzling.

O'Brien describes himself as "a citizen who served this country during the Gulf conflict, and also a historian by hobby, with a bachelor's degree to boot."

He says the "Give Peace a Chance" song is a moldy oldie. "In 1938 they were doing what France and Germany are doing now. Look at it from a historical perspective. Hitler did basically the same thing Saddam is doing."

The plot is older than the lineup on Nick at Night: Stall. Lie. Rely on naive appeasers to negotiate while evil gathers strength for a surprise attack.

Peace at any price

"I just have the disturbing feeling that if and when we go in, and Saddam unleashes weapons of mass destruction, a lot of people and countries will lose their respect and credibility in the world," says O'Brien, 33, who served for nine months on an amphibious ship in the Gulf War.

But we don't have to wait that long to see that the anti-war protesters are as wrong as Neville Chamberlain holding an umbrella for Hitler.

The peace marchers whine that they don't get attention. But we've heard from every Hollywood has-been and far-left celebrity who is not in detox (and a few who should be). The people I never see on the evening news are the two-thirds of Americans who back President Bush.

They claim to be concerned about saving American soldiers. But they oppose military spending on weapons that actually save our soldiers' lives.

They say a war will provoke terrorism - totally forgetting that terrorists started a war on 9-11.

They claim we are a nation of bloodthirsty warmongers. But America stands alone as a country that generously rebuilds the nations we defeat. Vietnam's big mistake was not losing - or they would be booming like Tokyo by now.

An oily excuse

They say we need U.N. permission to "finish the job" in Iraq. But it was the U.N. that kept our tanks out of Baghdad 12 years ago. The people who now blame President Bush's "daddy'' would have thrown a tantrum if he had defied the U.N. to finish Saddam.

And there's the "meow-meow"-annoying cat food commercial of the protests: "It's all about oil."

That's as ignorant as blaming SUVs for terrorism. If we wanted oil, it was ours to take after Saddam torched Kuwait's oil wells. Instead, we gave the wells back so Kuwait could go back to gouging us at the gas pumps.

"I'm beginning to see how 10 years distorts history," O'Brien said

Sometimes I wonder if the anti-war protesters are stuck in a permanent rerun of Jane Fonda in Hanoi.

Or you could say, "Going to war without anti-war protesters is like going duck hunting without the clueless cast of Gilligan's Island."

E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com or call 768-8301.