By Michael Reagan, Sydicated columnist

If you are wondering where the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is standing in the war on terror, contemplate the following: the ACLU wants U.S. courts to allow the Quran to be used instead of the Bible when administering the oath to Muslims in court.

According to the Associated Press, denying the use of other religious texts would violate the Constitution by favoring Christianity over other religions, the ACLU of North Carolina said in a lawsuit. State law currently allows witnesses preparing to testify in court to take their oath either by laying a hand over a “Holy Scripture,” by saying “so help me God” without the use of a religious book, or by using no religious symbols.

“We hope that the court will issue a ruling that the phrase ‘Holy Scripture’ includes the Quran, Old Testament and Bhagavad-Gita in addition to the Christian Bible,” said Jennifer Rudinger, executive director of the ACLU of North Carolina.

That, however, is small stuff when it comes to the ACLU’s activities in connection with the war on terrorism. Take for example their demand that the Pentagon release more photos of the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

In this case the ACLU thinks that all the pictures of Abu Ghraib should be made public. The only possible purpose for that would be nothing less than to inflame Middle Easterners even more. It can have nothing at all to do with punishing the prisoner abusers – that’s already been done. They are being prosecuted, are being found guilty and are being put in jail. The ACLU seems hell-bent to inflame the radical Islamists and present them with more video, more film, more pictures that they can use to go out and recruit more terrorists and suicide bombers to kill more and more Americans.

I can’t reach any other conclusion but that the ACLU feels the only way for this war in Iraq to end is to have more Americans die so that the backbones of the American people will weaken, as happened in Vietnam, and will finally demand that Washington stop fighting the terrorists there and pull out. I’m convinced that the ACLU has reached the conclusion that the only way they can accomplish this is to pour more fuel on the fire and allow the enemy to recruit more terrorists to kill more Americans.

I firmly believe that the ACLU wants more Americans to die so that the war will end.

Those who served in Vietnam wondered why they were spat upon, ridiculed and treated with no respect when they came back. They can now see firsthand what the left was doing while they were serving their country in Vietnam and risking their lives. We simply cannot allow them to get away with it this time around.

Just remember what happened when we left Vietnam. Remember what happened to the South Vietnamese people, many of whom were killed or thrown into brutal concentration camps. Remember also what Pol Pot did in Cambodia. With the U.S. out of Southeast Asia he butchered more than a million of his own people. My makeup artist Jennie’s entire family was murdered by Pol Pot.

If we walk away from Iraq the way we walked away from Vietnam, what will happen there and in the Middle East will make what Pol Pot did look like a Sunday picnic.

I don’t know how much longer the American people are going to put up with this sorry ACLU bunch. They are the ones who caused prayer to be banned in our schools, and they are the ones who have led the attack on the Boy Scouts of America. It seems that they are dead set against anything that is American, and anything that is foundational to the nation. They go out and find the fool who is unhappy with some praiseworthy traditional American value, and with the help of liberal judges’ use that fool as a legal tool to beak down some tradition that has helped America to be great.

(Mike Reagan, the eldest son of the late President Ronald Reagan, is a syndicated columnist and talk radio show host.)