By Linda Chavez
Jewish World Review
We are just weeks away from the fifth anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and yet we have quickly forgotten the lessons of that terrible day. We understood then that a group of Islamic fanatics had declared war on the United States and that our only option was to defeat them.
Barely five years later, we seem to have lost our resolve. But our enemies haven't lost theirs, as the interrupted plot to blow up U.S.-bound airplanes in Great Britain demonstrates all too well. So what are the chances we will ultimately prevail?
First, it's important we understand who the enemy is and why they have targeted us. We are not fighting a war on terror, despite the nearly universal shorthand most of us have adopted. The terrorists who flew airplanes into American buildings, blew up hotels and nightclubs killing Western tourists in Bali and Kenya, bombed trains in Spain and England, and sent missiles and suicide bombers into Israel are fighting a religious war.
In their view, we are infidels who must be converted or killed. There is no room in their ideology for peaceful co-existence or detente. And they are willing to sacrifice their own lives — and, most importantly, the lives of their children — in order to kill as many of us as possible.
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