| Know your enemy What if forecasters were trying to warn the coast about Hurricane Frances - but couldn't bring themselves to say the word "hurricane"? What if Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in his "day of infamy" speech, couldn't bring himself to mention who had bombed Pearl Harbor? What if Paul Revere had been afraid of offending the British? Of course, you are a fool not to honestly acknowledge who your enemy is, what threats you are facing. Americans have been fools. And we continue to be. The world today is facing an enemy greater, even, than communism or fascism. As California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger noted the other night, today's threat "is more insidious than communism, because it yearns to destroy not just the individual, but the entire international order." That enemy is more than terrorism. It's Islamic terrorism. And we've got to have the gumption to say it. The truth is, the vast majority of terrorist acts over the past three decades, and the majority of wars going on today, involve radical, hateful, intolerant, murderous Muslims. We can dance around it, in order to be politically correct and not offend peaceful Muslims. And, indeed, even Vice President Dick Cheney - who scoffed at the notion of fighting a "sensitive" war on terror - could only refer in his Republican National Convention speech Wednesday night to an unnamed "enemy." Well, it's not the Japanese or the Germans or the British, folks. It's radical Muslims. It's a brand of Islam that wants to expel or, better yet, kill all "nonbelievers." It's a brand of Islam that wants to enslave women and cage individual freedoms. It's a brand of Islam that is anathema to everything America stands for: freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, tolerance, progress and even the pursuit of happiness. Despite our reluctance to put a name to the enemy, one cannot help but connect the dots when they stare at you in black and white. From Afghanistan to Algeria to Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Israel, Iran, Nigeria, Sudan, the Philippines - and, yes, the United States - radical Muslims are at war with civilization itself. Some of those who have connected the dots have concluded that World War III is already well under way - without any declaration or public acknowledgement of it. One reason it has failed to be acknowledged is that its battles are so illusive and unconventional. There is no Battle of the Bulge, no defining skirmish, no retreat and no apparent possibility of surrender. Rather, there are shadowy, solitary, suicidal murderers sneaking onto airplanes and buses and trains. There are cowardly, conniving criminals outfitting themselves with bombs and homemade shrapnel to inflict not only death, but intense suffering. There are the lowest of the low - those who storm a school in Russia and imprison and threaten to kill hundreds of innocent children and adults. There are unprovoked suicide attacks on commuters in Israel and Spain. There was Sept. 11. In just the past week, the death toll from Islamic violence has been in the hundreds - including the barbaric slaughter in Iraq of 12 hostages from Nepal, and the downing of two Russian airliners filled with families. These are not coincidences or random acts - or even a legitimate dispute between two nations at war. These are chronic, systematic, premeditated and calculated killings designed to terrorize and to make all of the world's religions, nations and peoples submit to the narrow and oppressive doctrine of radical Islam. If you are not Muslim, you are less than human, and quite expendable. It's not popular to admit it. It's not "sensitive." It's not politically correct. But the terrorism that has bloodied this world for years now and has essentially started World War III has a name. It's called radical Islam. Deal with it.
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