INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=255312847986143&secure=43

Global Jihad: The ghastly plot by Muslim terrorists in Britain to kidnap and behead a British soldier to blackmail the U.K. into leaving Iraq is a grim reminder of the enemy we're fighting. And sadly, we need reminding.

While the bare-knuckled British press condemned the "evil Muslim terrorists," our media by and large shrugged, preoccupied as they've been with more important news, such as the sandbox spat between Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump. You'd never know we were at war with a barbarian culture bent on destroying our way of life.

Though we've so far avoided another attack here in America, there's been no shortage of terrorism around the world. You might say there's been a silent rampage. The thwarted British plot coincides with no fewer than 655 Islamic terror attacks across the globe in just the past three months. The full list appears on the Web site thereligionofpeace.com.

We can't vouch for the list's accuracy, but based on a quick survey, the data seem correct. We commend the list to your attention because it puts the war on terror in the proper light.

That is, this war is truly a worldwide clash of civilizations and not, as the cut-and-run crowd keeps telling us, simply a "situation" that requires "managing."

Following is a sample of atrocities from the list, showing how peace-loving and tolerant Muslims are. They:

• Blew up three Israelis at a bakery.

• Slashed the throat of a non-Muslim teenager in Thailand.

• Butchered a Buddhist man in Thailand as he drove his 7-year-old son home from school.

• Murdered a teacher on her way to a girl's school in Baghdad.

• Gunned down an "infidel" advocate for the victims of Armenian genocide in Turkey.

• Slaughtered at least 70 students at a mostly women's university in Baghdad, using a car bomb followed by a suicide bomber on foot to kill survivors.

• Murdered a married couple in Thailand, pinning a note to the beheaded body of the husband reading, "We kill all Buddhists."

• Beat to death an Indonesian police officer at a funeral for a fellow terrorist.

• Beheaded a newspaper journalist in Pakistan.

• Beat to death a Christian with a metal bar in Ethiopia.

• Shot and set on fire two Buddhist teachers in Thailand.

• Killed three Afghan police officers with a bomb.

• Decapitated 26 Afghan men and strung their bodies from trees.

• Killed 15 civilians in Chad, including a man who was disemboweled and a woman set on fire.

• Hacked to death a Hindu leader in India.

• Blew up a passer-by outside the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan, using a bicycle bomb.

• Blew up two dozen innocents at a Shia wedding in Baghdad.

As we say, reading the full list (our download of the data filled 47 computer-screen pages) puts this war into cold perspective.

We are at war with an enemy that is driven by a religion that is far from peaceful. And the battlefront is worldwide, in what looks more and more like a clash of civilizations — the "mujahedeen" of pan-Islam vs. the "infidels" of the West. We don't divide the war that way, but they do. And that's the problem.

For us, this is a technical war, one from which we hope to quickly extract ourselves so we can go about our business. For them, it's a perpetual holy war, led by fanatics who are patient, counting on us tiring of the fight as it becomes too savage and costly.

The 2004 work, "Management of Barbarism," by Abu Bakr Naji, a rising star in the jihadi movement, is instructive for anyone who doubts their commitment and ruthlessness.

"O people! The viciousness of the Russian soldier is twice that of the American soldier. If the Americans suffer one-tenth of the casualties the Russians suffered in Afghanistan and Chechnya, they will flee and never look back," Naji rallied fellow jihadists in his Internet-posted screed. "They have reached a stage of effeminacy that makes them unable to sustain battles for a long period of time, a weakness they compensate for with a deceptive media halo."

Our troops are tough as nails, hardly effeminate. But our leaders — those who set the rules of engagement, and targets and strategies — often hold them back and tie their hands.

Meanwhile, politically correct politicians and media don't do anyone any good by downplaying the Islamic threat we face. They may be costing us victory.

"We are losing in Iraq and Afghanistan," asserts former senior CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, "because the political leaders of both parties — and their politically correct acolytes in the media, the academy and the general officer corps — refuse to square with the American people about the enemy's motivation."

That motivation is their 1,400-year-old faith, said Scheuer, who closely tracked Muslim terrorists like Osama bin Laden over the last decade.

Indeed, the biggest myth going is that Islam has been "hijacked" by the terrorists. No, the only thing that's been hijacked is the truth about fundamentalist, radical Islam, which makes holy war against infidels a sacred duty for Muslims.

The terrorists are getting all their violent ideas — the jihad, the martyrdom for virgins, even the beheadings — right out of their holy book. To pretend otherwise, to brainwash soldiers and cops on the home front into thinking the enemy is simply a ragtag network of random thugs and not part of a larger movement — is to set them, and us all, up for failure.

The almost endless stream of terrorists we've seen committing almost unspeakable acts of violence all over the world aren't the irrational fanatics they've been portrayed to be. Hard as it is to believe, they have a calculated worldview based on religious and historical assumptions. They don't act willy-nilly. These aren't common street hoods who will mug their own mother for drug money.

They are disciplined soldiers in a holy war.

While their bloodshed may seem random, they have a purpose, a religious purpose, sick as it may be. And they are relentless.

Denying this unpleasant truth so we can feel nice and tolerant is politically correct suicide.

We need an honest assessment of our enemy. Wishful thinking is not going to win this war.

Jihadists have declared war on America and the West, yet we are reluctant to even identify them with the religion in whose name they kill us. It's time to take off the gloves.

We must declare war on jihad — and all its participants and supporters — before they can make even deeper inroads.