On September 11, 2006 – five years after he joined a sorrowful nation in acknowledging “freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward,” President Bush reiterated the need to defend that freedom in the face of a “struggle for civilization.”

The United States is the most civilized nation on Earth.

We are joined by a few other countries in that civility – but the threat emanating from the less civilized countries of the world, that wish to destroy us and that have been possessed by radical sects, threatens to overshadow any civilized ally we may have.

We have lost so much to radical Islam.

Even after losing 2,977 lives to this monster on September 11, many Americans still refuse to acknowledge this threat. Does it require another catastrophic attack – one worse than the last, to make the clarity of this enemy apparent?

Why are we still underestimating the danger of these Islamic extremists?

These are people who kill themselves to kill others, with the expectation of finding paradise. Yet, there are people in this country that consider our own government more of a threat than this twisted ideology.

September 11, 2001 marks a horrific and unthinkable loss we endured as a nation, on our own soil – an event that, at least temporarily, brought us all together.

But there have been other senseless attacks carried out in the name of radical Islam.

In 1983, the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut were the target of attacks, killing 241 and injuring 60.

The terrorists’ previous attack on the World Trade Center, on February 26, 1993, involved a car bomb which was detonated in an underground garage, killing six and injuring 1,000.

The Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia were attacked on June 25, 1996 by the Saudi Hezbollah movement, using explosives smuggled in from Lebanon, killing 19 U.S. servicemen, one Saudi, and injuring 372 others.

Osama bin Laden became a face on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list after coordinating simultaneous car bombings on United States embassies in several African cities in 1998, which killed 257 and injured 4,000. On October 12, 2000,

America’s finest were once again targeted when the USS Cole was attacked at a Yemeni port, killing 17 and wounding 39.

The goal is obviously to kill Americans; but the fanaticism is truly revealed in instances where they kill their own, such as in Iraq.

Experts on terrorism, public safety, and national security all agree that the greatest hazard to Americans is our complacency.

In addition, those dwelling on national self-loathing are as great an enemy as those on the outside; they are doing everything in their power to cripple our war against terror, choosing to blame their own country instead of the terrorists.

What we fail to realize, even after five years, is these terrorists thrive on the political divides that run rampant in this country.

The fact that we cannot see past politics to pull together on the issue of national security and the safety of our own country leaves us even more vulnerable.

This nation is the victim of internally inflicted self-consciousness, which has yielded a ridiculous amount of political correctness that risks superseding security.

If the people hired to keep our nation safe are stripped of the ability to focus on individuals who fit the terrorist profile, we risk being victimized again.

On the five-year anniversary of September 11, Jay Leno had actor James Woods on his show.

Woods was flying from Boston to Los Angeles on August 1, 2001. He noticed some strange behavior coming from a group of about four “central casting terrorists,” as he called them.

Woods notified the flight attendant and the first officer – who both noticed the men behaving suspiciously, of his suspicion that they were hijackers.

Reports were filed by the crew, and the Federal Aviation Administration became involved – but dropped the case because they felt it was “racial profiling.”

In reality, James Woods witnessed a dry run that day. On 9/11, one of the men James Woods positively identified was a hijacker on United Flight 175, and another was a hijacker on American Airlines Flight 77.

The FBI confirmed that the suspicion surrounding the men was not unwarranted – all four of them were involved in the hijacking plots.

If there is any hope for us to prevail in this war on terror, we must pull together as a country, realize that a real threat exists, and place the blame appropriately on those who are enemies to us.

Send comments to Danielle Winters at [email protected].