In the wake of the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, I began to reflect on the shock, horror, grief, and anger that it elicited within me and many fellow Americans five seemingly short years ago. In the meantime, the United States Government launched a "War on Terror" against Afghanistan's Taliban Government, and, shortly thereafter against Saddam Hussein's Baathist Government.

Whenever I heard President Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, or reporters use the phrase "War on Terror", I felt surprised at my own emotionless at this rallying cry against a foe who had brought down two-110 story skyscrapers in downtown New York City.

Why was I not channeling the frustration, sorrow, and anger that I had previously felt on the day that marked a "Pearl Harbor" moment for the current generation of Americans?

When "terrorists" beheaded journalist Daniel Pearl and contract worker Nicholas Berg, why did I feel such internal confusion with these brutal acts against fellow human beings? Why are these terrorists beheading their captives? Why are they willing to strap explosive on their body in order to bring death to themselves and others?

When I heard political pundits begin to use the phrase, "Clash of Civilizations", I felt unease at this overexaggeration of a few inhumane acts by global terrorists.

Finally reality beaned me in the head after seeing terrorists strike Bali nightclubs where Australians often vacation, and train bombings in Madrid, Spain. Why were these people attacking such diverse locations as Bali, Madrid, and New York City in the previous years? What united these societies in their supposed offense to these terrorists?

Shortly thereafter, I was shocked at all three locations that the terrorists designated where inhabited by westerners, and that these terrorists were in fact united by their radical interpretation of the Islamic faith. The amorphous category of terrorist was now represented by the very real danger of jihadists who were willing to kill the people and the ideas which these people espoused, and replace them with mosques, calls to prayer, and sharia law.

Story-after-story further forced me to cleanse my mind of the political correctness that has increasingly infected American society and many of its people-these enemies are not generically terorists, but have a religious faith that they are trying to spread, while simultaneously destroying others who do not agree.

Controversy over controversy from the Denmark newspaper's publication of political cartoons to the recent speech by Pope Benedict XVI critizing Islam's conversion to the faith "by the sword", I became a true believer in the civilizational struggle in which all human beings are engaged. Will Americans wake up and throw off the intellectual shackles of political correctness? Will world political leaders stand up to the blackmail by some radical Islamic leaders who wish for apologies for their followers violent reactions to truth?

If the West and the ideas of liberty, religious freedom, and peace are to survive, than truth must vanquish the fatal disease of political correctness.