The bombings against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban on Sunday marked the beginning of an offensive. An offensive in which we are fighting an enemy with no geographic boundaries, no capital city and in some cases no central place of location.

It is the beginning of a daunting battle in which our nation will be forced to make sacrifices. Not just in terms of creature comforts, but of the lives of both our fellow countrymen, and the men and women who have answered the ultimate call of serving our country in our various armed forces.

This is a war we must wage, and the bombing of Afghanistan was the right thing to do.

First, it is the right thing to do because if we are to keep referring to ourselves as the greatest nation on the face of the earth, then it is morally irresponsible of us to sit by and watch our citizens slaughtered in cold blood in Washington, D.C., New York and western Pennsylvania, and only respond by talking about change.

Let there be no mistake, there are items of American foreign policy that are wrong, downright despicable and must be subjected to change. But those things should not be changed as a response to sociopaths that hide behind the religion of Islam, and pervert it to justify their bigoted, sexist and murderous beliefs.

We cannot, nor should not, bend one centimeter to their demands, for their actions reveal them as barbarians who are unfit to enforce any of their supposed views of what is right or what is wrong. While some may believe that we should re-evaluate our policies, it is utterly irresponsible for them to suggest that a mere re-tooling of our priorities will prevent these monsters from carrying out their unspeakable plans against anyone who doesn’t agree with them, or their narrow, unfounded interpretation of their faith.

Those who protest our response to the Sept. 11 attacks have it backward. We have done bad things in the world. But bin Laden, his cohorts and his supporters in the Taliban do far worse things to their country, their women and their religion.

Second, it is the right thing to do for the great religion of Islam.

As NIU political science professor Larry Arnhart has written, the purpose of this war is not to attack Islam, but to liberate Islam from the clutches of Jihadistan, the various terrorist organizations running from North Africa to Indonesia that adhere to a strict, perverted view of Islam.

For too long, Islam has been unjustifiably held hostage by fanatics in the eyes of the world. The true, peaceful Muslim has unfairly been tied together with images of fanatical, anti-Western bigoted hate mongers. And the price of these associations has not gone unnoticed. For our Muslim and Arab-American population has felt at least a certain amount of

discomfort that their fellow citizens will discriminate or assault them because of the good name of Islam being dragged through the mud by these fringe groups.

The great divorce of the true Islamic faith from the evils of Jihadistan must begin now. The war on terrorism, if fought correctly, will do that.

Third and most importantly, this battle must be fought to ensure freedom for ourselves and our posterity in the future, not only in America, but around the world.

This is more than empty rhetoric. Bin Laden and his cohorts in the Taliban believe that theirs is the only interpretation of the Islamic faith that is correct, that theirs is the only true service to God and that there is only one true way to run a country.

They have murdered fellow Muslims because their interpretation differed from that of the Taliban. They have passed judgement that women should be nothing more than empty, sub-human beings. They run Afghanistan through fear, where the slightest infraction results in beatings, mutilations or death. Those in the Jihadistan have waged terrorist acts on Muslim countries that do not adhere to their perverse standards of their faith.

If they are not stopped, they will move on until they topple this great nation and the rest of the world. They will continue to attack us, and no amount of policy changes will alter their goal. If we do not stop them now, they, an already formidable opponent, will be a severe problem for our children.

We cannot sit around and leave for our children an environment where they worry if the location they are in suddenly will explode or be shot at. The scourge of bin Laden, the Taliban and Jihadistan must be eliminated not by diplomacy but by sheer brute force.

Or in the words of columnist P.J. O’Rourke: “GIVE WAR A CHANCE!”