Brutality reminds us who our enemies are

Published 9:00 pm Thursday, May 13, 2004

The face of the enemy appeared as it always has: cloaked behind a coward’s mask, unleashing a brutality incomprehensible to most human beings.

This time, American citizen Nicholas Berg was the terrorists’ victim, and video of his beheading was posted on a Web site linked to al-Qaida. Berg was the victim, but the goal was to instill fear through terror. What it did was remind us who our enemy is: a bloodthirsty band of faceless fanatics, people whose mission is to kill Americans – just like they did on Sept. 11, 2001.

The war on terror President Bush declared after the 9/11 attacks must continue to be waged, in Afghanistan, at home, anywhere al-Qaida and its allies lurk. Terror networks must be disrupted, their funding thwarted, their training camps eliminated. The Berg atrocity serves as a wake-up call to those who might become complacent, or so preoccupied by the daily setbacks in Iraq and the prisoner-abuse scandal there that they lose track of this reality: Terrorists are working to kill innocent Americans.

The monsters that murdered Nicholas Berg proclaimed their act as revenge for the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison. Those abuses were indeed heinous. They must be thoroughly investigated and the responsible people, no matter how high up the chain of command, held accountable. That’s how the United States handles things when they go wrong.

Terrorists have no such standard. It’s important to remember why we are at war with them, and why we must win.