On Sunday, Sept. 11, 2016, we commemorated a day 15 years ago that rightly lives in infamy. There is only one valid response to that act of war, and that is the indefatigable and dedicated pursuit of victory against all practitioners of state-sponsored terrorism. Iran, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan are or were the four major players in that world. All of them should be conquered; their governments replaced with regimes friendly to the West.

Our rules of engagement should be those of 1945, and we should not rest until a victory worth the name is achieved and state-sponsored terrorism is no more. Nothing should be allowed to stand in our way. If this all seems like so much “crazy talk,” just remember how far we have fallen from the clarity that most of us had at sunset on Sept. 11, 2001.

As a people, we should be ashamed of ourselves for our distraction, our self-indulgence and for our willingness to believe pretty lies that tell us we need not sacrifice of ourselves in the fight against evil.

Ralph Ginorio

Coeur d’Alene