Four years ago, most Americans shed our ignorance and innocence as hijacked passenger planes slammed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a lonely field in rural Pennsylvania.

The terrorists struck at our heart, but couldn't touch our spirit. On that day, we saw and felt disbelief, horror, anger, fear and hysteria... but also saw levels of heroism, compassion and resolve that many of us never thought to witness. We saw the lowest humanity had to offer, in the terrorists who deliberately murdered thousands of innocent people. We saw the greatest of humanity as well, from the firefighters who rushed into burning skyscrapers to rescue trapped office workers, to the ordinary men and women who fought back on Flight 93 to prevent the terrorists from hitting who knows what target.
Most of us realised on that day that no preparations, no screening procedures, no walls could altogether prevent our enemies from carrying out their attacks. They blend in, they hide, and they take advantage of our freedoms in order to destroy our way of life. Their goal is the submission of all the world to a radical form of fundamentalist Islam. They can't be reasoned or bribed into abjuring this ambition. So how do you defeat terrorism?
Part of the answer is to dismantle the structure that supports them -- destroy their training camps, freeze their funding, and coerce rogue nations into ceasing their support for them. America has been doing those things, working with allies around the world who see the threat unrestrained terrorism can pose.
Another part is attacking the root cause of terrorism -- changing the kind of oppressive governments that lead to that kind of hatred and fanatical madness. We've been fairly successful at this so far, considering that -- as usual -- America has had to fight this war from a dead stop, while our enemies have been geared to the fight for a long time. We are not a warlike country by nature; we don't usually function in a state of war. Afghanistan and Iraq are well on their way to becoming self-sufficient democracies, even as Syria-backed al-Qaeda tries desperately to cow the Iraqis into accepting their Islamofascist rule. Increased demands for democracy have echoed throughout the Middle East: from Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and even from the oppressed subjects of theocratic Iran.

What makes the fight against terrorism difficult is those in our own country who refuse to let us fight it. Some of them feel that we deserved to be attacked, while some feel that any use of force by America is inherently wrong. In seeking to place blame, they refuse to blame the terrorists themselves. Some are merely tired of hearing about 9/11 and war, unhappy at the loss of complacency. Some are anxious to "get back" to a mythical time when everyone loved America, and such things never happened here. Others, like most members of the "mainstream" media, are slaves to their own negativity, seeing only the costs and none of the achievements. Some actually seek to portray 9/11 as "all America's fault," and use the death of every soldier to undermine public support. They generally bill themselves as "anti-war," though in their portrayal of terrorists as "freedom fighters," they only seem to be against one side of this war.

Those who complain that the country has become divided forget that the division was evident little more than a week after 9/11. The first anti-war protest took place in New York on 20 September 2001, while the city still reeked of smoke and dust, and as hope of finding survivors alive in the rubble was just beginning to flag. It's difficult to believe that, even then, Americans who detest America were sapping our will to defend ourselves. That was the same day President Bush declared, "Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated... We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."

The appeasers have become more insidious and more subtle, though they still like staging large rallies whenever a public forum can be had. Anti-war, anti-American sentiments have even taken over memorials to the victims of 9/11. The memorial at Ground Zero in New York, thanks to the tireless efforts of the anti-war crowd, is scheduled to feature a place called the "International Freedom Center." As they enter the 9/11 site, visitors will be "informed" about slavery, Native American issues, the KKK, Nazi genocide and Soviet gulags before being introduced to 9/11 in the context of Abu Ghraib and Gitmo. In the Pennsylvania field where UA Flight 93 went down, a semi-circle of red maples -- forming the Red Crescent that is the most recognisable international symbol of Islam -- will frame the crash site. The design is called "the Crescent of Embrace." One site will become a forum for casting blame on America for the victims of 9/11, the other a paean to their true murderers. Can you imagine a tribute to Holocaust victims dedicated to excusing Hitler, or a Pearl Harbor memorial featuring the Japanese Empire's excuse for mounting a sneak attack?

Although it's difficult to maintain our resolve in the face of a home front dedicated to sapping our will, we owe it to the victims of 9/11 -- and the potential victims of all future terrorist attacks -- not to give up the struggle against terrorism. We cannot let the events of 9/11 become bogged down in anti-American politics. We have to remember. We have to fight. And we have to win.

Joe Mariani is a computer consultant born and raised in New Jersey. He now lives in Pennsylvania, where the gun laws are less restrictive and taxes are lower. Joe always thought of himself as politically neutral until he saw how far left the left had really gone after 9/11. His essays and links to articles are available at http://www.guardianwatchblog.com/