Today is another anniversary

[NYVet]

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1670883,00.html?xid=rss-world


Seven years ago, on October 12, 2000, the U.S.S. Cole was attacked in the Yemeni port of Aden, killing 17 American sailors. Two years later, to the day, a pair of suicide bombers killed 202 tourists and Indonesians in Bali. Neither attack would have the fateful consequences of September 11. But, in their own way, the Cole and the Bali attacks were important turning points in radical Islam's war on the West.

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For Islamic radicals, the legitimacy of attacking the Cole was never in doubt. The U.S. was at war with Islam, and the Cole, a Navy guided missile destroyer, was a military target. It didn't matter in the least to the attackers that in reality there wasn't a war between the U.S. and Islam. Or that the Cole's sailors were non-combatants.

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None of the objectives, of course, were met. But for the attackers, the battle lines were clear, at least until 9/11. That's when that kind of clarity evaporated, as al-Qaeda decided, dropping any pretense of a conventional war, to slaughter civilians.

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Bali and 9/11 were proof enough to many Americans that radical Islam is at war with the West; that there is nothing to negotiate, such as the withdrawal of our troops from Saudi Arabia or peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis; that the battlefield is everywhere, with everyone a combatant.