Make No Mistake: This is War

C.I.R. Press Link
The following is from the WaPo. I have used selected quotations, follow link for full article.

Make No Mistake: This Is War
by Michael Chertoff

As the rubble of the Twin Towers smoldered in 2001, no one could have imagined a day when America's leaders would be criticized for being tough in protecting Americans from further acts of war.
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Since Sept. 11, a conspiracy-minded fringe has claimed that American officials plotted the destruction. But when scholars such as Zbigniew Brzezinski accuse our leaders of falsely depicting or hyping a "war on terror" to promote a "culture of fear," it's clear that historical revisionism has gone mainstream.
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The impulse to minimize the threat we face is eerily reminiscent of the way America's leaders played down the Ayatollah Khomeini's revolutionary fanaticism in the late 1970s. That naive approach ultimately foundered on the kidnapping of our diplomats in Tehran.
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As with the Cold War, ideas matter as much as armaments. And as with the Cold War, this war requires our patience and resolve.

Perhaps the rhetoric of war makes Brzezinski and others uncomfortable. But history teaches that the false comfort of complacency is a dangerous indulgence in the face of a determined enemy.

Chertoff Brzezinski