The Boston Marathon bombing was not a tragedy.

The Boston Marathon bombing was another act of war perpetrated against the United States by Islamic jihadists.

Two barbarians transformed the finish line of a marathon into a battlefield that should be henceforth recognized as are the grounds of Lexington and Concord on every Patriots' Day.  Medical personnel and others described the injuries as like combat injuries.  But they were combat injuries.  As such, the dead, wounded, and maimed are casualties of war.

There already has been the predictable handwringing and moral equivalency from the predictable quarters concerning the perpetrators of this battle.  The American Civil Liberties Union is already concerned that the surviving murderer was not "Mirandized."  Many in the neutered media openly and fervently hoped that the perpetrator was a white male, preferably a Tea Partier with a mesh NRA cap on his head and a hayseed between his teeth.  How much easier it has become to demonize one's countrymen than the true face of evil.

The fact -- or what was once referred to as fact -- that the atrocity in Boston was the latest in over 20,000 violent acts committed in the name of jihad in every corner of the planet since September 11, 2001 will not be and must not be mentioned in our polite, oversensitive society.  To do so is to invite accusations of thoughtcrime or the dastardly moniker of "phobic."  Attempts will be made to rationalize the mounting evidence that the killers in this instance were devoted to jihad and to discount the fact that the use of violence against anyone perceived to threaten or offend Islam is not only theologically permitted, but demanded.

Did you know that the city of Boston may have indirectly funded the ideological training of the younger barbarian-inside-the-gate?  According to the online media outlet the Daily Caller, the young Boston jihadists attended the mosque at the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) in Cambridge.  The ISB was allegedly the beneficiary of a deal with Boston's municipal planning agency, the Boston Redevelopment Authority, in which the ISB was charged over $200,000 less for the land on which the ISB built.  The Daily Caller reported that the deal was described as "an apparent financial handout" and "possible government subsidy" from Boston to the ISB.

So what sort of ideology did the taxpayers of Boston help their city fund?  Consider Islamic cleric Yusuf Abdullah al-Qaradawi, who was reported to have appeared on Internal Revenue Service records as an ISB trustee.  In a 1995 speech, he said that Islam would "conquer America" and "conquer Europe."

Worse, ISB trustee Walid Fitaihi, who apparently helped arrange the Boston Redevelopment Authority handout, once wrote that Jews "would be punished for their oppression, murder and rape of the worshipers of Allah."

In other words, the taxpayers of Boston helped bankroll the fetid stew in which at least one of the marathon bombers marinated.  What is the return investment on this sort of outreach?  And are we yet exhausted with Muslim outreach in the other direction?

If we really want to be Boston Strong, it is time to at last allow the scales to fall from our eyes and act accordingly.  Like it or not, we are on the battlefield.  The battlefield is anywhere and everywhere.  Do not be willfully blind to the existential and constant threat of Islamic jihad any longer.  Read the Koran and the over 600 references therein to slaughtering infidels.  Reject the premises of those who attempt to rationalize or diminish the carnage that these latest Muslim fanatics have wrought on a new front of their jihad.

Call the evil of Islamic jihad by its name.  Be unapologetically vigilant in your daily life.  Demand that our government recognize that we are at war by identifying the enemy and ridding us of this evil by any means necessary -- or be replaced by those who will not cower, rationalize, and accommodate.

Matthew May welcomes comments at may.matthew.t@gmail.com.