President Obama and many of his liberal cohorts keep telling us things like, “Islam is a religion of peace,” and “We are not at war with Islam.” Obama’s Secretary of State, John Kerry, has declared that “ISIS has nothing to do with Islam.” Well, in the State of Missouri they have an old saying, “Show me!”

Actions speak louder than words. If, as so many liberals seem to claim, Islam has nothing to do with violence or intolerance then we should see evidence of that in the actions of its adherents.   And yet we see just the opposite.  One must be willfully blind to ignore the realities of radical Islam.  

In Nigeria, 2,000 men, women, children were butchered by Jihadists affiliated with Boko Haram.  Meanwhile, in France, we all saw the carnage as people were slaughtered simply for drawing a cartoon that Muslims found offensive and later at a kosher supermarket just for being Jewish. These attacks came just a few weeks after a horrific attack at a school in Pakistan that left 132 children dead. Literally all over the world, be it at a synagogue in Denmark, a café in Australia, a parliament house in Canada, or a mall in Kenya, Muslim fanatics are slaughtering innocent people in the name of their religion.  And what do the liberals tell us? It has nothing to do with Islam! Moreover, if any one of us dares to even suggest otherwise we are instantaneously branded as bigoted or “Islamophobic.”

Enough is enough. It’s time for the civilized world to stand up to these butchers and barbarians.  We must not remain silent in the face of savagery.  We must not be scared of those who would call us “Islamophobic” simply because we recognize a link between radical Islam and terrorism.  Let us be clear, not all Muslims are violent or intolerant. We must not unfairly stigmatize all Muslims—many of whom are good, honorable, decent people.  On the other hand, we can’t be blind to what stares us in the face—radical Islam. Radical Islam is a plague that affects people of all races and religions, including, of course, Muslims themselves.  This plague must be fought and it must be eradicated.  It has no place in the civilized world. But how can we fight something we can’t even call by name?

Mr. Obama likes to call it “violent extremism” and he absolutely refuses to use the words Islam and terrorism in the same sentence—unless of course it’s to lecture us on what a peaceful religion Islam really is.  In addition to being president, he is apparently an Islamic scholar as well.  One wonders, if Obama had been president during WWII what would he have called our enemies in Germany?  Perhaps he would have called them “violent extremists” operating out of Germany but who actually had nothing to do with Germany and who had perverted German culture.

Enough is enough. It’s time that we get rid of all this politically correct nonsense and that we start calling a spade a spade. No, we are not at war with moderate Islam, that much is true. But we most certainly are at war with radical Islam, or perhaps we should more correctly say, radical Islam is at war with us.  And by “us” we’re not just talking about the United States but about the entire Western world.  These vile 7^th century monstrosities are at war with all of us and with all of our values.  They’re at war with freedom of religion, freedom of speech, women’s rights, gay rights, etc. They believe women should be subjugated, gays exterminated, religious minorities converted, and anyone who resists decapitated.

If Barack Obama, John Kerry, and the rest of the Left wish to remain with their heads in the sand, engaging in willful blindness, then let them. But it’s time for the rest of us to stand up and be heard. No, we aren’t fighting some amorphous entity known as “violent extremism,” we are fighting radical Islam.  We can’t defeat an enemy we refuse to recognize.

Timothy Rosen is a professor at Queens College of the City University of New York and an attorney in private practice.