Now that the recent rise in “mental illness” related attacks has reached the UK, with Wednesday’s stabbing incident in Russell Square, so have the cries of “what’s wrong with the world?” But “the world” didn’t commit any of these attacks; individuals did. And these individuals all share an ideology which, when followed consistently, results in the kind of carnage we’ve been experiencing, and the much worse devastation that is certain to come. Unless we choose to stop it, that is. But how do we do that?

We can’t expect Islamic terrorism to just go away. No war has ever been won by the attacked side pretending that it hasn’t been attacked, or that the enemy isn’t actually the enemy. Had the United States responded to the attack on Pearl Harbor by saying that Japan is a nation of peace, or by attacking Canada, they would have been defeated, and we would be living in a very different world today.

So why are we told after every terrorist attack that the attackers aren’t “real Muslims”, that Islam is a religion of peace, and that the greatest threat we face is the threat of “Islamophobia”? Why are European countries actively and knowingly importing terrorists?

I don’t know when and where this erosion of the will to actually win the wars we fight began. But seeing the way the west has handled the issue of Islamic terrorism, it’s clear to me that we have reached boiling point.

The European response to the Islamic State’s promise to flood Europe with its terrorists and to export their ideology to us – welcoming migrants from Islamic State controlled territories with open arms, and without the slightest attempt at checking whether or not they are the terrorists we were promised – is, without a doubt, treasonous. A proper response would have been to wipe out the Islamic State, a feat the air force of any major European country, and certainly the United States, can achieve within hours. But that’s not how the west fights nowadays. When western countries do go to war, they do so apologetically, with no intention of actually defeating the enemy, and with more concern for the lives of civilians on the enemy’s side then the lives of their own soldiers.

During recent military campaigns abroad we’ve heard politicians tell us that they’re doing everything they can to minimise civilian casualties, that the population in the enemy-controlled territory is not our enemy, and that the ideology in the name of which we’re being slaughtered in the streets is really a force for good.

It’s important to remember, every single time a civilian is murdered in a European country, or in the United States, or in Israel, that the government of that country had the power to save his life, that that is what governments exist for, and that the politicians deem these lives not only expendable, but less worthy of saving than the lives of civilians in enemy-controlled territories.

Understanding that the west, by its values, is morally superior to the primitive, barbaric animals against whom we’re fighting is the only way we can begin to turn the tide in this war. Unfortunately, since no one in a position of power has the guts or the conscience to name the enemy, the ambiguity politicians are so eager to maintain will only be replaced by the clarity of our loss in this war.