Just as Americans can’t blink away the dangerous world of radical Islam, however, we also cannot pretend that we can field a military that doesn’t include Muslims. The unreality of attempting to fight this enemy without Muslim soldiers or operatives should be obvious. In Iraq, devout Muslims worked loyally as translators and guides for U.S. forces, sometimes dying to rid their country of the world’s common enemy, which is homicidal Islamic fanatics.

In recent years U.S. soldiers have fought a common enemy on behalf of and often alongside Muslims in Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Somalia, and elsewhere. The U.S. is fighting a sworn enemy today, just as in World War II American Germans, Italians and Japanese fought sworn U.S. enemies of the same race and religion. Many American Muslims will do the same if we stay focused on the real enemy, and show we have the will to do what’s necessary to find them and stop them.