The painfully enduring threat of radical Islam was apparent once again in recent days with multiple suicide bombings in the big African nation of Nigeria.
Suicide bombers who were members of the militant group Boko Haram detonated cars full of explosives in the city of Kano, killing almost 200 people. Among the dead were 150 civilians and nearly 30 police officers.
As if that were not bad enough, police found 10 more car bombs that fortunately had not been detonated but that could have caused immeasurably more destruction and grief if they had gone off.
The terrorist attacks have the potential to disrupt world oil markets as well. Nigeria, though unstable, is a major supplier of oil. It is a tragic testament to the corruption and the lack of the rule of law in Nigeria that its large oil reserves have done little to lift its people out of poverty.
There is no conceivably productive goal behind terrorism. Terrorists seek to gain power over others not through the persuasiveness of their arguments but through the fear they instill in the public with their brutal attacks.
There is no reasoning with terrorists, because reason is not what led them to kill innocent people in the first place. They are driven by a mindless rage and an overpowering desire to impose their will at all costs.
As then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared in solidarity with our country soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks: "There is no compromise possible with such people, no meeting of minds, no point of understanding with such terror. Just a choice. Defeat it or be defeated by it. And defeat it we must."
We cannot solve the problem of terrorism in Nigeria, of course, but the vicious attacks there remind us that we must remain vigilant against the terrorist threat.