Everyone remembers the terrorist attack of September 11th. Although it has been almost nine years, Americans and people around the world remain under constant threat of impending attacks. Terrorism has resulted in high death tolls in London, Madrid and New York City. The entire world is on alert. No one knows where terrorists will strike next.

Terrorists have no problem killing women and children to get their message across. In 2004, a group of armed terrorists took 1,100 hostages, including almost 800 school children in the Beslan school crisis. Eventually 334 hostages were murdered, 186 of which were children.

And the terrorists still have tricks up their sleeves. In early 2009, a television broadcast showed a Kuwaiti professor detailing a simple yet catastrophic attack on the United States. By smuggling only four pounds of anthrax through the Mexican border, America could be targeted like never before. The professor explains that spreading this quantity of anthrax around the White House area like confetti, 330,000 Americans could easily be killed.

Fear is the central component of terror. Our fear is the terrorists’ success. But this does not mean that we should not be scared. The threat of terrorism is real. Ignoring the threat will not make it go away. We need to be aware of the intense nature of this threat, and to educate others.