It’s been a couple of days short of six years since the murders of September 11, 2001. The West has learned a great deal since then, and so have the terrorists who are our enemies.

They’re not stupid people, these men who wage war on us and all we believe. Some have medical degrees or are chemists and engineers. Their beliefs are foreign to us but that alone should not be seen as an indication that they are unsophisticated or ignorant. You don’t need to believe in atoms and phase states to use a wrench. Our enemy’s belief system does not preclude their use of Western tools to accomplish their goals.

Our war is being waged on three main fronts right now. Iraq and Afghanistan are two, but let’s not overlook Europe as the third front. In each place we are seeing the results of the lessons learned by Islamofascists in the last six years.

In Afghanistan they have learned to use other countries as refuges. Pakistan and Iran have become their bases of operation as the local population in many parts of Afghanistan proper become increasingly hostile to al Qaeda and the Taliban. Suicide bombings have become an increasingly used tactic, with the United Nations finding that virtually all such bombers are foreigners and not Afghans. IED’s have also become much more common.

In Iraq, a far more industrialized nation, the terrorists are using the materials of industry in their attacks. Bombs attached to tanks of chlorine, propane canisters like you use on your barbecue, and tanker trucks full of gasoline are all unlikely risks in Afghanistan but found in Iraq. The makings for a deadly attack are everywhere in an industrialized nation.

The war in Iraq has also seen complex networks created for smuggling terrorists and materials for terrorism into the country. The cell system has been adopted for much of this work and a modest level of operational secrecy appears to be in place. Culturally, such processes are difficult for many in the region to practice but it does seem that some have learned.

Iraq has become the testing ground for bombs. The methods of detonation vary, the size, shape and force also change. The complexity of some of the bombs rivals anything done in the West. The terrorists of the world will derive a vast amount of practical knowledge about bombmaking, device use and methods of detonation from the work now being done in-country by the terrorists.

Europe is the third front where terrorism is being fought. The primary lesson that our enemy has learned here is that there is a vast amount of disaffection in the resident Moslem population that can be tapped. The attacks that have been successful and those that have failed all have one outstanding characteristic, the Islamic terrorists orchestrating the attack are distanced from those carrying out the attack. With very little time and effort, the terrorists are provoking attacks by seemingly ordinary Moslems.

All of this has a direct bearing on the safety of the United States six years after 9/11. Every single lesson learned on the battlefield can be applied here with little or no adaptation.

Thousands of people travel daily to and from nations that provide sanctuary to our enemies or who allow transit by our enemies. The numbers of foreigners in our nation illegally or untracked are so high that our enemies certainly have or plan to take advantage of it.

Our nation is awash with industry and the materials that make it run. On our nation’s railroads, highways and waterways we can see dangerous chemicals going by every single day. LP gas is sold at Home Depot. Chlorine for your pool is sold at Wegman’s.

We’ve already seen American citizens supporting the enemy. We’ve seen citizens and long-time residents plan attacks on this country. There is a disaffection in the Moslem community despite the benefits that they enjoy by living in America.

We’ve been lucky. We may continue to be lucky but we should not forget that our enemy is learning. The lessons he learns over there may be brought home to us. Our government, our society, can make future attacks less likely but we cannot prevent them. Someone, sometime, will be luckier than us.