&gt;there is no need to frame it as a battle.<p>When trained soldiers are shooting at each other and engaging in combat-maneuvers, it takes a great deal of mental gymnastics not to call it a battle.  Would you prefer &quot;skirmish&quot;?  I can get behind that, but that&#x27;s a difference of scale, not nature.<p>What we witnessed on Friday was a coordinated attack by members of a self-proclaimed state.  If you don&#x27;t want to call it a battle, you&#x27;re just arguing semantics.  It remains a military operation on our soil by a foreign state.<p>Moreover, let&#x27;s not forget the explicit message behind these attacks:  Daesh can visibly attack (mostly) when and where it wants.  The subtext is that this is going to happen again, <i>as it already has</i>.  So yes, the only reasonable way to relate to Friday&#x27;s events is to consider them as a battle in an ongoing conflict against a geopolitical entity (or a skirmish if you prefer).<p>Again, and I truly mean no disrespect:  denying this is so absurd that there&#x27;s really no point in discussing it further, as we simply will not agree.  Denying that this was a battle&#x2F;skirmish is just as absurd as claiming that this has nothing to do with Islam (as, sadly, some people are already doing).