The Paris attacks that killed more than 120 innocent victims this week brought a question to my mind this afternoon as I visited with my boss … the one at work.

I asked, perhaps rhetorically, “How are we going to kill every single person on Earth who seeks to commit an act of terrorism?”

French officials today vowed to “destroy” the Islamic State. I trust they’ll take their place in a long line of officials throughout the civilized world who’ve made similar vows.

President Francois Hollande is a very angry man today as France seeks to collect itself after the worst single act of violence committed there since World War II.

The question, though, lingers in my mind.

I am beginning to believe we’re engaged in a new kind of world war. It’s not being waged against enemy states. It’s being fought wherever we find evil men and women who seek to terrorize the world. They do not represent a government, per se. They represent some perverted ideology that uses religion as some form of cover.

How do we wipe them out? How do we know when we’ve got the last person on Earth who seeks to commit a heinous act of terror? Moreover, suppose we wipe the last person out. How can ever guarantee that another individual, or group of individuals, will emerge from the shadows to resume such acts?

We are facing a very uncertain time. Indeed, it’s been an uncertain time ever since that beautiful Tuesday morning in September 2001 when those terrorists flew the jetliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and fought with the passengers aboard the third plane that crashed into the Pennsylvania field.

My boss noted the 9/11 attack as being perhaps the first “shot” in this new world war.

When on God’s Earth will it end? Can it ever end?

I fear for the worst, which is that we’ll be fighting these forces of evil for as long as human beings are able to fight.