Michel's Commentary

11/28/2001  888WebToday  The English legal philosopher James Fitzjames Stephens once wrote that force rules the world.  Force. Not love, not persuasion, not moral example, but force.

Force is the ultimate sanction of society.  You feel compelled to pay a parking ticket because you know that the state can force you to lose your driving privileges.  You abstain from wringing your wife's neck because the state can force you to lose your life in the electric chair!  And it is force, and only force, that will end Osama bin Laden's career as a terrorist, one way or the other.

Democratic societies may determine what their policies will be through reason and debate, at least in theory.  Once the policies are decided upon, they must be enforced and, by definition, that requires force.

It may not be necessary actually to use the force, but the threat of force is always present.  Just having the policeman walk his beat will deter some crimes.  He won't even have to draw his nightstick.

Such displays, however, are not always enough.  There are some thugs whose contempt for the law is such that they cannot be deterred by the mere threat of force; the threat must be carried out.  The thugs must be separated from society in one way or another.

Likewise Osama bin Laden must be separated from international society.  He and his Al Qaeda network must be destroyed. There is no possible concession that we could make that will appease a man who has declared war against our entire civilization and wants nothing less than its destruction.  Therefore, we cannot be satisfied with anything less than his destruction.

Osama bin Laden's peculiar theology has no room whatsoever for tolerance. Taliban schools, supported, by the way, with U.S. foreign aid dollars have taught Afghan children that the sure way to Paradise is to kill the Infidels. That means us, we, you and me, are The Infidels.

Edmund Burke wrote that we have no obligation to tolerate those who would not tolerate us. He was referring to the zealots of the French Revolution, who threatened Europe with upheaval.  The same could be said of bin Laden and his followers, they too, are fanatical who threaten the whole world with upheaval; and the most numerous victims of that upheaval; were they to have their way, would be their fellow Muslims throughout the Middle East.

This is the time to recall the words of Woodrow Wilson, during the First World War, when he praised not only the use of force but even "force without stint or limit, the majestic force of a free people" that would "render our enemies in the dust."

Let us take pride in being infidels if it means defending our civilization. Bearing in mind, President Wilson's militant rhetoric, let there be no "stint" or "limit" to the use of force except those dictated by morality.

So now let us finish our task, which is to render Osama bin Laden "in the dust."

Those are my thoughts .....

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