Many people are convinced that there are "better ways" to deal with terrorists other than seeking them out in their home ground and taking them out.

That somehow you can deal with terrorists concealed in hostile nations led by murderious tyrants the same way you deal with someone in New Jersey who hasn't paid their parking tickets. Raoul pointed out a news story about terrorists being captured in south France, and said that this shows how terrorism should be dealt with. Right. Send the police into Tora Bora. Make sure they've got their mace and tasers.

Some of these same people believe, at the bottoim of it all, that there wouldn't be problems in the world like this if America wasn't such an imperialist bastard. But that's another story.

Due process. Miranda rights. No unnecessary rough stuff. Free defense lawyers. The whole ball of wax.

There is a difference between police work and war.

What I am getting at is that there are monsters in this world that are not impressed by platitudes and appeals to their better sides. Who have laid out the terms that it's either them or us who are going to die or submit. I pick them.

Maybe I was trying to be too subtle. The point of my imaginary scenario is not that it is likely that you would be at a table with Zarqawi in real life. It's not to say that Zaraqawi is the whole problem. It's a bloody thought experiment.

The point is that there is nothing on Earth that you could say to him that would keep him from killing you or forcing you to submit to his own worldview. Nothing. Liberals have one hell of a problem grokking this kind of thing. That old "black and white" problem again.

It's instructive that you can't wrap your brain around what I thought was a simple scenario. I suspect it goes somewhere you don't want to be.

No meetings, no compromises, no "summits," no "can't we all get along" ideas are going to make Zarqawi become less dangerous.

Bush knows that. Kerry, however much he tries to play "tough," does not. Oddly, given his experience in Vietnam, you'd think he would. I don't recall him chasing down that enemy carrying the loaded rocket and slapping cuffs on him.