The bin Laden video...

...is making waves. It shows, to quote William Arkin, a MSNBC military analyst, "a tall man ... you see him surrounded by or at least protected by a group of guards." Well, I'll be. A tall man, being treated respectfully. It must be Osama! Why didn't we have the place blown to hell with a cruise missile?

The MSNBC article, by Lisa Myers, continues:

There was a larger issue: The Clinton administration treated bin Laden as a law enforcement problem.

I do hope people are very critical of that one. A law enforcement problem. How dare they treat one of the most wanted criminals in the world as 'a law enforcement problem.'

There are a lot of people in this country who refuse to treat terrorism as a criminal matter. Like drugs they want a War with a capital 'W.' Missing the blindingly obvious, Andrew Sullivan blogs:

Starting with Spain, and wrecking the anti-terror alliance of New Europe, was a master-stroke. But it has an added effect of demoralizing the others - especially Italy. That's why Romano Prodi's astonishing disavowal of any force in response to terrorism was so devastating.

But force cannot stop terrorism. The goal of Jihadists is, in Sullivan's words, "the abolition of [the West] as a democratic, peaceful, pluralist place." That's right. And the compromising of our principals - such as not invading sovereign states - is a threat to the democratic and pluralist nature of the West. Terrorism is, as the Clinton administration would treat it, a law enforcement problem. Mass murders may be heinous criminals, but they are criminals none the less.

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