Get on with it

CASE AGAINST SADDAM 2 | You can't contain him; you can only hope to defeat him | Mindy Belz

Those who had column space last fall debated whether the United States should make war on Afghanistan. Just how directly responsible for subsurface activity was the ruling Taliban, anyway? What links did the Afghan government have to terrorists in Tora Bora caves plotting to bring down tall buildings? Were we really sure that Osama bin Laden was behind it?

On Oct. 8 the planes flew, the bombs dropped, and the caves became rubble. We are wiser now. What courtroom attorneys call material evidence surfaced in abandoned Kabul guesthouses and destroyed al-Qaeda caves. Osama bin Laden himself came forward with what amounts to a videotaped guilty plea. The Taliban government refused to hand over the al-Qaeda agents it claimed were just guests, then fled hand-in-hand with them. Besides liberating Afghanistan, the U.S. assault pried open the terrorists' manual and scattered its operators to the four winds. In the streets the people flew kites and sent their girls to school again.