Proceeding with caution

The United States made a timely and seemingly appropriate response when it launched air attacks against the Taliban, Afghanistan's ruling regime 26 days after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Nonetheless, caution and continual re-evaluation of these strikes is critical if the Bush administration is to achieve its stated goal of bringing terrorists to justice.

Certainly, a respectable interval has passed between the attack and the air raids such that emotions play a lesser role in a mission that should be targeted toward ending terrorist threats. Administration officials have stressed that these weeks have given them time to construct a plan targeted to damage the Taliban regime's underlying infrastructure, such as airfields and military installations, while preserving civilian lives. In fact, the United States is even dropping food supplies as a humanitarian gesture toward the people of Afghanistan.

The Taliban has also had sufficient time to respond to U.S. demands to hand over Osama bin Laden, to close terrorist facilities and to release wrongfully imprisoned foreigners; but the Taliban has shown little movement on these fronts. Perhaps the United States should have been open to negotiation; even so, the Taliban has not come close to responding in full.

U.S. officials have shown their case against Osama bin Laden to allies through diplomatic channels, and key allies, particularly Great Britain, have found the evidence sufficient enough to lend military support to the cause. Even the Taliban--by way of Pakistan--have had access to this circulated evidence.

Bin Laden, meanwhile, did little to deter these conclusions when he acquiesced to the terrorist attacks in a video-taped statement released Sunday. He called the United States an evil country and singled out President George W. Bush for condemnation. Furthermore, he tried to depict the U.S. pursuit of him as a battle of Christianity vs. Islam--a distinction that American leaders have tried hard to dispel. Bin Laden's rhetoric aside, the key U.S. target remains bin Laden and not the Islamic faith.

These strikes, however, mark the beginning of what could be a long fight consisting of these open strikes as well as covert operations. Officials cannot blindly continue if these attacks harm large numbers of civilians or if the objectives fail to be met. The American people need to remain cautious in their support because the coming days will be somber due to the loss of life that has undoubtedly occurred and will continue. Operation Enduring Freedom--the name coined for the U.S. response--is a just cause only as long as the United States holds to its stated intentions of minimizing the loss of innocent life.

Caution may save lives and prevent this military action from degrading into retaliation as opposed to ending the international terrorist threat.