Up close and personal, the

Atlanta Journal-Constitution carried a story the other day about a civilian

who was badly injured when the first bombs started falling on Afghanistan.

A poor farmer, he was just

arriving home, according to the well-written report by Don Melvin, when

there was an explosion and something struck him in the neck. Now Muhammad

Raza is paralyzed.

No tears for Raza, you say?

What about the 7,000 or so in this country, you demand?

Well, you're right ... and

you're wrong.

You're right that we have no

choice but to use our military might to go after the terrorists.

Several recent lessons have

taught us that we can't defend ourselves against terrorist attacks. For

all of our firepower and our abundant and constantly improving technology,

there's no technology that can tell us that someone has several tons of

cow manure in a truck. There's no end to the ways to make a weapon that

will get through security at an airport.

Our ships of war can't simply

open fire on any small boat that comes near.

As long as we allow such groups

to live and function, there will continue to be grave danger to us or

to anyone else whose politics, religious beliefs or haircuts they don't

like.

But you're wrong if you value

many lives more than one, or if you think a Middle Eastern farmer's life

less valuable than a New York stockbroker's, or vice versa.

Raza's cousin, Raees Mazloomyar,

is angry, says the article. Negotiation is the answer, not war, he pleads.

How I sympathize with him.

How I wish there was hope of

negotiation with these megalomaniacs. But all you have to do is read their

writings and listen to what they say, and it's clear that their beginning

negotiating point is that all Westerners and all Jews clear out of the

Middle East. As long as Israel exists, they will accept no less from Arab

nations than a state of perpetual war with Israel, and any nation that

acts otherwise risks everything from terrorism toward its civilians to

assassination of its leaders.

And if the U.S. and other Western

nations went to the extreme of clearing out of the region and turning

their backs on the Middle East, then what? Either warring factions would

continue to foment unheard of suffering, or some strong man, Saddam perhaps,

would develop enough muscle to take over the entire region and turn it

into a theocratic, hate-filled version of the former Soviet Union.

I don't feel like dancing in

the streets when I see the photo of Raza lying unmoving in his hospital

bed. And, yes, despite our best efforts, there will be many civilian casualties

in our hunt for the criminals.

And as that hunt widens to

other countries and other dens of scorpions, there will be many more.

Will there be too many? One

is too many.

At least, will the result be

worth all the suffering? No one can answer that.

The best that we can pray for

is that, over time, we will have broken the stranglehold that this evil

has begun to tighten over the world, and nations can then sit down and

negotiate without terror as a silent witness at the table.

And people like Muhammad Raza

and people like you and me won't have to be afraid to leave their homes.