France, which had not acted

unilaterally since the days of Napoleon, saw its own nation conquered

and occupied for four horrific years. Would it have been such a crime

for France to have acted unilaterally against Hitler in 1935 before he

became too powerful to do so?

After World War Two, the United

Nations replaced the League of Nations. The U.N.'s record in authorizing

the use of force to stop aggression, however, has not proved much better

than that of its failed predecessor. Only three times since its inception

has the United Nations authorized force to punish aggressors.

In the case of North Korea,

only a Soviet boycott of the Security Council made it possible to gain

the votes needed to authorize the use of force.

In the case of Saddam Hussein's

brutal invasion of Kuwait, the first Bush Administration had to pull out

all of the stops to craft a coalition of the reluctant, which quickly

unraveled after the first Persian Gulf War.

And, in the case of Sept. 11,

the U.N. acted only after a series of dastardly attacks on American soil

because a failure to do so would have made it appear criminally negligent

in the eyes of the civilized world.

Since Sept. 11, however, President

Bush has grasped the dangers to America and to the civilized world posed

moves beyond containment because Saddam Hussein proved the folly of containment

when he successfully expelled the U.N. inspectors in 1998.

While the Clinton Administration

sought the use of force to compel Saddam to reconsider his actions, our

European allies balked, as did the leaders of the League of Nations when

asked to punish Japan, Italy, and Germany for their respective threats

to the civilized world. Unlike the 1930s, however, the price of inaction

today is potentially far greater and far more destructive.

Critics argue that American

foreign policy is grounded in our desire to build an empire in which America

dominates the civilized world. These critics, however, must point to their

own histories because America has never pursued war as a means to plunder

those less fortunate than ourselves.

Unlike Napoleon Bonaparte or

Adolf Hitler, our own leaders have fought wars only as a last resort in

order to make the civilized world safe for democracy and the rule of law.

What Jacque Chirac of France and Gerhard Schroeder of Germany fear most

is reflected in their own nation's histories rather than America's past.

Since Sept. 11, the world has

changed. The true test of leadership is to recognize the new dangers and

respond to them accordingly.

In the 1930s, Winston Churchill

proved to be a lone voice warning the civilized world of the dangers posed

through its failure to remove the Hitler Regime.

Today, George W. Bush warns

the civilized world of the dangers posed by outlaw regimes that pursue

the weapons of mass destruction to blackmail civilized societies and sponsor

international terrorism. Like Churchill in 1940, our President understands

the grave consequences if we fail to act and act now.

Tony Pattiz

Peachtree City