The terrorist situation can be somewhat paralleled to a serial killer in a high-speed chase with the police.

The police don’t let the criminal go and say, “Agh, let him go. Instead of tracking him down and preventing him from killing again, we’ll just see how he likes it when he finds his credit cards are canceled.”

Instead, we chase him until he gives himself up or goes down swinging. In Osama bin Laden’s case, it’s just on a bigger scale (and I don’t see him surrendering any time soon).

Yes, there are civilians in the way (like a little old lady crossing the road) – the police wouldn’t run her over, they’d avoid her as best they could. But if she accidentally got in the way, it’d be a tragedy and we’d have to accept it.

Now say that the serial killer is being held up in a town, cornered by the police, and has persuaded a portion of the towns people to aide him. In that case, you get the innocent townspeople out of the way, and you insist the killer and his aides give up; if not, you assault them and bring him to justice.

All the time I hear “anti-war” people agreeing that we should do something, just not what we are currently doing. We should not bomb and we should only send in elite Special Forces troops to hunt bin Laden down.

Do you honestly believe it would be that easy? C’mon, read a book on 20th century military advancements without artillery aide or air support. This is not a simple get-in-and-get-out kind of fight; we’re not battling a drug lord held up in a compound.

We are fighting a complex network of terrorists who have more military capabilities than you would expect. It’s not like we’re up against the Red Army here (not in the least), but we are up against more than Gomer Pyle with a gun.

Our current military strategy involves minimizing the number of American casualties while inflicting the most amount of damage on the enemy, plain and simple. This idea may not be popular, but it works. The belief that a team of Army Rangers could fix everything is asinine (though I’m certain they’d be a damn formidable opponent).

I applaud all of you, whoever you are, for taking the middle ground, because you believe there are flaws with both sides and because the situation is a little more complicated than just action or no action.

However, let me put you in a situation in which you are not protected in the nice sheltered community of Eau Claire.

You are out in the real world. You are in present-day Afghanistan, plopped down smack dab in the middle of an al Queda offensive. Bin Laden and his cronies are charging straight towards you, guns blazing. You start waving your hands and shying back, insisting, “Wo, wo, wo, wait; I’m in the middle ground. I don’t totally agree with the U.S.’s actions against you. I understand your pleas and your suffering, and how the U.S. is a big bully.”

Are they gonna give a rat’s ass? Absolutely not. He’d smite you without the least bit of consideration.

Being in the middle ground is nice when you don’t have to worry about consequences. But in the real world, outside of Eau Claire, there is no middle ground.

Now, I don’t by any means support the U.S. government in everything it does. In fact, you should sit down and chat with me about Social Security; boy, do I have a mouthful to say about that load of political crap. (Great, I can already hear AARP knocking on my door)

What the heck, let’s just get off the subject for a little bit and talk about Social Security. Am I the only one (under 65, that is) that feels Social Security is a complete ripoff? Oh wait, college students don’t care about this kind of stuff.

Well, guess what my fellow collegiate comrades? In a few years, you’re going to. Everyone knows that Social Security should be reformed, but no one realizes that we would be better off if it were completely gone; by that I mean privatized.

Hey, I’m all about helping our elder peers, but as far as my retirement goes, I could privately invest the same amount of money I would normally pay into Social Security and have such a good retirement you’d cry.

So why can’t you privately invest money for your own retirement rather than pay into social security? Because the government needs your money to pay the current retired people.

In 1983, the government closed the door for municipalities to opt out of the federal Social Security Plan, because in 1981, the people of Galveston, Texas, did this and showed just how better off they’d be on their own. Check it out here.

Trust me, I could go for hours, but this is just an example of how wrong the government is in some of its policies.

With the war against terrorism, however, we are right in our actions. It merely comes down to the anti-current-military-campaign people not presenting any logical alternatives to stopping bin Laden and better the situation in Afghanistan.

If someone eventually does come up with such an alternative, by all means, clue me in – I’d like to be recognized as The Man Who Freed Afghanistan and Ended bin Laden’s Reign of Terror Without Using Military Force (in conjunction with Amnesty International, the UN, PETA, and Jesse Jackson, of course).