LET'S just consider what we're up against. Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorist network have been the "guests" of the Afghanistan Taliban for several years. The Taliban were good friends to Osama and they refused repeatedly to hand him over to the US. This is one of the reasons why we are fighting the war. So you'd think Osama would be grateful for the Taliban's help. But now we hear that his murderous al-Qaida gang has slit the throats of up to 300 Taliban who were trying to surrender to the Northern Alliance. So it is confirmed that bin Laden has neither manners nor morals.

But there is more to it than that. The massacres were carried out on the first day of Ramadan, the holiest month in the Muslim calendar. Moreover, those murdered were themselves Muslims. But the Koran clearly states that Muslims may not kill other Muslims. So by this act of savagery, bin Laden's gang demonstrate just how little regard they have for their professed religion of Islam, in the name of which they say they are fighting a holy war.

Meanwhile, the useful fools, the "peace protestors" have been holding up the traffic in Trafalgar Square with another of their fatuous demonstrations against the bombing of the Taliban. Only this time the protestors can hardly claim that bombing doesn't work: air attacks on Taliban resources and on their front line troops are precisely what has made them submit across more than two thirds of the territory they formerly held in Afghanistan. The trouble with the nave and stupid "peace protestors" is that they greatly underestimate the danger which the free world is in while ever bin Laden's terrorists are at liberty. The worst fears of western intelligence - that the terrorists are close to getting their hands on chemical, biological and nuclear weapons of mass destruction - have been confirmed in documents found in command centres from which al-Qaida has fled.

The Allied bombing campaign is working because it is weakening and disrupting the command and control centres of al-Qaida. Our war aim must be to kill as many of them as we can; to smash their facilities; to infiltrate their organisation and undermine it from within.

The undermining of the war effort is also being done by many of our national newspapers and, particularly, by the BBC. John Humphrys says that, as a journalist, he must be allowed room for "scepticism" about our conduct of the war. In other words, he is trying to make himself independent of the western alliance, which alone can defend him from the terrorist danger. There is no such independence. In a campaign where the very existence of western civilisation is under threat, there is no such thing as neutrality.

And what of bin Laden himself? Some say he is near Kandahar. Others that he has crossed the border into Pakistan. Another guess is that he has gone to stay with his mother-in-law in Yemen. Les Dawson, thou shouldst be living in this hour! A few of your mother-in-law jokes would help the war effort no end.

Published: Tuesday, November 20, 2001