Sharon Has Unique Opportunity

Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has a unique opportunity. He can completely root-out and destroy the Palestinian-Hamas infrastructure and put Yasser Arafat where he belongs - in exile again - or he can placate the American State Department and liberal Europeans by going half way and making things even worse for Israel in the future.

Israel doesn't need a buffer zone, which is no solution to terror. Sharon must obliterate the entire terror infrastructure now or, like a cancerous tumor that is not fully removed, it will grow back.

Unfortunately, the likes of Colin Powell and members of the first Bush administration think the terrorists can be placated. They think if we give them what they want, they will make war no more. That is a fiction and recent history proves it. The more land they get, the more war they make.

Only hunting them down and getting rid of them will work. Isn't that we're trying to do with the terrorists who threaten us? They are all cut from the same cloth. I'm cal Thomas in Washington.