THE American President and our Prime Minister have declared a global war on terrorism in which they have promised "to hunt down and take out individual terrorists and terrorist groups". This is going to be a long and bloody war but, having declared their firm and entirely correct intentions, the Western leaders must not flinch from the task ahead. The policy is quite clear: it is to destroy the terrorists and their training camps wherever they are and to punish severely the countries which support them.

At last the civilised world shows signs that it means to deal with terrorism. Why have we taken so long? It is 29 years since the Black September group murdered Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, and since then there have been hundreds of such atrocities. I think the reasoning behind our sleepiness goes something like this: terrorist attacks are appalling, but they are bearable. It is better that a few dozen innocent people are murdered now and again than that we wage full-scale war on the terrorists with the certain result that this will increase casualties.

What smashed this policy of appeasement to pieces were the terrible events of September 11. We now know that terrorists are capable of inflicting massive casualties, that none of our cities is safe and that it is only a matter of time before we are assailed by chemical or even nuclear weapons.

Predictably, sections of the Left deplore the war on terrorism. The novelist Martin Amis says we should forget all thought of retaliation and "bomb Afghanistan with food parcels". Others urge us to negotiate. But time has proved that negotiation with these people is impossible. They are not old-style guerrilla fighters with an explicit set of political demands: they are men and women who hate our civilisation and they are determined to destroy us.

But some say our attempt to destroy terrorism may provoke a Third World War, and so it is too risky. To this line of argument the answer is that there are worse things even than world war; and to give in to evil is one of those worse things. When our fathers and grandfathers stood up to Hitler, they knew it would provoke a world war, but they did stand up to him because it was better to fight a world war than to appease wickedness.

Finally, we need to remind ourselves that Mr Bush and Mr Blair have declared global war on terrorism. Can we now assume that Mr Blair will give instructions to re-arrest the scores of IRA thugs he let out as part of the so called "peace process"?

And then there are the Islamic fundamentalist groups in Britain. Omar Bakri Mohammed is the leader of the Al-Muhajiroun group which has promised a holy war against us if we retaliate against Afghanistan. He warns us to "prepare the body bags".

What is Mr Blair's response? Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has merely warned Omar Bakri that he faces prosecution "the moment the mark has been completely overstepped". If calling for a holy war on us isn't overstepping the mark, Mr Straw, then tell me what is. Or are you afraid to prosecute Omar Bakri in case you are accused of "racism"? I'll tell you one thing, "political correctness" ended on September 11.

Published: Tuesday, September 25, 2001