Justice for terrorist leaders should be swift

The issue of justice for terrorists is once again before us.

It is good to hear that the resolute answer from the highest levels of our government is that there will be no deals, neither for the leaders of al-Qaida, nor for the murderous Taliban regime that has harbored them.

This includes Mullah Muhammed Omar, the Taliban leader.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who is emerging as one of the standout performers of the Bush administration, is quite clear on the subject.

"If you're asking, would an arrangement with Omar, where he could, quote, 'live in dignity' in the Kandahar area or some place in Afghanistan be consistent with what I have said, the answer is no," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference.

Rumsfeld was asked whether there was any acceptable outcome other than bringing Omar and Osama bin Laden to U.S. justice. He said he couldn't think of one. Of course there never has been any other sensible recourse.

If either or both become casualties of this conflict, dead somewhere in Central Asia, that will be understood as the regrettable but hardly avoidable result of the deadly business they so foolishly and recklessly launched against us.

Should they be taken alive, they should be brought back here to stand trial before one of Rumsfeld's military tribunals before their appointment with the hangman.

This is, after all, a war, and the noose is what we prepared for war criminals from Japan and Germany alike some 55 years ago. It should be the same with their grisly successors as the first war criminals of the 21st century.