While we can scarcely afford to disregard the thoughts and feelings of our European friends and allies, the fact remains there are limits in virtually any human activity to the benefits of being guided by consensus.

To give just one example, there was widespread consensus until very recently that Enron was a well-run company whose stock represented a good investment.

Certain aspects of European consensus thinking in particular have made me uncomfortable since long before Saddam Hussein got back in our crosshairs.

An example that may initially seem irrelevant, but actually provides an oddly telling case in point, is Europe’s recent adoption of laws outlawing the spanking of children. Given Europeans’ historical penchant for overdoing physical punishment of their young (images of   sternly authoritarian Old World Papas wielding belts and worse come readily to mind), to criminalize the occasional, ordinary, and useful application of the flat of a hand to a child’s bottom strikes me as a case of going from one extreme straight to another, without ever finding the sensible middle.

Europeans may have done something comparable regarding the use of military force. Not all that long ago, there was scarcely a more militaristic and unceasingly bellicose place on earth than Europe. It was slow-to-anger Americans who had to eventually rescue Europe from its excesses of militarism in two successive World Wars. Now Europeans are earnestly counseling us about the evils of military adventurism.

In my heart of hearts, I don’t believe the American people have gotten all that much more hawkish in the interim. I’m more inclined to believe Europeans have shifted from an excess of militarism to an excess of pacifism, while we’ve maintained a more level-headed approach--understanding that while the use of force shouldn’t be needlessly glamorized, sometimes it’s necessary.

If Saddam Hussein is on the verge of achieving some sort of major breakthrough in weapons of mass destruction, it seems self-evident that the threat he poses will be a lot easier to eliminate now than later.   Any given level of casualties today would be preferable to many times that level tomorrow. And some fights you just can’t avoid.  

Also, we should consider what actually happened in Afghanistan, after all the dire predictions of a drawn-out, grinding affair that would end inconclusively or worse.   U.S. military leaders turned out to have a pretty good sense of what they were doing there. Why should we believe they’ve lost that sense now?

There remains, however, a crucial “if.” What if there is no genuinely compelling imperative to act now? What if military action is actually being promoted to advance other agendas?