Bounty on bin Laden's head underscores harsh realism

The decision to once again declare a price on Osama bin Laden's head, a bounty as high as $25 million for whomever takes him dead or alive, has appeared to many Europeans to be the sign of a typically American mentality, an attempt to force Texan customs on an entirely different world.

Even Tony Blair turned up his nose when Bush used the expression ''dead or alive,'' explaining that the ''prince of terror'' should receive a trial similar to that of Milosevic.

But, given the traditions and reality of Afghanistan, the American approach seems more realistic, even if it is a realism as harsh as the conditions in which the Afghan people live.

The bounty offer is not aimed toward individual Afghans but toward the heads of the tribes and groups that returned to power in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban regime.

The goal is that of effectively enlisting these armed factions, even as they carry on a bloody rivalry, and offering a hefty compensation to those that may get their hands on the body of the man that hit the heart of America.

Among Europeans the doubt remains: Is it really to the Americans' advantage to allow a billion-plus Muslims to see photographs similar to those that showed Che Guevarra's body laid out in a little morgue in Bolivia? Those images of a man martyred in the name of revolution became an explosive icon.

-- Il Messaggero, Rome

Nov. 21