NO political leader could be expected to suffer an attack such as 9/11 and immediately begin to negotiate with the attacker. And the U.S. doesn't even have a political leader, unless it's bill o'reilly.
So some U.S.-delivered mayhem proportional to 9/11, not necessarily well-targeted, is a necessary precondition for any negotiation in the best of circumstances, from the standpoint of the peace camp. Whether the military action proves to be very effective or the opposite will obviously affect whether the negotiation will be a surrender on the part of the U.S. or OBL.
Following the mayhem will be some menu of policy changes on one side and/or the other's, depending on how battle goes, which we economists would say is "observationally equivalent" to the pro-response scenario. This means the peace movement is basically kidding itself, or bearing moral witness.
mbs
DD: " . . . So, I think there are only two defensible alternative strategies; surrender (in the sense of doing a lot of things we ought to do anyway) now or surrender later. Either we negotiate with bin Laden, or we kill him and negotiate with his successor. If the current operation has a purpose at all (which I frankly doubt), then we are taking the gamble that the next Arab terrorist leader will be easier to deal with than bin Laden, and that this is worth the obvious cost in terms of probable Western deaths and certain Afghan deaths in the meantime.