Those who argue that the U.S. can’t fight Saddam and terrorism at the same time should throw such reasoning in the burn barrel of good sense. As it turns out, the precision strike carried out March 19 — the one aimed at the “”top leadership,”” a.k.a. Saddam’s henchmen — apparently killed a first lieutenant from the Palestine Liberation Front.

Those who don’t remember the PLF may recall a 4-member band of terrorists taking over the Italian cruise ship Aquille Lauro in 1985 while it was sailing from Alexandria toward Israel, and murdering Leon Klinghoffer, an elderly invalid passenger on the ship and a Jewish American citizen.

United Press International claims that the Palestine Liberation Front has made a statement claiming that one of its guerrillas was killed during the U.S. missile strike on Iraq. The PLF has long been one of the most lethal Palestinian terrorist groups, achieving notoriety for its high-tech killings.

Just what a first lieutenant of the PLF had to offer at a high-level meeting of Saddam’s top officials, is telling.

To differentiate between terrorists and the nations that support them is not only asinine but reckless. It also suggests that, at least on a moral basis, the president never needed permission from the United Nations after all.

So, while anti-war activists around the country take to the streets in protest, many going beyond what the First Amendment outlines as “peaceably assembling,” this is indeed a just war.

Ed Turgeon, Lewiston