A quick check with MapQuest reveals this to be a densely populated area on a main thoroughfare surrounded by residential neighborhoods (and even a park). No problem. As the bombing of Baghdad demonstrates, the United States has plenty of experience attacking urban areas. “In hospitals there are 207 people, woman, children and other civilians,” Mohammad Saeed al-Sahaf, Iraqi information minister at the time, said on March 22, 2003, after a “precision” attack on Baghdad. “We have calculated in a small area of Baghdad, 19 missiles fell. I went there and saw parts of these missiles—19 missiles in a very small area,” al-Sahaf added. It will probably not require 19 missiles to take out al-Qaeda’s server situated near a busy intersection in Houston. A couple cluster bombs will do the trick.

As for Tony Blair, he should waste no time bombing Willesden, north-west London, where the Saudi dissident Saad al-Faqih lives. Mr. al-Faqih, according to the normally reliable Israeli sources, runs the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (Mira) and owns the Qal3ah forums, according to the U.S. Treasury. “Al-Faqih has had contact with both UBL [Osama] and Khaled al Fawwaz, who acted as UBL’s de facto representative in the U.K. According to information available to the U.S. Government, al-Faqih and al Fawwaz shared an office in the late 1990s, and al-Faqih worked with and provided assistance to al Fawwaz, who served as the intermediary between UBL and al-Faqih.”

Of course, taking out the whole Willesden neighborhood to get one man may be a bit extreme, but then this was hardly a concern when the U.S. military used a B-1 bomber and a number of 2,000lb joint direct attack munitions bombs on a restaurant in the Mansour district of Baghdad where it was rumored Saddam and his sons Uday and Qusay were hanging out in April, 2003. “Iraqi officials said they found two bodies in the rubble and were searching for another 14 they thought were still buried, but said no members of the leadership had been killed,” the Guardian reported at the time. I guess the dead were restaurant patrons and staff, hardly worth concern.

And so, when Bush drops a few 2,000lb joint direct attack munitions bombs a few dozen feet from the intersection of Southwest Freeway and Kirby Drive, a couple minutes walk from Levy Park and overlooking the heavily traveled US Highway 59, the same steely resolve at work when the restaurant where Saddam was not meeting his cohorts should hold sway. After all, as Bush tells us, sacrifices will need be made in this “war on terrorism,” a sort of non-war (in war, two sides are more or less equally paired) promised to last a couple decades.