I fully support President Clinton's decision to send troops to Bosnia to maintain the peace agreement.

I say this as someone with strong pacifist tendencies, yet as someone who understands that in dealing with violent people, often the only thing that will get their attention is a deliberate and measured show of force, along with clear, and unacceptable, consequences if they continue their rampages.

As the only remaining leader in the free world, we need to demonstrate, in every way possible, that violence is no longer an acceptable way to determine national boundaries.

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. It's a concept embodied in our own Declaration of Independence, clearly practiced by the Canadians as we saw in their election just a few weeks ago, and one that must be made worldwide if we are ever to have a sustainable world peace. It is the only way to go.

Bob Dole is not being critical of President Clinton, because he understands all this. Bob Dole went through the big war. In that war we tried isolationism as long as we could, but when we went in, it wasn't for money, or for oil, or to expand our boundaries.

We went into Europe in World War II to stop Hell.

And we did.

But we are not going into Bosnia to stop Hell. That's been done, in the unlikely place of an air base outside of Dayton, Ohio, by a U.S. president who is supposed to be weak on foreign policy.

Weak on foreign policy! The planes were in the air headed to Haiti when a peace agreement was reached. The planes were warming up at the airport to take the Bosnian negotiators home, when a peace agreement was reached near Dayton. And I read in my paper today that President Clinton, teamed up with our own George Mitchell, flying to London, was enough to prompt the creation of an international advisory panel to resolve a tricky part of the Northern Ireland peace process.

Weak on foreign policy, indeed. In their dreams!

No, we are not going into Bosnia to stop Hell. We are going into Bosnia to keep Hell from rising from the ashes. And we are going in with the clear knowledge, consent, and encouragement of the three warring factions.

One of the arguments against going into Bosnia is that peace in Europe is not worth the risk of American lives. To those who say that, I say this:

As a newspaper reporter, I have written far too many stories about fatal highway accidents, caused by young people taking risks, driving too fast, too late, or too drunk.

When my 22-year-old daughter hiked part of the Appalachian Trail a few years ago, I worried because two people from Ellsworth had been murdered on the trail several years earlier.

Three people have made the news in recent months – Superman, a Boston University hockey player from Maine, and an architect/rock climbing neighbor of mine – when they suffered paralyzing accidents while doing things that they were very skilled at doing. My own son has broken several bones in his young life, and is now into rock-climbing.

I worry.

My dad was in the Army in World War II. Even though he wasn't sent to Europe, I grew up with the sense that America had done something great in that war. My son and daughter are both now in college. But if they had chosen to join the military – and I will remind you, we have an all-volunteer army these days – I would feel proud if they were sent to Bosnia to guarantee peace in a region torn by genocide and unspeakable atrocities.

Would I worry? You bet. But I know that, unlike some of the other risks they have taken, the mission in Bosnia is noble, and the risks taken are in the name of world peace.

And to Sen. William Cohen, who said on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer last night, that it is silly to have our troops confirm and validate a unified Bosnian government because Bosnia has never existed as a nation before, I would remind the senator that when the words proclaiming our right to institute a new government separate from England were penned in our Declaration of Independence, the United States of America had never existed as an entity before.

The United States of America has been down that road of creating a great nation out of a wad of strong-willed people who frequently didn't get along. We didn't always get it right, and it certainly wasn't easy or risk-free. But we learned from our mistakes, healed our wounds, and grew strong.

Now it is time to show another emerging nation the way. It is our duty, our responsibility – and our only hope.