Sunday Night NPR Reported that President Bush "refused to negotiate with terrorists" when they Taliban said they would consider turning Osama Bin Laden over to a third party country.

This seemingly contradicts his Thursday Press Conference Statement saying that he would halt bombing Afganistan if they would turn over Osama Bin Laden.

When Bush demanded that bin Laden be handed over (as if the situation required a 'criminal' handling and NOT a declaration of war) the implicit understanding was that he would be handed over to the US and not an impartial third country. Although bin Laden is clearly charismatic-ly challenged, the dramatic events of the past month have provided him with quite a soapbox. Kept alive and charged in a impartial court of law would likely give him an opportunity to sound off with his anti-American rhetoric - rhetoric that is resonating with a surprising number of people around the world in light of recent US actions. It is almost as if the US walked into the stage role provided by its protagonists. The US is not in a position to let bin Laden air his views uncensored, those views are simply too dangerous at this time. For this reason they require that bin Laden be handed over to the US and the US alone so that they might control his PR and put the proper 'spin' on everything that comes from his mouth. Clearly a 'criminal' modality will not work for the US (as when South Africa put Mandela on trial and ended up creating the nations future leader). A 'war' modality, while potentially further alienating people all around the world, does have the greatest potential of shutting up the guy on a more permanent basis. This would work especially well if the US could orchestrate the killing of bin Laden say through the Northern Alliance. This way their hands would be relatively clean and they could avoid turning him into more of a martyr than he already is.