Let the truth be told – The skeptics have been silenced, including this columnist.

Two months after the Sept. 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden publicly claimed responsibility for the attacks on the World Trade Center. In a video that had been circulating to supporters two weeks prior, he claims, “The Twin Towers were legitimate targets; they were supporting U.S. economic power. These events were great by all measurement. What was destroyed were not only the towers, but the towers of morale in that country.”

It is clear that bin Laden is a threat to our nation and going after him and his terrorist organization should be of the highest priority. However, what ends can most effectively achieve this? Clearly bombing hasn’t rooted bin Laden out of his mountain hideouts.

A better proposal would be to handle bin Laden how we handle most other international fugitives – put a bounty on him and his known lieutenants, then continually up the reward until we have him and every one of his cohorts. While we’ve had bounties on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” list for decades, this case warrants somewhat more extreme action.

For instance, consider the fact that each bomb we drop on Taliban lines costs literally thousands of dollars – none of which is being directly spent to destroy al-Qaida. Most notably, each anti-personnel cluster bomb we drop costs approximately $16,500 – relatively innocuous until you consider the fact that we drop hundreds of these per day. All of this adds up rather quickly, while yielding abysmal results in capturing or killing bin Laden.

A better idea would be to save the money we would be spending on bombs and to continuously “sweeten the pot” on bin Laden’s bounty. Given a bounty large enough, someone will either be greedy or crazy enough to go for it.

One of the other problems with our bounty system is that typically only certain individuals have been solicited for the reward money. According to The Guardian, it was recently revealed that the CIA had offered “large cash rewards” to anti-Taliban forces in 1998 for the capture or assassination of bin Laden. A more effective proposal would be to make such “large cash rewards” available to the anyone, be it a random mercenary or one of bin Laden’s relatives.

Like it or not, a bounty on bin Laden appeals to one of the lowest but most effective human traits – greed. While bin Laden’s top lieutenants may not be swayed by a large monetary reward, it could prove quite effective with a more destitute individual. If game shows and “reality television” have taught us anything, it’s that people will do anything for money, so long as the price is right.

Furthermore, a bounty system keeps us uninvolved with world affairs we don’t belong in to begin with. Namely, the issue of the Afghanistan government. Nation-building and meddling in the affairs of Afghanistan is part of the reason we have the Taliban to deal with in the first place.

Afghanistan itself is of little strategic interest to the United States. The outcome of its ongoing civil war should be likewise, especially given the unsavory nature of players on both sides.

Some would claim that a bounty system lowers the United States to the point of hiring mercenaries to accomplish our ends. Yet isn’t the goal here to capture bin Laden and his organization with a minimal loss of civilian life? Obviously, “surgical airstrikes” aren’t accomplishing this. A bounty on bin Laden encourages individuals to target only him, thus sparing the civilian casualties that terrorists like bin Laden can use to stir up a propaganda war.

As of Sept. 13, the FBI’s bounty for bin Laden stands at $5 million. While that sounds significant, consider your average Powerball jackpot runs for at least $10 million on a slow week, while it can easily climb to over $200 million after going unclaimed for a several weeks.

Now combine this with the fact that years of state-run lotteries have demonstrated that, given enough of a jackpot, people will forfeit all knowledge of mathematics and reason. Why not apply the same logic to bin Laden and al-Qaida?

The Powerball jackpot is currently at $12 million.

Should a bounty on America’s most wanted fugitive go for more than this?

Steve Skutnik is a senior in physics from Palm Harbor, Fl.