ONE THING could push the financial meltdown off international head-lines - a big terrorist attack. And it did. Last week from Mumbai.

The 9/11 Commission ques-tioned United States (US) Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about the claim: 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US' in the August 6, 2001 president's daily brief or PDB, presented to President George W. Bush vacationing at Crawford, Texas. The PDB referred to potential hijackings orchestrated by bin Laden and various FBI investigations.

The secretary said it was "historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information."

Ludicrous

Why 'old reporting' was thought so important then is an interesting question. Intelligence community experts saw it differently. Intelligence failures the Commission identified are history. So, too, has been the response: the 'war on terror'.

The notion of taking them on over there so they 'can't hit us here at home', that you can 'catch or kill' them all is ludicrous.

Boasting that the war on terror is working because there has been no hit in the US for seven years is questionable. The time lapse between attacks on the World Trade Center was close to a decade.

Attributing the absence of an attack to the quality of counter terrorism operations may be wishful thinking. Inconvenience at airports across the world may be more psychological than real. One of terrorism's objectives is to create panic. We endure great incon-venience. It makes us feel safer. Simultaneously, we give terrorists their plum - a week of free worldwide advertising.

But considered opinion on 21st-century terrorism confirms what we already know: it cannot be defeated by overwhelming force. If that were true, terrorists would not exist. We have historical evidence aplenty: Algeria and the IRA in Great Britain.

Seth G. Jones and Martin C. Libicki from the prestigious, highly respected Rand Corporation tell us in their work "How Terrorist Groups End" that "all terrorist groups eventually end." But how?

Policing and intelligence

"The evidence since 1968 indicates that most groups have ended because they joined the political process (43 per cent); or local police and intelligence agencies arrested or killed key members (40 per cent)," they wrote.

"Military force has rarely been the primary reason for the end of terrorist groups, and few groups within this time frame have achieved victory. This has significant implications for dealing with al Qaida and suggests fundamentally rethinking post-9/11 US counter-terrorism strategy: Policymakers need to understand where to prioritise their efforts with limited resources and attention - religious terrorist groups take longer to eliminate than other groups and rarely achieve their objectives.

"The largest groups achieve their goals more often and last longer than the smallest ones do - policing and intelligence, rather than military force, should form the backbone of US efforts against al Qaida. And US policymakers should end the use of the phrase "war on terrorism" since there is no battlefield solution to defeating al Qaida."

Misguided response

This is the strongest report to date that the whole response to terrorism is misguided.

Mumbai is another in the series. Terrorist activities are reprehensible. Words of no language, can truly describe their despicable nature.

The mindset that wantonly kills and maims innocent civilians women and children, destroys 2,000-year-old Buddhist masterpieces, includingthe world's tallest standing Buddha more than 160 feet high is incomprehensible.

Beyond Rand, perhaps the most telling indictment of attitudes to terrorism and counter-terrorism comes from former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

"Israel is the strongest country in the Middle East. We could contend with any of our enemies or against all of our enemies combined and win," says Olmert (New York Review of Books, December 4).

"The question that I ask myself is, what happens when we win? First of all, we'd have to pay a painful price. And after we paid the price, what would we say to them? 'Let's talk'. And what would the Syrians say to us? 'Let's talk about the Golan Heights'. So, I ask: Why enter a war with the Syrians, full of losses and destruction, in order to achieve what might be achieved without paying such a heavy price?"

He provides the result of "soul searching" on behalf of Israel.

"In a few years, my grandchildren will ask what their grandfather did, what kind of country we have bequeathed them. I said it five years ago, in an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth, and I'll say it to you today: we have a window of opportunity - a short amount of time before we enter an extremely dangerous situation - in which to take a historic step in our relations with the Palestinians and a historic step in our relations with the Syrians.

Withdrawal a viable option

"In both instances, the decision we have to make is the decision we've spent 40 years refusing to look at with our eyes open. We must make these decisions, and yet we are not prepared to say to ourselves, 'Yes, this is what we must do'. We must reach an agreement with the Palestinians, meaning a withdrawal from nearly all, if not all, of the (occupied) territories. Some percentage of these territories would remain in our hands, but we must give the Palestinians the same percentage (of territory elsewhere) - without this, there will be no peace."

Former US President Jimmy Carter in his controversial Palestine:

Peace not Apartheid indicts US policy on the Palestinian question.

He says: "The United States is squandering international prestige and goodwill and intensifying global anti-American terrorism by unofficially condoning or abetting the Israeli confiscation and colonisation of Palestinian territories."

If peace can be achieved as suggested by Olmert and Carter the magnetic call to terrorism loses a most powerful recruiting tools.

Kashmir will not disappear from Indo-Pakistani tension.

A solution would have to be found for that one too. But one sure way not to stop the carnage is to continue the 'war on terror'.

Rand is correct. Terrorists strike at the financial and economic heart of prosperity.

Mumbai, the financial capital of India, was no random choice.

Mind you, Wall Street, abetted by deregulation, seems to have been doing a great job of destruction entirely on its own.

wilbe65@yahoo.com