What the prevailing Washington think tanks will not acknowledge is the reality that you can't declare war on an abstract noun. You can declare war on personal pronouns (embodied, sentient beings), but not a noun.

If Jack and Jill climb a hill and Jack steals a bucket of water from Jill, Jill doesn't get mad at the act of stealing. She gets mad at Jack.

So why such enormous efforts placed into what could be construed as psychological indoctrination to lead the public down the path of a false premise? Quite obviously there is a sinister rationale by the Bush administration (whose ideology depends on fear and intimidation) that also depends on keeping the concept of "terrorism" eternally abstract.

The advantage is that a noun is chameleon-like, able to change form and substance, appearance and meaning at the drop of a hat - i.e., in response to the day's political agenda.

It's a scenario of Jill knowing Jack stole her bucket but then letting him go while deciding to hate everyone else resembling Jack - via political/religious affiliation, in manner of dress, business circles, friendships, or where one travels abroad. Compare Bush letting Bin Laden go and then hating (declaring war on) everyone else resembling him. He frees the real Bin Laden and creates "thousands" of Bin Ladens at the same time. It's also akin to not recognizing nuclearized nations (e.g., North Korea) while fearing nuclear terrorism (in the abstract). What could be better for the "war on terror?"

The given pretext of "keeping flexible" with terrorism is of course being able to identify the many disguises terrorists use. But the truth, as usual, is the other way around.

If the US caught all of Al Qaeda tomorrow absolutely nothing would change - except the definition of terrorism. And with each re-definition the burden of innocence simply lurks closer and closer to home, finally on "us" (as we are all "suspect" according to the Patriot Act). Eventually "terrorism" becomes anything that opposes the government. It becomes a world defined by neo-conservatives who are a) predisposed to distrusting in the first place, and b) cannot exist without a projection of "evil" eternally lurking about, like Satan himself..

Hence the advantage of keeping the nation's #1 arch-enemy safely abstruse and untouchable - until its time to cherry-pick "it" through the aperture of a person or group affiliation. It is also the reason the entire world sees itself "judged" by this administration as a "terrorist stronghold." Bush has virtually the entire globe swimming inside a cauldron of pre-stirred, hyphenated stereotypes. No wonder the US is the target of such "blowback" from every direction.

Bottom line: The problem of ending terrorism as officially defined is futile. It is designed to never end since it will simply leap from one form to another, ad infinitum (to the delight of those who profit from this - politicians, prisons, private paramilitary groups, drug enforcement agencies, war merchants, religious fanatics, etc). We're brainwashed to see terrorism "out there" versus within our own mind-frames, our attitudes, and in the rhetoric/spin that perpetuates it.

For anyone truly wishing to end terrorism the problem is, as always, one of perception. In fact it's easier to see this entire self-serving framework as a "terrorist stronghold" itself manufactured inside the boardrooms and think tanks of Washington every day. Getting a realistic grasp of the real roots of terrorism is the first step to ending it.