• The United Nations Security Council came out against it after little or no debate.  In fact, the world is virtually unanimous in its opposition to terrorism.

• Even the recent Gallup Poll of 10,000 residents of nine Muslim countries, the one in which 77 percent thought the U.S. military action in Afghanistan was morally unjustified, reported 67 percent also thought the September 11th attack was morally unjustified.

• Still not persuaded? Talk to Marianne Pearl who recently had the head of her husband, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, literally and figuratively presented to her on a platter.

Do you know the expression, "You're not paranoid, you've got real enemies?" Well, the U.S. has real enemies. That same Gallup Poll, in countries where roughly half the world's Muslim population lives, reported substantial majorities think the U.S. is "ruthless and arrogant," that it is aggressive and biased against Islamic values. Substantial majorities have an unfavorable opinion of the U.S. and its President George W. Bush. Only 5 percent of Pakistanis have a favorable opinion of us.

Make no mistake. The terrorist threat is real, it is serious, and it may well be growing.

But agreeing that we must do something about terrorism doesn't help much in deciding what that "something" should be. Indeed, it's not even clear what it is we mean by "terrorism."

I put quotes around the word.

Why? Because after we all agree the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center was terrorism, our efforts at definition begin to fall apart. The U.S. government, United Nations, and each of us, still need a good deal more precision; an ability to think rationally in separating the actions to which we will respond from those we will ignore.

When we, as lawyers, draft a new statute we often begin with a section devoted to definitions of terms. We do not yet have the equivalent for this massive government program called "the war against terrorism." And that is not just some overlooked technical detail. It is an oversight with tremendous significance. I will mention but three reasons why.

(1) It would be folly to ignore the possibility that we may need to reinstitute compulsory military service and the draft. Let me put this alarming possibility in perspective. We currently have two million fewer personnel in uniform than during the one-front, one-country Korean War.

How many countries and fronts may soon be involved in this multi-front global war? No one knows. But it has been estimated that if we go to war with Iraq -- which has at least been rumored in the U.S. and Britain as a possible option -- it could require as many as 250,000 American soldiers. In the last 48 hours we have resumed heavy bombing in Afghanistan. And in addition to whatever may happen in Iraq the Administration either has in place, or will soon be sending, American military to the Republic of Georgia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Yemen. It has yet to explain its future plans for increasing either troop strength or the number of countries. But at some point, and relatively soon at the rate it has been going, it is going to run out of troops.

(2) Military operations aren't cheap. We've spent billions of dollars on this war already, with many billions more yet to be spent. Coupled with these massive increases in the Defense Department budget are tax breaks for the rich -- perverse public policy at any time instituted at the worst possible time. Because the results are being felt in the cutbacks for education and other social programs, nationally and here in Iowa.

(3) Finally, to the extent we seek to increase what the Administration calls "homeland security," to the extent we want to reduce the likelihood of future terrorist acts, it is not at all clear that our military campaigns are helping. Indeed, those Gallup Polls would indicate that our military campaigns may be helping to recruit far more future terrorists than the Taliban were ever able to do on their own.

Therefore, for all of these reasons, and more, an awful lot turns on our efforts to examine the word terrorism and then try to define what we're talking about.

It's not easy. The more telling question is whether it's even possible.

Consider:

Terrorism can involve an ideological or political purpose -- or not. It sometimes focuses on destruction of essential infrastructure or other physical property -- similar to what is done in a conventional war to defeat an enemy. But at other times it's simply designed to foment terror. Sometimes specific individuals are targeted, and at other times random, innocent civilians. Sometimes the perpetrators actually want to die in the effort, but on other occasions they'd just as soon live. Some terrorists strike and hide; others brag to the media of their accomplishments.

There is an only half-humorous definition of a terrorist as "someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an airplane.”  That is, terrorism usually involves attacks by non-governmental individuals and organizations who can't afford fighter planes, as distinguished from an industrial nation's uniformed military which can.

Has our definition thereby become ensnared in that old line about "socialism for the rich and free private enterprise for the poor"? The U.S. has more military might than the next six nations combined. Fighting wars with our weapons -- which, as the world's largest arms trader we are happy to sell -- we apparently find acceptable. Is terrorism simply "war" by another name; war fought by those who can't afford our weapons? Those who must resort to throwing rocks, or putting plastic bombs in their shoes?

Is President Bush not a terrorist because he orders bombs dropped from military planes, and Bin Laden is a terrorist because he orders civilian planes to be used as bombs?

And what do we do with this word "war"? Do actions thought repulsive "terrorism" in time of peace become acceptable in time of war?  Apparently so. How and why and when does that distinction make sense?

What does a government or private group need to do to redefine unacceptable terrorism as acceptable war? Our government went to war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Is that all it takes -- a presidential speech asserting that we're at war?

It's not just that there was no Congressional declaration of war as such.  It's that usually wars are declared against nations. Bin Laden and Mullah Omar were not nations.  Nor, for that matter, was the Taliban. Should that make it any more difficult for us to characterize what we have been doing in Afghanistan as "war" rather than "terrorism"?

Moreover, if we are to be consistent in responding to terrorism with war, are we not obliged to at least consider the possibility that September 11th was masterminded, funded and staffed as much from Saudi Arabia as Afghanistan? More of the September 11th terrorists were Saudis than were Afghans. Indeed, Bin Laden is a Saudi. At least a substantial amount of Bin Laden's money seems to have come via Saudi Arabia. Why, then, did we not include Saudi targets in our bombing raids?

Surely we don't want to argue that it is only "terrorism" when others do it to us.  And yet, if not, how do we justify "harboring" -- to use President Bush's word -- American Catholics who finance terrorist acts of the IRA against Protestants in Ireland?  Cuban Americans who want to overthrow Castro? Or even our own government's efforts to invade Cuba?

What about our "School of the Americas" in Georgia (now called the "Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation")?  It's trained those we've called "freedom fighters" in Central and South America.

School of the Americas Watch charges that, "Graduates of the SOA are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin America.” Does that make the former School of the Americas a terrorist training camp? Apparently our government thinks not. At least there's no known plan to bomb the State of Georgia -- to be distinguished from our military forces now in the Republic of Georgia. Should we have bombed the State of Idaho after the Oklahoma City bombing?

What about our government's mining the harbor in Nicaragua? That's the kind of thing terrorists do. The World Court certainly condemned it.  The U.S. simply ignored world opinion -- and the court's judgment. Would it be terrorism if Nicaraguan camps trained terrorists in how to place mines in New York City's harbor? Presumably that would be terrorism. So why wasn't it terrorism when we did it to them?

What of our attempted assassination of Castro? Our involvement in the overthrow of Salvador Allende's government in Chile?  There were no declarations of war. What we did couldn't even be justified as retaliation.  No terrorist destruction had been wrought by Cuba or Chile in the United States -- certainly nothing like the September 11th attack.

Nor is this the end of our definitional problems. International law, as the name suggests, puts a major focus on nations. It makes a distinction between military or terrorist action inside a nation's borders and the identical action when it crosses those borders. How relevant are those distinctions to us when dealing with terrorism?

Consider today's news of the Hindus burning Muslims in Ahmadabad, India. They are also using gasoline bombs, sticks and stones. Sounds like the weapons of terrorists, and the death toll is now well over 300. Should this become a part of our war on terrorism?

What if a military dictatorship takes over a democratic third world country? The British Commonwealth of Nations, meeting today in Australia, thought that alone was sufficient to expel Pakistan from the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth is so divided with regard to the violence and intimidation during the Zimbabwe elections that it has had to postpone until Monday discussion of whether to expel that nation as well.

Should we condemn as "terrorists" those who use all available means to overthrow a dictatorial regime in order to reestablish democracy? Or are they called "freedom fighters"? If terrorists, would they still be terrorists if the U.S. military had funded, trained and armed them? Or are they only terrorists when we are funding and backing the new dictator?

We quickly come full circle around Winnie the Pooh's barn as we search for the heffalump of terrorism. Apparently, it is not "terrorism" we condemn after all -- aside from that on September 11th. Only "unjustified terrorism.”

Terrorism? We're all against it. On that there is unanimity. The only problem comes in trying to figure out what "it" is.

Maybe we should, as they say in Hollywood, "take it from the top."

Maybe we should simply acknowledge that "terrorism" as a word is simply not very useful. In the dichotomy of "purr words" and "slur words" it clearly falls in the latter category. It tells us almost nothing descriptive or analytically useful about the acts and perpetrators involved. Like most judgmental terms -- from "cool" to "terrorism" -- it mostly describes nothing more than an electro-chemical process inside the speaker's head.

The emperor has no clothes; more precisely, his choice of vocabulary is not clothed with meaning.
 

But whatever word we choose, once we decide on that from which we're trying to protect ourselves the next dilemma we confront is how to go about it. This is especially difficult when our leaders tell us to heighten our already high state of alert but that they do not know who is going to attack us, what they are going to do. where they are going to do it, when it is all supposed to happen, and how they think we can best protect ourselves.

What we end up doing often calls to mind the old line, "Locking the barn door after the horse is stolen." All too often our security measures seem to be addressing the last threat, rather than the next. Maybe that's inevitable.

(a) We focus on the hijacking of planes by those who want to live and use the planes for transportation. This leaves us unprepared for those who want to die and use planes as weapons of destruction.

(b) We screen passengers, and their carry-on luggage, and then discover that we need to screen their checked luggage as well.

(c) We screen passengers through metal detectors to find guns and knives, and then discover that cardboard box openers are weapons.

(d) So we start confiscating nail clippers and tweezers, only to confront the use of human teeth as a weapon (the choice of the guy with bombs in his shoes when he turned on the flight attendant). How do you screen for people likely to bite their opponents? Do we forbid Mike Tyson to fly?

(e) We screen for metal bombs, and let a guy on a plane with plastic bombs in both shoes.

Epaminondas you'll recall (or discover) is always one item behind in its proper treatment: how to carry home from market a cake, butter, a puppy, and bread. He learns each lesson well, but only after the fact. He then applies the lesson to the next task -- for which it is wholly inappropriate.

Can we apply a benefit-cost analysis to our efforts at "homeland security"? Of course, the benefits of our anti-terrorism efforts are for the most part beyond our ability to know. That is, how can we know what would have happened had we not had a particular security measure in place?

However, the costs are relatively easily calculated, and enormous: such things as the payroll and overtime for additional security personnel, the costs of newly purchased technology, or the value of the time of the airline passengers who spend additional time in airports.

Now don't get me wrong. We are all willing to pay these costs. Any reduction in risk seems worth any cost. (And for anyone thinking of objecting, the social pressure to comply, to "be American" and "patriotic," is enormous.)

Moreover, spending on "security" without being able to measure the benefits may well be rational "risk assessment" analysis. That is, while the risk of any given terrorist act may be very small, the consequences if it were to occur are sometimes so large as to outweigh the small likelihood of occurrence and thereby justify the expense.

It's still not clear what we should do.

Remember Jonathan Swift's suggestion that perhaps we might rid ourselves of the problem of children in poverty by eating them? In a  similar spirit, the New York Times' Thomas Friedman ("Naked Air," New York Times, Dec. 26, 2001 [http://www.nytimes.com]) has suggested that, given the variety (and unpredictability) of possible threats in the air, perhaps the only true airline security would be to require everyone to fly naked. He concludes:

"So there you have our dilemma: Either we become less open as a society, or the world to which we are now so connected has to become more controlled — by us and by others — or we simply learn to live with much higher levels of risk than we've ever been used to before.

"Or, we all fly naked."

I don't mean to cast aside concerns about the literally millions of refugees we have helped to create, many of whom will die of starvation, public health threats, or other causes -- including the deaths we call "collateral damage." I acknowledge that these issues can be talked about in humanitarian and religious terms. But such discussions tend to provoke emotionalism and charges of lack of patriotism or worse.

So I'm just approaching it from a "national defense" perspective. That may not eliminate the disagreements, but it at least turns down the volume.

• After two or three days of bombing we said we'd run out of targets. And yet the bombing continues as we speak.

• "Collateral damage" was predictable under the best of scenarios; but among the examples that could be cited was our bombing the same Red Cross warehouse and its humanitarian supplies twice!

• With or without DNA, we have still not found Osama bin Ladin or Omar -- initially said to be a prime mission.

• The Taliban are still around and signing up new recruits. Indeed, today's bombing is directed at a newly-discovered pocket of hundreds of al Qaeda fighters. In the Republic of Georgia al Qaeda have been hiding in the Pankisi Gorge near Chechnya for months. That's why American troops are being sent to yet another country.

• Afghan war lords have not abandoned their efforts to defend, and expand, their territories. Indeed, what we think of as the new government of Afghanistan really has control of little more than Kabul.

• We are clearly losing the propaganda war -- in football score terms by a score of something like 82-to-6. We are charged with waging a war on Islam; poisoning the food we're offering; using biological warfare on Afghans -- in papers read by those who have no other sources of information and are inclined to believe it anyway. The recent Gallup Poll reports over 60 percent believe Arab groups had nothing to do with September 11.

• Fortunately, the Administration got caught considering the establishment of a Pentagon agency with a mission of lying to the Muslim world.

• To the extent the goal of terrorists is not so much to win a war as it is to foment terror, the financial and emotional costs of our heightened security efforts indicates that they have won.

The problem is that the strategies we are using are often raising, rather than lowering, the levels of anger among Muslims who weren't crazy about the United States to begin with. The number who interpret Islam to require -- not just permit, but require -- a defense of their religion that involves an armed attack on the U.S. The number who believe that there are special after-life benefits coming their way if they are killed in the attempt.

Whatever the attack on the "evil axis" may be doing for President Bush's popularity at home -- and its political benefits are declining -- expanding his war on terrorism beyond Afghanistan to goodness knows how many more countries -- without, incidentally, much of a game plan for getting in or getting out -- is probably not going to improve his numbers in the Muslim world.

Increased anger among Muslims does not bode well for our efforts to reduce the likelihood that we will come under new, and even more innovative and deadly, attacks on our homeland from potential terrorists newly entering our country or already in our midst.

From my perspective, I'm left with the uneasy feeling that my "homeland security" is every day somewhat less than it was the day before. And that we've yet even to define what we mean by "terrorism."