The President, when asked whether he is calling for the assassination of Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the latest terrorist attack, replied, "I want justice. There�s an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, �Wanted: Dead or Alive.�" I interpret that to mean, �yes.�

Rhetorically, this may be exactly what we all need to see and hear following the sudden, terrible tragedy on Sept. 11. I know there is a part of me that hungers for revenge.

Someone attacked our homeland. Someone killed thousands of our fellow countrymen. There is a part of me that needs to be reassured that we are not a paper tiger; that we are not what we sometimes seem to be�a baldheaded, droopy-feathered American eagle with blunted talons. Someone has gone too far and I need to know that we have the power and the will to make that someone pay.

But there is another part of me that is wary of such passion. Rage is for suckers. Only dogs get mad. Our lust for revenge can make us easy prey for pickpockets.

Indeed, this war on terrorism sounds an awful lot like a confidence scam. We apparently don�t have a plan of attack. We don�t have a clearly defined enemy. And we don�t know where that enemy is hiding. So how do we know it will cost us $20 billion to destroy him? How much does it really cost to box at shadows?

We ought to be suspicious when the powers-that-be tell us that this new war on terrorism will be something we have never seen before. The key to a good con is to get the suckers to suspend belief.

Wars traditionally are fought between nation states with fluttering flags and marching armies. Wars usually are fought in clearly defined arenas, under specific rules of engagement. There are goals and objectives in the wars we have known�hills to take, crossroads to control, cities to capture. In war, there are ways of keeping score.

Most importantly, wars end. Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee put on his dress uniform, rode up to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant on a high-stepping horse named Traveler and handed over his sword, ending the Civil War like a gentleman. Nazi Gen. Alfred Jodl, stiff-necked and grim-faced, sat down with representatives of the Allied Expeditionary Force and signed the articles of surrender that ended World War II.

At some point, after even the bitterest wars, both sides start singing, "I�m gonna lay down my sword and shield/Down by the riverside." Both sides swear that they "ain�t gonna study war no more."

But this war against terrorism sounds suspiciously like our wars against poverty, crime and drugs. It reminds me of my personal take-no-prisoners war against my waistline, otherwise known as the battle of the bulge. Such wars have a way of going on and on. I call them rhetorical wars.

Victory and defeat tend to become matters of political whim in rhetorical wars. The war on poverty provided millions of families with a good education, health care and steady jobs. Yet, since millions of other families remain mired in misery, the war on poverty is widely regarded as a woeful failure.

In our war against drugs, we incarcerated millions of dealers and addicts and seized billions of dollars worth of contraband. Yet, although drugs are as plentiful as ever, the war against drugs is lauded as a valiant effort that must be continued.

I see us being manipulated in a similar way about this new war on terrorism. Around about election time, we will be told the enemy is in full retreat. At the start of each budget cycle, however, we will be told that the bad guys are howling just outside our gates.

All the President�s men are warning that even as we bomb the desert crags of Afghanistan and stick a knife in the guts of Osama bin Laden, the war on terrorism will be just beginning. So how many bombs must we drop and on how many different territories? How many leaders must we assassinate before someone declares a victory?

The President has called this war on terrorism a war against evil, a war to preserve civilization. Watch out! This kind of talk sounds more rhetorical than real. And rhetorical wars have a way of lasting into the next millennium.