If the aim of the United States is to rid the world of terrorism, then President Bush missed a golden opportunity to move the world toward that goal during his Nov. 10 speech to heads of state at the UN.

President Bush should have called the world body to their responsibility to define "terrorism" and "terrorist" so that as the world seeks to uproot the terrorist du jour�Osama bin Laden�the world will know why he is labeled a terrorist and what forum he must come before in order for justice to be brought to bear.

It�s not that this effort to define terrorism is something new to the UN. The debate has been ongoing since 1972, and the UN recently held several days of debate on the issue.

What is hindering the leaders of the world from defining who is a terrorist and what is terrorism? Could it be that one man�s terrorist is another man�s freedom fighter, as the saying goes? Could it be that in truly defining terrorism, every nation or ruler might find himself or herself included?

A little more than a decade ago, the U.S. government would have had us fighting the African National Congress, whose leadership included the likes of Nelson Mandela and other figures whom the world now revere.

And perhaps the ANC at that time might have called the United States a state sponsor of terrorism since it upheld the terrorist actions of the apartheid South African government.

Certainly, the Palestinians have a legitimate beef with the UN, which decided that a new state would be partitioned from an already existing state. That pain has never been soothed. And what about the terrorism carried out on the Palestinians and Arabs of that land by Zionists intent on rooting out every Palestinian and Arab so that they can own and control the entire land? Some of these "terrorists" are in the Israeli government even as we speak.

The United States presently is conducting a bombing campaign against the Taliban government in Afghanistan, charging that they harbor terrorists. But these are the same people the U.S. cuddled when Taliban members were fighting an invasion by Russia. Even Osama bin Laden was a U.S. ally.

Furthermore, numerous press reports have touted the efforts by the Taliban to stem the flow of opium from Afghanistan. The U.S. government also has applauded the Afghani government for their efforts. Yet, President Bush sought to further tarnish the Taliban when he lumped them into his anti-terrorism speech when he said: "The Taliban�s days of harboring terrorists and dealing in heroin and brutalizing women are drawing to a close."

If the Taliban are terrorists because they now are exporters of drugs, how would Mr. Bush define the actions of former President Reagan and his buddy Oliver North who supported a guns-money-and-drugs plot that resulted in crack cocaine flooding Black communities across this country?

The hypocrisy is so thick that peoples in foreign countries no longer can see the smoldering remains of the World Trade Center.

Mr. Bush denounced the Taliban for its treatment of women in Afghanistan; but, by all accounts, the Northern Alliance, which the U.S. forces are helping to seize control of the country, are even worse in their treatment of women.

Muslim leaders listening to Mr. Bush should not be fooled when he says this war is against terrorism, not Islam, but in the same breath he only cites Arabs and people who profess Islam as terrorists. The Irish Republican Army in Ireland and the Basque Separatist Movement in Spain are not branded as terrorists by Mr. Bush or the U.S. media, even though many of their actions in their struggle have been condemned.

The sick person who is spreading anthrax through the postal system has not been branded a terrorist. Neither were Timothy McVeigh nor Terry Nichols.

The only way to properly address the issue of terrorism and ultimately root it out is to define it, then go after those who fit the definition.

The problem is that too many nations and leaders will have to clean up their acts before any real progress against terrorism is made.