The story may be apocryphal, but the lesson is important:

Address the problem, not the pet solution.

After Dreadful Tuesday, a reporter asked a general if the horrific attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon did not suggest that the president's proposal for a multibillion-dollar missile shield is a waste of energy, time and money. No, the general replied with august authority, the missile shield has a different purpose.

A different purpose! Apparently, the missile shield (if we ever get it working despite repeated test failures and despite widespread scientific opinion that it cannot work) is intended to protect the nation against missiles; it isn't designed to protect the nation against other attacks. That, presumably, is somebody else's department.

And now, I tremble to think, the object is to protect the nation against suicide bombers.

Might we not be wiser to protect the nation against any and all threats?

And might that not entail finding out what motivates terrorists? Do we really believe that they all believe that if they murder Americans they will be rewarded with a nonstop express journey to paradise where a bevy of eager nubile maidens will greet them?

If evil propaganda is the problem, rather than the one announced by the Rev. Jerry Falwell-that the devastation was God's punishment for our not adopting the opinions of Reverend Falwell-could we not counter the evil propaganda with a massive propaganda barrage assailing bin Laden and other extremist fanatics for their distortion of the Koran, for their massive slaughter of fellow Muslims, for their sacrifice of gullible men to preserve their own power, for their perpetuating a war to protect their own hides?

We have experts who prepare propaganda in favor of deodorants and diets. Can we not use their talents to undermine bin Laden and his ilk? Have we not enough technology and smarts to deliver such propaganda?

Sure, we deliver our message to the heads of nations that are allied with us, however tenuously. We treat them to dinner at the White House, while the Taliban delivers its message to the man on the street, the man who might sacrifice his life to destroy ours.

The Sept. 11 attacks toughened our nation's resolve. Might not military retaliation alone toughen the resolve of terrorists who exploit our government's sponsorship of vicious dictators and its cooperation in assassinating fighters for the poor? Can we not undermine their message that ours is a government of the rich, an agent of Satan?

Can we not straighten out our own government to boost its credibility, while we undermine the credibility of those who take out their hatred on our people?