EDITORIAL TOTAL WAR IT'S TIME TO STOP PLAYING THE TERRORIST CAT-AND-MOUSE GAME.

FROM the president to the secretary of state to the entire Congress, the leaders of America have stood as one in pledging to fight global terrorism with all our nation's strength.

The coordinated attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center were ``acts of war,'' they say. The terrorism will be met with crushing, overpowering and decisive force.

These words are reassuring, but we have heard them before.

We heard them in the 1980s, following terrorist attacks on European discotheques and American airliners. We heard them again in the 1990s, when Islamic militants struck American embassies and military installations, and when they first tried to destroy the World Trade Center in 1993.

Each time, terrorist acts were met with strong words, then a pinpoint military response - bombing a single target or lobbing cruise missiles at an offending country.

That strategy of symbolic retaliation has clearly failed, emboldening demonic characters like Osama bin Laden to escalate his acts of terror.

The infamous attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, demand a whole new approach.

Secretary of State Colin Powell says, ``We are at war.'' Americans ``want us to act as if we are at war, and we're going to do that - diplomatically and militarily.''

He is a soldier and does not use such words lightly. America is at war, and Americans expect their government to treat it as such - not just to continue playing the old cat-and-mouse game with international terrorists.

Wars aren't fought in a single day, or prosecuted with a single attack. They require a prolonged and sustained effort - an unrelenting, overpowering offensive that only grows more severe, not less, with each passing day.

A war is not over until the enemy is no longer standing or waves the white flag of surrender.

It will not be sufficient merely to incapacitate Osama bin Laden, or whoever else is found to be responsible for Tuesday's attacks. As the president made clear, even those who ``harbor'' terrorists will be held fully accountable as accomplices.

The one consistent lesson of all previous wars - whether it's World War II or Vietnam - is that nothing less than total victory must be the ultimate goal.

Wars are costly - in terms of national resources and in terms of lives - both of combatants and, regrettably, civilians. But far more costly would be to hide from the reality of the war that America has not sought, but its enemies have unilaterally and unambiguously declared.

America's leaders must not shirk from the responsibility of prosecuting this war to the fullest. This is not about bringing the guilty to justice, it's about bringing an enemy to its knees.