Going by a simple calculation, if one suicide bomber were to strike our country every third day, it only required 1200 products of the hate-school over the course of next 10 years. So even if our government succeeds in shutting down all but one madrassa, where students are being trained for terrorism, that would be enough to sustain this war on terror for a decade. To conclude, I don't think there is a short-term military solution to all this. We have allowed this problem to fester for too long - over the course of two full decades, actually. We must not kid ourselves into thinking we can bomb them all out in six months. The question to answer here is whether we want to exacerbate our woes by letting so many peaceful civilians die in this war as 'collateral damage' and give an emotional reason to their kin, bystanders to this conflict at the moment, to fight for one side or the other to take revenge for their loss. -AAFIQ AKRAM, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, via e-mail, August 24.