Tigers (not from Detroit).(Tamil Tigers)(stopping terrorism)

They were doing what most of the rest of us were doing--buying into the conventional wisdom that the "war on terror" was the war that dare not speak its name. But, funnily enough, intentionally or not, the Tamil Tigers wound up getting caught in the net. Their long campaign reached its apogee in a spectacular bloodbath at Sri Lanka's principal airport two and a half years ago, a couple of months before 9/11, back when nobody was paying attention. By February of last year, they'd given up plans for an independent Tamil state and their chief negotiator in London was suing for peace on the basis of some sort of regional autonomy. It's an uneasy truce, but tourists are returning to the island and the Tamil stronghold of Jaffna is being touted as "the new Phuket" (the Thai resort beloved of vacationing Brits).

You can find other examples of long-running local conflicts around the world from Burundi to Nepal that seem to have mysteriously wound down over the last two-and-a-quarter years. Might be just coincidence. Or it might be that putting the bank transfers of certain groups on an international watch list has choked off the funding pump for a lot of terrorism. Even nickel-and-dime terrorists need nickels and dimes, and in your average war-torn basket-case state that ...