Davidson explains that the only measure is “Have we been attacked?” The answer in the public's mind since 9/11 is “No.”
Almost from Day One, the Obama administration distanced itself from war-on-terror language.
Yet opting for “overseas contingency plan” as its national security catch phrase doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.
The irony is that the war on terror has been ongoing since the 1970s, dating to the hijackings of airliners, the killing of Olympic athletes in Munich, the Berlin disco bombing, the Pan Am Lockerbie bombing and the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut.
Davidson says it only became more intense after the collapse of the Soviet regime in Afghanistan and the crystallizing of extremist elements bent on hatred of the West (which, ironically supplied the weapons and training to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan).
As for Americans no longer listening to talk about the threat, Davidson says the Obama administration lowered the volume.
“Frankly, the American public was burned out by the color-code threats and rhetoric coming from the previous administration,” he said. “Creating a perception of constant fear and using that fear for political gain is very dangerous.”
Possibly that is why many Americans and the press paid little attention to the Zazi arrest.
Unfortunately, the pendulum has swung in that direction with some members of Congress and within the administration, too. The challenge for the president is that a left-leaning minority brought him his party's nomination, partly based on war opposition.
“This minority wants to withdraw from Afghanistan,” he added. “Such a withdrawal may prove to be a disaster as our allies see a lack of commitment, Pakistan suffers a Taliban blitzkrieg and violent extremists possibly gain access to highly sensitive material in a Taliban-influenced Pakistan.”
U.S. generals David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal, the two military men in charge of Afghanistan strategy, know how to engage and defeat insurgencies. Our infrastructure knows how to pursue violent extremists.
Let's hope the debate – and the White House’s war-policy “review” – leads us to prosecute the war to a sensible conclusion, defeating al-Qaeda and leaving Afghanistan as stable as possible and able to fend for itself.