Of all the apologias for the rather innovative approach the Bush Administration has apparently taken to the constitution, the one that rankles me the most is the claim that we have to condone the policy, since we haven't been hit by a terrorist attack in five years. It was made by the Vice President yesterday, and has been seconded by certain bloggers and pundits.

It rankles, because it both cheapens the events of September 11, 2001, and is almost certainly wrong. As I pointed out in February, it says nothing that we have not been hit by an attack in x-number of years. Prior to 9/11, we had not been hit by a major (or for that matter, a minor) terrorist attack in six years, and that wasn't even an Islamoterrorist attack; for that, you have to back eight years before 9/11. Since many of the people with the skill, background, motivation and patience to plan such a spectacular attack were, in fact, killed on 9/11, and since Al Qaeda's M.O. has favored spectacular, cataclysmic attacks overseas, as opposed to the suicide bomber-in-the-shopping mall favored by other thugs in the Middle East, it shouldn't surprise anyone that we haven't seen a repeat since then.

But what especially bothers me is the viewpoint that because we haven't had an attack, that somehow means we should view the last five years as an unqualified success in battling terrorism. For one thing, two of our allies, Spain and Great Britain, have been hit since 2001 by the minions of Osama, not to mention the many victims of the Intifada in Israel. For those who give allegiance to OBL, blowing up the Tube is just as good as hitting a subway car in New York City. All Westerners look alike.

Presuming it to be that our national objective is to crush the use of terror as a political tool used by our adversaries, no matter where it sticks its head (and considering the billions we're spending on adventures in the Middle East, I think that presumption is shared by the Neocons as well), this isn't supposed to be a war we can claim to be winning just because the Lower 48 hasn't been hit recently. What Cheney is admitting when he makes this argument is that the "War on Terror" is little more than a rhetorical gimmick for domestic consumption. It is akin to FDR claiming WWII as a success in May, 1944, just because Pearl Harbor hadn't been repeated.