Today marks the 5th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01. That is a long time. Even for me that represents almost 10% of my life-span. For my children those five years are approximately 1/4 of their lifespans. Even so, I can clearly remember the horrific images of that day. I also remember the oft-repeated assertion by pundits that "America will never be the same."

For this anniversary I decided to think about whether they were right. Yes, some things about everyday life have changed, but in a background of constant technological and social change they don't seem all that significant. I believe that some of the biggest changes are ones that didn't have to happen - ones that make 9/11 more important than it should have been. I don't want to minimize the impact of those events or of the loss we suffered, but at the same time I think we need to consider how we respond to these particular enemies who are still present five years later and significantly more widespread.

Those who employ terror tactics generally do so because they don't have the capacity to pursue their goals through "regular" political or military means. Their battle is not for territory or rule, but for the minds of those that they oppose. This does not mean that they can't inflict murder and mayhem - its just that their power stops there. Whether their actions lead to any lasting political/territorial change depends entirely on the response of their victims.

The true weapon of terror is fear. It it the way that a relatively small blow can loom large. But its not as if terrorists have a corner on the fear market.

Fear is a highly effective tool to manipulate people and has always been wielded by many players in society - not just by terrorists. Dictators and other questionable leaders can manipulate their people based on the fear of attack by some outside enemy (the US plays that critical role for a host of dictators today from Fidel Castro to Hugo Chavez to Amadininejad to Kim Jong-il). Conventional world powers can use fear speed military victories (remember the atom bombs in Japan or "shock and awe" in Iraq). Fear can be used to market products effectively (Consider how much of our food is sold based on what isn't in it?).

Sadly, fear of terrorist attacks can also serve the purposes of conventional political powers. As our elections approach we see the fearful images of 9/11 being raised again, but this time by a political establishment that would prefer a conversation that makes voters ponder their insecurity rather than honest discussion about a war that has gone very badly.

So back to the pundit's assertion that we will never be the same after 9/11. Is it true? Should it be true? If we are going to "win the war on terror" (or as I believe it would be better to say, "win the struggle for civilization") it will have to be something that we achieve in our minds. Yes, there is an important espionage and police function, but the critical realm is in our collective conscience and how that guides our spiritual, political, social and economic life.

In some areas we are doing very well. Our economy worked through the initial shock and is back to its previous strength (except for the looming issue of huge deficit spending and international debt driven in some large part by an expensive war and one party rule.) We continue to have a pluralistic society. Yes, there have been incidents of discrimination against Muslims or Middle Easterners, but most Americans have not indulged in that response. For the most part, we continue to live "normal lives."

In some areas we are not doing too well at resisting fear and denying terrorists victories in our minds. These areas have to do with compromises of our ideals. We say we believe in the "rule of law", but compromise that in many ways (domestic eavesdropping, secret prisons, word-smithing around torture, indefinite imprisonment without charges or trials...). If we don't think our existing laws and legal structures are functional in the face of this threat, why have we made so little progress in actually adjusting them in five years? We have compromised our ideals about world citizenship and chosen unilateralism and pre-emptive war.

But the most cynical thing we have done - the way that we give Osama Bin Laden and friends the most underserved influence - is to turn the fear they generated into our political currency. We see calls for "border security" attempting to tie a long term economic phenomenon that needs rational consideration to the irrationality of the terror spectrum. Even though it has become abundantly clear that we were completely wrong about Sadam's role in international terror we hear endless attempts to justify that war a "central to the "war on terror" when it is only in the sense of throwing gasoline on the flames. We hear a concerted attempt to make a connection between Bin Laden and Hitler so that any opposition voice can be associated with pre-world war II appeasment voices.

It is interesting that the fear imagery of WWII would be chosen for political purposes today. If we want to invoke a message from that era why not "we have nothing to fear but fear itself." That was a rallying cry that worked even though we actually did have a lot more to fear from our actual enemies than we do today. The outcome of that war was far from certain, yet it was engaged on a global basis and finished far quicker than will be possible in our war in one fractuous nation on the Euphrates.

But what we are hearing today is not a unifying call to reject fear. Instead we are told that we are "safer, but not yet safe." The message is, "don't drop the fear thing yet, we still need it." We are being asked to focus on being victims and potential victims rather than on being survivors and proud champions of our ideals.

And so, half a decade after 9/11 there is something that has fundementally changed about America. We may actually go on living very much as we did before, yet we find that we have forged an unlikely alliance with the master-minds of that day. Radical Islam feeds on our alienating actions and brute force to provide the images they need to capture the minds of additional followers. Our leadership feeds on the real babarism of these radicals to generate enough sustained fear to convince us to "stay the course." It is a classical positive feed-back loop.

Today, FDR's words take on a new meaning. "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" might be re-stated, "what we truely need to fear is our own embrace of fear." Perhaps we need a speech warning that "we are addicted to fear" like the one admitting that we are "addicted to oil."