As columnist Leonard Pitts wrote last year, there can be no “war” on terrorism; it’s a “plague,” dormant, seldom visible, which breaks out intermittently in response to perceived injustice or injury.

Fundamentalist Osama bin Laden believed stationing U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia was sacrilegious. Mecca and Medina are the two holiest sites in Islam. (Remember the Crusades?) And that the culture they brought with them threatened the values of Muslim society.

Technology and globalization today both create offenses and facilitate reaction. U.S. movies and TV flood the Muslim world (as here at home) with blatantly sexual, even pornographic, material. Fastfood franchises displace local restaurants. Our food exports disadvantage local farmers. Our attack on Iraq is resented as a humiliation by other Arabs. Today’s sophisticated communication technology makes possible a degree of terrorist planning and recruitment undreamed of 20 years ago.

Karl Rove’s brilliant inspiration of “war on terror” satisfied our outrage and provides powerful political advantage to a “war-time president.”

Neither presidential candidate can defeat terrorism. The U.S. will continue to be an occasional target of terrorism. We need to accept that there are some problems we have to live with, just as the rest of the world does. While taking all practical protective measures, we should shift focus from our fearful, obsessive search for absolute safety and recover as much as possible our normal life, appreciating its benefits and addressing its needs.

It’s been three years now.

Dorothy E. Prince, Auburn