What War?

In essence we are fighting a war against opportunistic thugs, who use religion as a justification, who have used our own assests against us (referring only to those attacks on our soil, not Iraq). They, the "terrorists" have no military, such as planes, tanks, ships, nuclear bombs; preferring to take over unprotected passenger planes to use as human guided missiles--obviously a one-time event.
Now that we have locked cockpit doors and put guards on some planes that method of attack has been pretty well eliminated.
The war then is limted to finding potential attackers and preventing small countries from becoming a training ground for potential attackers (like you need a lot of area to teach bomb making?). "Engaging" the enemy consists, it seems, of citizens snitching on fellow citizens and the government "eavesdropping" on potential "terrorists".
Our "war" overseas consists of "assisting" foreign governments in doing the same--encouraging snitching on fellow citizens and "eavesdropping" wholesale on citizens, in general, and hopefully on "terrorists" in particular.
So far the war worldwide (Iraq excluded) has been hijacked airplanes and large homemade bombs, transported to targets by cars, trucks, and speed boats.
The "war" exists full-blown, mostly in the imagination of our administration and fellow ne-cons--the fear that nuclear bombs, biological and chemical weapons, capable of killing and maiming thousands, if not millions, of our citizens, will somehow be obtained by some obscure and unknown terrorist and used against us.
With this imagined war comes a hefty price tag and in the case of Iraq lives as well. Iraq, in an oblique sense, has been made part of the war on terror.
The biggest price we are paying is the lost good will that we once had with our European allies. One fluke attack has now become the potential for many and the threat never ends in the minds of our administration and its supporters. The "war" can go on for many decades.
To prevent a never ending war scenario we need an accounting from the administration as to progress being made, bench marks, and a definition of what the "war" really is.