"We are immune from US Patriotism but when I see the President constantly remind the population that "we're at war" and "we're winning the war" as there are no terrorist actions inside the US, it reminds me of BD who won't allow samples back from Mars for fear of contaminating the Earth while there are so many reasons why it won't happen anyway."

I think one problem is the American govt use of the word "war". Politicans tend to call things which are not war, war, such as the War of Poverty or the War on Drugs. Then going the other way, to say a war isn't a war, but police action, or covert action.
But the idea that we are at war with terror networks, is *important*.
It's important because in the past, we regarded terrorism as something actionable by police, opposed to something in which was a concern of the miltary. And since we had regarded terrorism, as a means of delivering a political message; you could say we had a mixed opinion about it. We thought that people had a right to express themselves politically and that a state had an obligation/duty to allow political speak. And we had assumed that since a state had denied political speak and in order to prevent political change, that terrorists were *somewhat* justified. And since we saw that the purpose was to convey a message, we thought it wouldn't be a good idea to promote terrorism by unneccesarily communicating that message. This resulted in terrorism being put in the "back office" and not making it into something of "national importance"- the news might blare the headlines about it, but govt tended to publically down play it and work the issue between governments [or ignore it, depending on the various govt relations].
I would say the terrorism became a "growth industry". It became a growth industry because the "sideaffect" of our policy created an environment in which terrorism "worked". We said we wouldn't reward terrorists, but we really didn't actually "believe" this. And our actions were to reward terrorist- as the saying goes "action speaks louder than words".
Now, you discuss this for hours, but what has occurred is that terrorism has changed- it's sort of grown up. Now, terrorism focus is not on delivering a message. It's purpose is war. It's still about symbolism, but it's more concerned increasing the body count and generally destroying a society- the talking isn't going anywhere, so let just murder and distroy as much as possible. It's not really new, it's really just primitive war with modern technology. It's sort of like civil obedience morphing into deliberately cause riots. Causing a riot, isn't new but by using technology you can "improve" a riot.
Now, the reason why terrorism has "grown up" is basically because it has failed to get it's political goals. It's simliar to negotiation finally breaking down [failing] and the parties reverting to warfare.
Now, why did this terrorism fail? Or perhaps, a better question would be, did anyone actually think it would succeed? No one really thought that terrorism was very workable, or was more seen as desperate attempt. A "what else could they do" sort of thing- they were "forced" to do this. It's sort of like thinking that if a negotiator "shouts a lot", that this is an effective way of convincing the other party. Shouting could be part of a negotiation, but as a general rule, it doesn't work.
Terrorism as a Solution, simply does not work. Terrorism may [and I emphasis "may"] work in some aspects of solving the problem. What "works" is dialogue. Dialogue is generally best done in a calm and rational circumstances, dialogue can be shouting, or it can even be bullets or bombs.
Anyways, the US is definitely at war with terrorists.