Werner Schultz is running for the EU parliament and told the delegates of the Green Party congress last weekend: "Today the people are more afraid of their investment adviser than of Al Qaeda." A remarkable quote that was cited in many Germany newspapers.

There are many indications that a growing number of citizens in Europe (and also in the United States) are less concerned about international terrorism than a few years ago. 9/11 is over. It is back to normal. This is not just due to the financial crisis, but also because Al Qaeda and co have not had a major attack in recent years. Complacency would be a dangerous, and Obama knows it since he said in his inauguration speech: "Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred."

Germans, however, never felt at war with this terrorism network. They don't worry much about the recent terror threats due to Germany's involvement in Afghanistan. And German politicians don't dare to describe the Bundeswehr mission in Afghanistan as war.

Ulrich Ladurner writes in the respected German weekly Die Zeit:

Since the United States is experiencing a crisis of monumental proportions, Osama must genuinely feel that his prophecy has become a reality. More than a decade ago, he set out to vanquish America and its villainous puppets in the Arabian Gulf - nothing more, nothing less. Back then this must have appeared like folly, because the U.S. was at the zenith of its power and Osama and his people were considered nothing more than a fanatical gang of murderers.

Today we are witnessing the rapid decline of the United States, a trend which some consider to be irreversible. Osama has victory in his sights. Whether that's true or not shouldn't be debated here. This is about recognizing that this is the view of Osama bin Laden. This is about catching a glimpse of the world of ideas espoused by these fanatics.

Read the article in the German original or the English translation.

These days, Die Zeit is even more pessimistic about the power of the United States than usually. Jan Ross writes about the Heroes of the Retreat:

How can the land of victories and optimism come to terms with a life after the imperial moment? Learning to decline - is it doable? Can a world power that no longer presumes to dominate the world find a new role without depression or biting fear? Is there life after the imperial moment? That is the question that the United States faces, and that will define the term of the next American President.

French counterterrorism efforts have been praised by several analysts, but I am surprised to see that two scholars of the American Enterprise Institute argue that "France is the world's most sophisticated practitioner of counterterrorism. The U.S. can learn from her experience."

Reuel Marc Gerecht and Gary J. Schmitt write in The American:

Whereas September 11, 2001, was a shock to the American counterterrorist establishment, it wasn't a révolution des mentalités in Paris. Two waves of terrorist attacks, the first in the mid-1980s and the second in the mid-1990s, have made France acutely aware of both state-supported Middle Eastern terrorism and freelancing but organized Islamic extremists. In comparison, the security services in Great Britain and Germany were slow to awaken to the threat from homegrown radical Muslims. Britain's gamble was that its multicultural approach to immigrants was superior to France's forced-assimilation model. But with the discovery of one terrorist plot after another being planned by British Muslims, as well as the deadly transportation bombings that took place in London on July 7, 2005, the British have begun to question the wisdom of their "Londonistan" approach to Muslim immigration.

The Washington Post describes Michael Vickers' plan to build a global counterterrorist network. The plan is focused on a list of 20 "high-priority" countries. According to the Post, "Vickers hints that some European countries could be on it."

The plan deploys a variety of elite troops around the world, including about 80 to 90 12-man teams of Army Special Forces soldiers who are skilled in foreign languages and at working with indigenous forces.

Vickers is Assistant Secretary of Defense and used to be the principal CIA strategist for the paramilitary operation that drove the Soviet army out of Afghanistan in the 1980s. The movie "Charlie Wilson's War" portrays Vickers in that role.

Asked by the BBC (video) where he sees the biggest threat coming from, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff answers that the US is increasingly concerned that "Europe will become a platform for terrorists." Chertoff said he had seen "home-grown terrorism begin to rise in Europe".

The Homeland Security officials have been increasingly concerned for a long time now. In July 2005, Atlantic Review quoted a Brookings Fellow writing in Foreign Affairs: "The growing nightmare of officials at the Department of Homeland Security is passport-carrying, visa-exempt mujahideen coming from the United States' western European allies."

Apparently the nightmares have not been all that bad in the last two and a half years. Business is considered more important. That's why the US is not canceling the the visa-waver program for Europeans. The Bush administration is not as tough in the war on terrorism as they present themselves.

Related posts: "Terrorists on Honeymoon" in Lower Saxony and WSJ: Russia and Jihadists Target America's "Giant Aircraft Carrier with Sausages" and NYT's Correspondent Mark Landler's Shrill Coverage of Germany

Meanwhile, Germany is preparing to send 250 combat troops to northern Afghanistan as part of NATO's quick reaction force to join in the search for and fight against terrorists. This marks a departure from the Bundeswehr's current mission. To date only stabilization forces have been deployed to the main German base at Masar-i-Sharif, reports DW World.