Another year, another terrorist warning. We thought the days of Bush-Era Homeland Security Scare Tactics™ were over, but the Obama administration offered us a harsh reminder this week that we still live in a world where we’re constantly under the threat of terrorism.

As we approach the one-year anniversary of Crotch Bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s failed attempt to blow up Delta Flight 253 on Christmas Day 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder reminded us that we need to remain vigilant. For every Wile E. Coyote-level incompetent Times Square attempt, we’re still trying to vanquish the foes that produced the 9/11 attacks and the bombing of the USS Cole.

In a new interview with ABC news, Holder stressed the danger the country still faces from terrorist attacks. Even though he says he’s confident the United States will continue to fight off terrorist attacks, he had this oft-repeated generic chilling message: “The terrorists only have to be successful once.”

“What I am trying to do in this interview is to make people aware of the fact that the threat is real, the threat is different, the threat is constant,” he said.

In the interview Holder talks about the changing face of terror and how we’re increasingly at threat from American citizens: “It is one of the things that keeps me up at night,” Holder said. “You didn’t worry about this even two years ago — about individuals, about Americans, to the extent that we now do. And — that is of — of great concern.”

“The threat has changed from simply worrying about foreigners coming here, to worrying about people in the United States, American citizens — raised here, born here, and who for whatever reason, have decided that they are going to become radicalized and take up arms against the nation in which they were born,” he said.

The growing number of Americans who are turning to terror and establishing links with al Qaeda and other radical groups are being recruited increasingly through the Internet. Many of these new foiled terrorists have a link to cleric Anwar Al Awlaki, who is himself a U.S. citizen. It’s believed that Awlaki, who is thought to be hiding out in Yemen, has been responsible for planning the underwear bombing plot that was foiled last Christmas and the more recent attempt to put bombs on cargo plane bound for the US.

“He’s an extremely dangerous man. He has shown a desire to harm the United States, a desire to strike the homeland of the United States,” Holder said. “He is a person who — as an American citizen — is familiar with this country and he brings a dimension, because of that American familiarity, that others do not.”

Holder said that as a threat to the United States, Awlaki ranks right up there with Osama bin Laden.

“He would be on the same list with bin Laden,” the attorney general said. “He’s up there. I don’t know whether he’s one, two, three, four — I don’t know. But he’s certainly on the list of the people who worry me the most.”

Apart from any threats that Awlaki has masterminded, his writings have been found on the computers of many Americans who have been plotting terror attacks in the United States. The reach of the internet has allowed him to reach out and radicalize potential converts around the world.

“The ability to go into your basement, turn on your computer, find a site that has this kind of hatred spewed … they have an ability to take somebody who is perhaps just interested, perhaps just on the edge, and take them over to the other side,” he said.

You can watch the full ABC interview and report right here:

Well it wouldn’t be the holidays if there wasn’t some kind of mind-numbingly scary terror warnings coming out of Washington. As if this weren’t already the scariest year on record.

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