Sure they can hurt us. They can't hurt us enough to make spending trillions of dollars there worth it, when that money could be better spent on a true defense. A true defense means becoming independent from oil, and then exporting the technologies that allowed us to do so.

The analogy to my home is flawed. It's more like walking around South Central L.A. at 3 am while carrying a KKK banner, and then having someone attack you.