Sunday, Sept. 10, 2006 | 7:39 a.m.
It has been five years since the atrocities of 9/11, the cowardly and unprovoked attack on American civilians perpetrated by a group of Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. This was a shocking moment, not only for the moral bankruptcy of the assault but also for the insidious character of the logic behind it. They didn't care who they killed as long as they killed. Then as now, Muslims, the supposed brethren of the attackers, are fair game. It is not a human calculus.
This was not the first such attack on American soil. That infamous distinction belongs to the British, who sacked Washington, D.C., and burned the White House during the War of 1812. There have been other attacks, of course. Pancho Villa invaded Columbus, New Mexico, during the Mexican Revolution. He had financed his revolution by credit extended him by local merchants. When he wanted more weapons and supplies, they turned him down cold. Villa had maxed out his credit. He attacked in response.
Pearl Harbor stands out as the worst until 9/11, and there is no more moving place for me in the U.S. I felt obligated to read every name on the wall, fighting back tears all the while. But then, I have not yet been to Ground Zero.
Sept. 11 was different in that civilians were the primary target. More like the Oklahoma City bombing than any previous attack on our soil, 9/11 did more than prove that oceans no longer shielded us from the happenings in the rest of the world. It at long last punctured our age-old insularity.
Five years is a long time and Americans deserve a reckoning. What have we accomplished since 9/11 and where has it gotten us? Are we better off, as Ronald Reagan used to ask, than we were in August 2001?
The elephant in the West Wing is obvious. Where is Osama? We have spent billions of dollars we don't have and this SOB is still running loose, thumbing his nose at us. I want him a lot worse than I ever did Saddam Hussein. The world is not that big and nobody is that elusive.
Sept. 11 simultaneously made George W. Bush and brought him back to cold reality. Before 9/11, he was the accidental president, a lackluster leader whose administration had little direction or purpose. In the aftermath of the atrocities of that fateful day, he morphed into a leader. With the support of the world, we were poised to remake political culture for a new age. Even the Middle East seemed within reach.
But the man didn't have the gravitas. He wasn't all he had appeared to be when he stood at the smoking, gaping hole and inspired a stunned and grieving nation. From the "Mission Accomplished" stunt to his concerted assault on the rights we all hold sacred, he has shown neither style nor substance.
So instead of a safer world, we have more chaos and many fewer ways to find solutions. We have ignored the wisest piece of political advice ever uttered - keep your friends close and your enemies closer. We can't even talk directly to our adversaries.
Worse, our allies now fear us and don't trust our motives. When we say that we want to seed democracy across the globe, they look askance and wonder what our real objective is. Now we are virtually alone and friendless, with a growing reputation as the neighborhood bully.
And then there is the quagmire of Iraq. Things are clearly not getting better and we have been there more than three years. We have not changed the face of the Middle East. It seems even more unlikely that such a goal was ever possible.
It is often said that people get the government they deserve. Our apathy has let our leaders get us into this quandary. Most of us have not paid attention as decisions that are crucial to our future as individuals and as a nation were implemented. We have been deceived on a number of occasions, but the obligation still falls on the citizenry to be vigilant. We have not been so and the fault is ours.
Five years have passed. The world is neither safer nor better. When we remember that horrid day, we must think about where we will be on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. By then, if the American public demands it, we might have a clear charter to a better world. Let us all aim higher.
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