September 9th, 2005

Sitting at the computer, waiting for inspiration for the 4th anniversary of 9-11, Hurricane Katrina metaphors abound but inspiration fails. And there is, in the failure of metaphor, inspiration. Victims and their families need no inspiration for remembrance. The rest of us need no metaphor.

Sitting at the computer, waiting for inspiration for the 4th anniversary of 9-11, Hurricane Katrina metaphors abound but inspiration fails. And there is, in the failure of metaphor, inspiration. Victims and their families need no inspiration for remembrance. The rest of us need no metaphor.

As the raw horror of that day begins to recede, our obligation is to remember both the horror and the heroism. And to remember what motivates America’s ongoing war against terrorists and the states that harbor and support them. We did not go to war because of September 11th, but rather after September 11th. Only on that day did Americans internalize the war against our country and our way of life that terrorists began in Beirut in 1982. Only on that day did the government (Administration and Congress; Republicans, Democrats and a Socialist) know that the American people stood behind them.

So after waiting 19 years, we returned fire. Afghanistan first, with a clear mandate but widespread predictions of doom and disaster. Then Iraq, with a clear mandate from Congress but not the UN (unless you count the 12 Security Council Resolutions, several involving the threat of force). Again there were predictions of doom and disaster – some of which proved quite true; others of which did not.

We returned ideological fire as well. America’s 60-year bargain with kings and dictators for cheap-oil-for-willful-ignorance-of-the-nasty-regimes-they-ran expired. We acted on the understanding that young, well-educated Muslims in dictatorial countries, without the prospect of political liberty or a decent job are prime fodder for radical groups, secular and religious. On the understanding that consensual government, if not democracy, is possible for people who are not heir to the Magna Carta and the U.S. Constitution. On the understanding that they want it as much as we treasure it.

In four years we have had much more heroism and horror. Our service personnel demonstrate every day that America can fight a war against a terrible and vicious enemy while bringing hope, aid and reconstruction to civilians at the same time. They are our heroes, deserving of the outpouring of support they have received from the vast majority of Americans. Libya’s abandonment of its WMD programs, and the transfer of its chemical and nuclear materials to Oak Ridge, Tenn., makes all of us safer. Elections in Lebanon, the PA, Jordan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Egypt – flawed, every single one of them – still bring the people of those countries closer to that elusive but essential civil society that can, in time with help, produce consensual governments and democracy. Iran remains the exception to evolutionary, not revolutionary, hopes.

Time passes and greater or lesser tragedies occupy cable news. We still have no metaphor, but we do have the sure knowledge that America must not become complacent about a war that is far from over, and gratitude for the combination of luck, investigative skill and providence (and the Patriot Act) that has protected us from a repeat of terrorist-induced disaster on our soil.