SIX-MONTH anniversaries are rarely noted, except for babies. Yet President Bush staged an elaborate ceremony at the White House on March 11 to commemorate the deaths of 3,000 Americans in terrorist attacks six months earlier on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Families of victims were there, along with the military and representatives of countries that have aided, however little, America’s war on terrorism. The event prompted murmurs of criticism, most notably by columnist Walter Shapiro of USA Today. He said there was “something strange about the collective determination not to wait until September 11 [2002] to commemorate the worst day of terror in American history.” Shapiro was wrong. We need more commemorations of September 11, not fewer. We need more remembrances, more prime time TV documentaries like CBS’s “9/11,” more memorials, more days of prayer and moments of silence. As former Marine commandant P.X. Kelly declared recently, Americans should strive to keep the events of September 11 in their daily thoughts. We must, he declared, “never forget September 11.” The point is not to wallow in the sorrow of September 11 or indulge in flag-waving bluster or super-patriotism. The point is to recognize September 11 as a watershed event in American history that launched the nation on a new and difficult mission to defeat terrorism and depose dangerously hostile regimes. The continental United States, after all, hadn’t been attacked since the War of 1812. The Japanese in World War II only reached Hawaii and the remote Aleutian Islands in Alaska. And while Soviet missiles threatened us during the Cold War, they were checked by America’s nuclear force. On September 11, the terrorists did far more than just destroy two buildings. They declared war, on behalf of radical Islam, on our democracy, our culture, our religious tolerance, our economic success, our attempt to play an active, benign role in the world, our civilization. But as Bush noted at the White House ceremony, September 11 was “a day of decision” as well as a “day of tragedy.” America and the civilized world were “stirred to anger and to action.” There is a moral cause we’ve taken up. But would Americans really forget September 11? According to Bush, the answer is no. “America will not forget the lives that were taken and the justice their death requires,” he said. And so far America hasn’t. But the problem is not that Americans will forget but that they’ll be distracted. America is such a vibrant and energetic country, with so much going on at all levels of society, that the memory of September 11 is bound to fade as the rest of life intrudes. This is not wrong. It’s quite natural. The problem is that as the memory of September 11 grows hazy, the determination to carry on the war on terrorism may gradually dissolve as well. Despite analogies between September 11 and Pearl Harbor, we face a completely different domestic situation now. In the 1940s, American society was mobilized to fight the war. Men served in the military, millions and millions of them. Women worked in defense plants. And our country was culturally homogenous in those days. Support for the war never flagged. No one needed to be reminded to remember Pearl Harbor. Now, only a sliver of America is engaged in the war on terrorism. Advances in military technology mean that a tiny fraction of the number of troops who fought in World War II are needed now. American society is not mobilized today as it was then. Over time, the media and political correctness are likely to take a toll. Look what happened, for example, when a lull in the war occurred after the defeat of the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan this winter. The press hastily turned to stories that raised Vietnam-era questions about the war. Did American air attacks kill too many innocent civilians in Afghanistan? Why are the al Qaeda soldiers imprisoned in the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba forced to live in “cages”? Is the Bush administration being too secretive? And what about the treatment of Arab Americans? Aren’t they facing cruel discrimination because of their ethnicity? These may be legitimate questions. But if they are allowed to dominate America’s thinking about the war on terrorism, we’re in trouble. Taken by themselves, they lead to the conclusion that the war is unjust or morally tainted or at least not worth fighting. But the truth is that the war is just, moral, and worth fighting–for years, if necessary. Fortunately there’s an appropriate way to remind Americans of the worthiness of their cause and the need for fortitude. It’s by commemorating the horrible day when a peaceful nation was attacked by an evil force and a just war was begun. It’s by making sure that September 11 is remembered as vividly as Pearl Harbor was in another time. –Fred Barnes, for the Editors
