The world has indeed changed dramatically since Sept. 11, and so has our place in it. We find ourselves, as Americans and global citizens, living in an unsettled and unsettling period. Our nation’s ability to right itself after the devastating attacks has been sorely tested. Our leaders’ responses — on the military, diplomatic, economic and security fronts — have met with mixed results, at best. Our daily lives have regained some semblance of normalcy, but a heavy air of uncertainty, a profound sense of dread, still weigh upon us as our nation alternately strides and stumbles toward the goal of creating a safer world.
Those feelings are not likely to recede anytime soon. That will happen only if we’re successful in eliminating, or at least neutralizing, threats from terrorists and rogue states. That will require firm action, to be sure, but also a firm grasp of regional and global complexities, the likes of which have proven elusive to the current administration. Along the way, of course, we’ll have to strive mightily to repair our damaged relations with much of the rest of the world while reaffirming our commitment to civil liberties at home. No small tasks.
In the meantime, there is Sept. 11, a date we’ll mourn for as long as there is a United States of America. And nowhere more so than in New York, where, according to the NY1/Newsday poll, more than half of us knew someone or knew the family of someone who died in the World Trade Center attack.
In all, more than 3,000 people died in the WTC, the Pentagon, and aboard the plane that crashed into a farmer’s field in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Tomorrow, we’ll mourn and memorialize them all. After that, we’ll get on with our lives and the difficult work facing our nation. We pray for the strength and wisdom necessary to succeed and to do right. Maybe one day, then, that feeling of dread will dissipate once and for all.