Time heals, but it also clouds. The shock is fading, but so is some of the clarity. The people remain protective of their president and his mission, and more on edge than before the trauma. But the intensity has inevitably eased. The American flag doesn’t stitch the country together as tightly as it did last fall, its use as bandage and balm receding. Abroad, America’s military success has not translated yet into permanent change. Al Qaeda is still at work, disrupted but hardly destroyed; Afghanistan is still a basket case, prone to civil war for years to come; the Middle East is still aflame, worse than it’s been in a long while; Iraq remains a real threat, but figuring out what to do about Saddam Hussein seems harder all the time.
Nothing is simple anymore, not even the definition of what this struggle should be called. Until last week, more journalists than soldiers had been killed in hostile action, and some members of Congress were beginning to question whether “war” was even the appropriate term for the far-flung, semi-permanent, semi-secret struggle against terrorism. Now, with serious ground combat and flag-draped coffins arriving stateside, the word is regaining some currency. But its meaning is still elusive. Will we feel “at war” for another six weeks, six months–or 60 years?
Some days, the country seems to have changed little. After a brief surge, recruitment figures for the armed forces and community service are up only slightly. All the talk last September about how “irony is dead” somehow failed to anticipate Tonya Harding and Paula Jones’s boxing on Fox. (Talk about ironic: dopey Disney executives have leaked word that they think it is ABC’s “Nightline” that is now “irrelevant.”) Getting hassled at the airport, once a gladly fulfilled patriotic duty, is growing tiresome, as passengers wait for some common-sense identification system. Buying habits, those unacknowledged keys to our national character, have changed almost not at all.
Then comes some stray reminder: a school is evacuated after a threat, or a story appears in the paper about how easy it is for a suicidal terrorist to contaminate a city for generations by setting off a radioactive “dirty bomb.” Suddenly, we’re jolted by a recognition of our own complacency. The placid surface of life is a deception: our grandchildren will still be coping with the globalization of terror long after we’re gone. If nothing else, Americans don’t take as much for granted anymore.
A half-year mark is usually of no significance to anyone except 8-year-olds waiting for their birthdays, but this monstrous event will demand constant commemoration. It was such a shock to the system and threat to the future that the processing–the definition of a “new normal”–has only just begun. Except for photographs and a couple of short plays, even the usually intrepid world of the arts has not ventured forth to illuminate.
And yet the national narrative is already playing out in familiar ways. The emotive television anchors, chilling Pentagon briefings and exclusive documentary footage–no matter how “new”–have already acquired the comforting glow of reruns. Even the president’s crying during a speech seems almost commonplace now. This routinization of sorrow has its uses: by fitting the story into well-worn conventions–gritty retrospective, inspiring human interest, unmatched courage in battle–viewers integrate the trauma into their own experience. Been there, seen that, at least on TV. Moved by it, moving on.
Policymakers cannot move on, and for them, the struggle grows increasingly complex. The more time elapsed since September 11, the harder it is to push real change. Last week, for instance, the newly formed Transportation Security Administration told Congress it could not meet the Dec. 31 legal deadline to install luggage-screening systems in every airport. Why not? Somehow, the crisis has not compelled round-the-clock World War II-style manufacturing of the 2,100 new machines. Now, of course, the pressure will ease even further. The same is true of lagging efforts to make all the government’s computers talk to each other, essential to homeland security. The urgency of the crisis–a battering ram against bureaucratic inertia–is wearing off.
Last fall, President Bush knew how to rally the country with a broad and clear us-against-them message, well suited to the challenge. His patience and clarity are still essential to staying the course in Afghanistan and persuading American allies to keep the pressure on Al Qaeda. But what began as a terrorist suckerpunch and a roundhouse American reply has become a game of three-dimensional chess, played by arcane international rules. In some important ways, we’re back in a pre-September 11 mode, where the United States is perceived in much of the world not as a victim but as a victimizer.
You can sense the recriminations coming. Over the weekend, the Los Angeles Times broke a story that the Pentagon has expanded contingency planning for nuclear strikes from our traditional cold-war foes to a total of seven countries–Russia, China, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Libya. The aim is deterrence–to send a message to terrorists and the states that support them that the United States has smaller, more targeted nukes and will use them to defend itself. But the revelation will no doubt give some nations an excuse to call the U.S. a bully.
Iraq is a particular problem. Vice President Dick Cheney, embarking this week on an 11-nation trip, will have his hands full explaining why Saddam should be targeted before Al Qaeda is smashed, a task that requires the cooperation of many nations where widening the war is unpopular. Even the Israelis, preoccupied by an increasingly bloody war with the Palestinians, are not spoiling for a fight with Baghdad. They consider Iran, which arms the Palestinians and the Lebanese Party of God, a bigger threat.
Even the issue of justice and revenge has grown cloudier since September. Can we really say to Israel, “It’s OK for us to kill as many terrorists as possible, but not for you to do the same”? The daily violence in the Middle East suggests that the military strategy of killing and demoralizing Islamic guerrillas is, at best, a short-term approach. There are just too many potential terrorists to take their place.
Six months from now, on September 11, 2002, Americans will face even less clarity, less unity and more complexity. We hope. If everything gets clear and unified again, it will be because we’ve been attacked again. The challenge is to dig deeper to find ways of improving our odds, at home and overseas, without the galvanizing and unifying effect of another shock to the system.
