9/11

So far, this is the only day of the year that has been abbreviated into an international touchstone. It's so pervasive that subsequent terrorist acts have taken place on "Spain's 9/11" or, just recently, "Russia's 9/11". The Madrid train bombing and the Beslan school atrocity seemingly aren't grandiose enough to merit their own 'day of infamy'.
America has refashioned itself in its own image since, of course. The country that invented Attention Deficit Disorder still has a case of it. For about a month afterwards, it looked like 9/11 might actually have wrought something positive out of the horror, as Americans paused to reflect on who they were, where they belonged in the world, and what the important things in life might be.
Sadly, though, the opportunities for transformation on a national scale have been frittered away. America had the world's sympathy and charity in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks, but ask the man on the street how he feels about America three years later and you'll likely get an unsympathetic and grossly uncharitable response. It's precisely because of what the United States has done with the chance it was given.
Iraq.
Why Iraq, George? bin Laden wasn't there. Undoubtedly the world is a better place without Saddam ruling a little corner of it, but holy Shiite, Oilman! You've lost a thousand American troops and counting trying to plant democracy in desert soil. It won't take no matter how much blood you water it with. Your soldiers were supposed to be liberators, but real liberators remove the human weeds and then get the hell out. True, after much anguish you did hand the reins of government over, but you're still trying to manipulate things behind the scenes. Being a puppet master is addictive, isn't it, George? Or are you now the Sorceror's Apprentice?
Okay, so you've botched your foreign affairs policy. It's really too bad, because others see the world through that particular window. But have you done any better prosecuting the war on terror at home?
I have to admit, there have been no further terrorist attacks on American soil. So in that sense you have succeeded, George. Bravo. But have you stopped to notice the America you've created? It hasn't been this polarized since Viet Nam, and you've done nothing to reach out and reassure your citizens. You have a colourful terror alert scale so you can raise a hue and cry wolf whenever it best suits you politically. A million jobs have been lost despite the fact that historically, wartime has been great for employment figures. Naw, you've been a failure here at home too, George.
You do have the luck of Satan, I'll give you that. The Democrats picked perhaps the worst possible candidate to replace you, and many in your country are becoming aware of it. Your vice president still had to stoop so low as to raise the spectre of an American Beslan should your opponent win, though. Dirty pool, Georgie, dirty pool. But then, you're an oilman. Oilmen specialize in dirty pools, don't they?