LESSONS ONE YEAR LATER: Ink, airwaves and bandwidth are in high demand this week as publications, networks and bloggers mark the first anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attack on the United States. In doing so, some have sought to assess a profound meaning to that day's deadly events.
But how is it possible to give meaning to the mass murder of over 3,000 people? The meaning of any human event is a deeply personal and subjective determination; the meaning of September 11 to the widow of a victim will vary considerably from the definition assigned to it by the father of an American soldier now deploying in Iraq. That's why attempting to invent a single, comprehensive 9/11 meaning is a pointless pursuit.
History bears no meanings, but it's ripe with lessons. And the attacks of last September offer two stark lessons -- one for Americans and one for the rest of the world. The lesson for Americans was best expressed by
George Will in his Washington Post column this week. Drawing a comparison between two fateful dates in American history, Will writes that "no one now living will live to see a day when Americans forget the lesson now associated with Sept. 11 as well as Dec. 7: A powerful nation embodying a powerful idea and spanning six time zones is permanently exposed to dangers from all the other 18 zones." Or, putting it in the parlance of the Founders, to "
secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" requires unwavering vigilance.
September 11 also offers a vivid lesson for other countries because, as
Mark Steyn writes in the National Post, it "marks the day America began to fight back: Thanks to the heroes of Flight 93, 9/11 is not just Pearl Harbor but also the Doolittle Raid, all wrapped up in 90 minutes. Those passengers were the only victims who knew what the hijackers had in store for them, and so they acted. The improvisations of Flight 93 foreshadowed the extraordinary innovations of the Afghan campaign, when men in traditional Uzbek garb sat on horses and used laser technology to guide USAF bombers to their targets." Steyn then declares that "on Flight 93, Todd Beamer, Jeremy Glick, Thomas Burnett, Mark Bingham and others . . . effectively inaugurated the new Bush Doctrine: When you know your enemies have got something big up their sleeves, you take 'em out before they can do it."
And that's a lesson the rest of the world -- enemies and allies -- had best commit to memory.
