A year ago I wrote about an overtly crisp, autumnal September 10 that gave way to a blustery, cloudy September 11. The weather was a fitting metaphor for the occasion. Not so today.

Today it was just hot, a welcome little riposte of summer after a mild three months of abundant rain and sparing heat. Even if recycling the weather theme wouldn’t be tiresome, there’s just nothing there that fits our circumstances. It’s been an on again/off again summer in Iraq; no cool, damp respite there. Last week brought unspeakable horror to Beslan–call it the Children’s September 11–and I don’t know what kind of weather that could possibly be like. A hurricane? A tornado? Both at the same time, with an erupting volcano thrown into the mix? I have no idea.

Whenever I look at a picture of the burning towers (image courtesy of Fox News), I remember the way I felt that morning: violated, enraged, stunned. Utterly unable to believe this was happening. Stupefied that those two proud buildings that had stood there at the start of the day were now gone. I think the survivors in Beslan have some idea of the feeling: an inability for the moment to grasp how this could possibly be.

It makes a guy want to shout defiantly Never again! but I know I can make no such promise. A meek not since would be nearly accurate, but Madrid, Jakarta, and Beslan make it plain that now is not the time for any such bold oaths. As raw as these wounds really still are, we live yet with the reality that new ones could be opened tonight. We live one radiological suitcase away from our next unspeakable horror.

Living that life, but usually forgetting that we do, we are continuing a low-level war in Afghanistan and slowly making good in Iraq. Maybe we’ll bag Osama soon. Maybe the insurgency will die down in Iraq, elections will go well, and peaceful economic growth will take root there. Maybe the thousand covert battles waged every month will attrite our enemies to some strategically significant degree. And whether the admission appeals to your political instincts or not, maybe the results of our own November election will reflect our continued political will to finish the war begun in earnest three years ago today.

And maybe soon I’ll be able to get my mind out of the details and the policies of the war and get some perspective on the thing. Which would require it being, well, over. I look forward to that part, but for now, I am eager to see where we are in another year. This has not been a bad year, but the next can always be better.

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• Posted by Tim on Saturday, September 11, 2004 at 11:27:26 pm PDT
• Category: September 12
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