The Day After

They say we live in a Sept. 12 world. And today is our day.

The question on everyone's mind is a simple one, though difficult to answer: Are we safer today than we were five years ago?

I'd say it's hard to argue we are not safer. I mean, just by virtue of being hyper-alert and taking all threats seriously. No matter how incompetent and aloof you might think our president is (and for me, that's plenty), I doubt he'll be clearing brush and contemplating stem cell research the next time he gets a daily briefing titled "Osama bin Laden Determined to Attack U.S." (He'll more likely be ordering torture and violating civil rights willy nilly, but that's another topic.)

So maybe if we were completely clueless and unprotected then, we have a smidge of a clue and some defenses today. And there is something to be said about providing a convenient target in Iraq for those Middle Easterners who want to kill Americans. I'm pretty sure this wasn't the plan (didn't really have one of those), but for an Iranian, Iraqi, Saudi or Pakastani who wants to blow himself up and take some infidels with him, it's a lot easier to hop over to Baghdad and strap on a ready-made go-boom suit than spend years plotting in New Jersey.

But of course, we are not safe. Our borders are porous, our airports like sieves, our ports unprotected, our power plants unguarded, our Homeland Security funding distributed like pork, our intelligence community dysfunctional, our military stretched and undermanned, international nukes unnaccounted for and on and on and on.

There is much work to do even if we never will be perfectly safe. An enemy set on killing Americans with no value on his own life outside his ability to carry out his mission is not one that can easily be foiled. And if we've learned one thing from al Qaida, it's that they take the long-view and have patience to spare.

So take some solace with a pinch of vigilance on this day, our Sept. 12. We are still alive, if also still under attack.