REMEMBERING SEPT. 11

Just how much time has passed between Sept. 11, 2001, and the present is demonstrated by the nation’s difficulty in focusing on Afghanistan and al-Qaida for more than a few seconds before being diverted from the base of attack that killed 3,000 at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania that awful day. The period of mourning is long over; even the bile of revenge has subsided while terrorists, elsewhere so far, continue their murderous calling.

This week the distraction is, of course, understandable, with New Orleans and a portion of the rest of the Gulf Coast destroyed by hurricane and flood, but what about two weeks ago, or two months or, for that matter, two years? Our attention on Osama bin Laden was so fleeting that nearly everyone would now be surprised if he were captured, as if it were a happy accident rather than the concentrated effort of a nation determined to hunt down the man chiefly responsible for instigating the attacks four years ago.

In recent years, terrorists’ attacks have become more frequent and more dispersed around the globe. In the past year, terrorists have killed by blowing up commuter trains and buses most recently in London but previously in Madrid and, before that, suicide bombers struck the British Consulate, London-based HSBC Bank and two synagogues in Istanbul. They bombed buses in Israel and crashed airplanes in Russia.

And horrifically in 2004, hundreds of people, including many young children, were killed when terrorists took over a school in southern Russia. They bombed the Australian embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, killing nine people.

In 2003, the State Department’s Patterns of Global Terrorism report counted 175 significant terrorist attacks worldwide, a 21-year high, according to the report. Last year, that number more than tripled to 655, according to the National Counterterrorism Center. That includes 198 terror attacks in Iraq – not including attacks on U.S. troops – leaving a trail of death that destroys the idea of fighting terrorists in Iraq so that they do not have to be fought elsewhere, as the Bush administration suggests.

Terrorists’ attacks do not get the nation’s sustained attention because there is no simple response to them and they have not blown up anything in the United States since 9-11. At least not yet.

There is no sense reviewing the missed opportunity when the Bush administration went from directing attacks at al-Qaida and at the Taliban to building a specious case for war against Iraq. The administration already seems to understand that the only Global War on Terror possible is one directed militarily at specific terrorist groups while also confronting the conditions that allow those groups to thrive. A small sign of progress, but hardly enough considering the challenge that civilized nations face.

Four years after Sept. 11 the nation is unprepared to respond to emergencies or address their causes. The larger war on terrorism must be fought on many fronts using many different weapons. Let this Sept. 11 be a day to remember not merely what happened four years ago but also what remains to be done.