Fighting words

Last week I sat down to write my view of Sept. 11 as a call to defend liberty with something more than the half-baked phrases so prevalent in the commemorative discourse. Although very few people were in agreement with the basic but useful assertion that consolation was to be found in the assault on American civil society, I'm not sure what I wrote requires any revising. But I would like to take some time to complete and round off the argument I only begun.\nAccurate though it is to say that America was the target of this barbarian "blowback," doing so, like most half-truths, doesn't clarify so much as it confuses. This is reason that consolation can -- and must -- be found. Civilization itself, with the United States as its chief guardian, was the actual object under assault on Sept. 11 -- and it remains so.\nWho could have failed to notice two appalling and unpardonable elements on last week's day of "commemoration?" First, there is in place a widespread attention deficit disorder that allows many Americans to yawn at the very mention of Sept. 11. This dishonorable war-weariness is connected to a second larger crisis: that of identity. Both of these facts, separately and together, constitute a danger of immense proportion.\nThe reaction to those of us who believe that this fight should not be yawned at but engaged in out of duty, necessity and pleasure, has brought into focus what is, for many of our countrymen, a crisis of civilizational confidence. Boredom and exhaustion are merely symptoms of that deeper, and deadlier, identity crisis. \nBut it can be dispelled by the fact that the "attack on America" claimed the lives of more than 80 nationalities, including, of course, many Muslims. It is this simple, superseding point that reminds us that the generation-long war (the first significant victories in which could only be tallied in the past five years) is not a clash of civilizations so much as it is about civilization. It is natural that we Americans think first of our own skins, but it is also base to abandon or ignore those who fight with us in common cause. We win moral credit not by parochial self-regard but by elevated internationalism. I should perhaps rephrase that as a "civilizational patriotism," in light of our forebears' staunch belief that America's cause is the cause of all mankind. \n"The resources of civilization are not yet exhausted," said the great liberal William Gladstone, the former prime minister of Great Britain. The recent anniversary of Sept. 11 forces us to recall the day when this proposition was put to the proof. Those resources seemed well in tact -- at least among what has been called the "noble debris of Flight 93." We desperately need a resurgence of that fighting spirit. So banish all timid talk of "rolling over" to the enemy. The operative phrase, incidentally, that needs to be borne in mind in the civilizational clashes ahead was spoken by a few bruised and battered foot soldiers that refused to be beaten: "Let's roll"