September 11

It's Coptic New Year, and ‘Id continues, but it is also, of course, September 11. I live a few miles from the Pentagon and on that clear September morning nine years ago, we had watched the first of the twin towers be hit, dropped our daughter at day care, heard about the second tower, and I started in to work along US 50 in northern Virginia. I saw a large, dark pillar of black smoke rising directly in front of me, and instantly new something similar was happening here. Unable to get a cell phone signal I turned around and headed home. We picked up my daughter, then only a year and a half old, from day care, and spent the day, like most Americans, glued to the television.

For those of us who try to educate people about the Middle East, it has obviously been a challenging nine years, two wars, and much rhetoric. The ability to distinguish between real enemies who pose a threat and an entire global culture remains difficult for some people, as the current controversies over the "Ground Zero mosque" (which isn't at Ground zero and isn't a mosque) and the Qur'an-burning furor remind us. Nothing that has happened since, however, detracts from the shock of the original terrorist act in a country that had long felt secure from attack behind two oceans.

Remembrance is necessary, but those who try to exploit the day for their own goals should be ignored.