This month marks the fifth anniversary of 9/11. There are all sorts of things that come to mind with this marker. We sympathize with families and friends who have had to learn to live without their loved ones. We are saddened by what is missing in the New York skyline and have gotten used to concrete barriers, decorative as they are, in front of major buildings. American flags remain prominently displayed. The image of planes and burning buildings haunt our memories. The list goes on.

While dealing with the direct fallout, we have engaged in a war on terror that has colored just about every aspect of our public life. I wonder, in a hundred years, as historians look back, what they will say we should have done differently? I know most of you have more than a few ideas on this.

In reaction to our fear of a 9/11 style attack happening again, we have divided our nation into to two warring halves, we have infringed on the rights of our citizenry, and we have spent billions of dollars on the destruction of property. Untold thousands of innocent people have lost their lives, their loved ones, their homes, and/or their livelihoods. Religious intolerance is growing both within and between Muslim and Christian groups, and we are increasingly wary of some immigrant groups.

One thing I would change if I could, besides doing what I could to prevent the attack in the first place, would be to more accurately define the threat to us that terrorism was in 2001. We gave those we labeled as terrorists the power to redefine us when we perceived that they could be a threat to our very way of life. Think about it. We elevated a loose organization of relatively small armed bands to a force that could destroy us. Spitballs against a battleship isn’t an exact metaphor because they actually can do harm, but jeez, we’re the most powerful nation in the world. We have a huge military. Why did we convey to them that they had vastly more power than they did? And then carry on as if it were true?

I don’t know what we do now. Although we have the ability, we can’t very well bomb every country with resident terrorists into oblivion; especially as we’d have to include much of Europe, other friendly nations, and probably ourselves. We also can’t go back and undo any past actions that helped cause today’s problems.

In general we Americans are smart, innovative and compassionate. I’m hoping that some of our best step forward soon and lead us out of this current nightmare. We need leaders who understand world history, events, and cultures. We need courageous, forward thinking individuals who will not settle for short term or selfish gains at the expense of long term welfare. Most importantly, we need leaders who recognize that what’s best for us can not come at the expense of the rest of the world. Please dream this with me. While individually we might not have much power to directly affect world events, our collective dream has tremendous power. Let us not allow the tragedies of the past five years to mark the beginning of a long dark age. Let us instead look back on 9/11 as the spark, as the beginning of an unprecedented time of world peace, freedom, and prosperity.