Eight years later

Living for six years in Arizona, you get accustomed to finding locust shells attached to the outside of your home. They look like the real thing, menacing even. You can pluck them right off the wall with great care, and with very little pressure, you can crush it to dust. No guts remain to support the shell.

Eight years ago, evil men with an evil agenda grounded upon an evil foundation unleased a fiery fury upon America. The Lady Liberty wobbled and reeled after the blow but regained her footing. What damage was done on that tragic, blue-skied September morning in the eastern United States?

We still have a formidable military. Few doubt that. The training is unsurpassed. The technology, though cutting edge at some spots along the blade, has dulled along other sectors through age and wear. Yet it remains an incredible shell of protection. A shell. How do the innards look?

Who'd have thought that grounding air travel for a few days would come close to crippling the airline industry? It did. Our economy has teetered and travailed ever since. Should the American market take another shot to the jaw, what would the consequences be?

The United States' powerful economy and mighty military reflect directly upon her rich historical past. That past flourished under a united people building on a solid foundation, a Constitutional bedrock upon which our Founding Fathers anchored this nation.

Today, we are no longer a united people. I hear folks counter that America is still great, that folks still adhere to the same red, white, and blue ideals. Really? Take a methodical read through this article, a piece by Pat Buchanan. I'm not always a fan of his stuff, but his assertions today are hard to deny.

"Consider but a few issues on which Americans have lately been bitterly divided: school prayer, the Ten Commandments, evolution, the death penalty, abortion, homosexuality, assisted suicide, affirmative action, busing, the Confederate battle flag, the Duke rape case, Terri Schiavo, Iraq, amnesty, torture.

"Now it is death panels, global warming, "birthers" and socialism. If a married couple disagreed as broadly and deeply as Americans do on such basic issues, they would have divorced and gone their separate ways long ago. What is it that still holds us together?"

What is it? You got me. Lady Liberty has lost the cohesion beneath her shell.

Outside our borders the crazies across the continents lick their venomous fangs at our disunity. With whom are we at war? It is terrorism, then it's not terrorism, then it is terrorism. What day of the week is it? Who dares to speak of Islam's threat except those not in power? What's more important, Afghanistan or GM? International currency or international immigration? The shell of America looks imposing, but the inside's a muddled mess.

North Korea and Iran are tinkering with nukes. Imagine a half-dozen low-yield, suit case-sized weapons getting into the hands of loonies. Far fetched? Imagine a concerted ballet of Cessna 172s flying over New York, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver and LA.

Boom.

Economy? Unity? You think your IRAs tanked last year. How will major cities handle the infrastructure? Look what Katrina did to New Orleans. How will that ripple into the hinterlands? What's it matter that we have so mighty a military when nothing remains at home?

I hate ending posts on a negative note, but what's left to unite the United States of America eight years after 9-11-01? Putting our hope in hope is not going to do it when the divide within grows ever wider.

What will close the gap before the fingers crush the shell?