Bring on the fireworks: USA has plenty to celebrate
Wonder how America is doing this July Fourth? Just go to New York for the answer. A groundbreaking ceremony is taking place for a new Freedom Tower that will rise up from the rubble of the World Trade Center. It will be the world's tallest building -- a height chosen with symbolic purpose: 1,776 feet.
The building is to be a testimony, in glass, steel and concrete, to the resilient American spirit that founded this nation in 1776 and that's now taking it forward on this third Independence Day since the 9/11 terrorist attacks shook America to its core.
That spirit is more than mirrored in the ''back to normal'' gusto Americans are displaying as July Fourth celebrations approach. Airlines and motorist groups say travelers are heading in exuberant droves to the skies and the roads. From Washington to Chicago to Los Angeles, organizers are anticipating capacity crowds.
Not that the new normal can ever be the old normal.
Markers of a more dangerous world for Americans are unmistakably woven through our daily lives: the stepped-up airport security, the intermittent terror alerts, news of our troops fighting, and dying, in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Those thoughts will hover over the fireworks displays. We'll register somewhere in our consciousness that this is the third Independence Day without a major terrorist attack. And swallow the rebound worry: What if this is the year?
Still, the clearest message of this July Fourth is that America is absorbing the 9/11 shock, not crumbling to it. All things considered, the nation has quite a bit to celebrate:
* A solid economy. At first, the stock market collapsed along with the Twin Towers in New York and part of the Pentagon in Washington. Yet, after financial shocks, job layoffs and uncertainty about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the economic foundations have held. All indicators now point to healthy growth.
* Better security. Many terrorism experts, and ordinary Americans, believe that it's just a matter of time before new attacks at home. But for now, the USA has stayed safe. That's in large part thanks to the improved security measures the U.S. has taken, from airport screening to immigration and port controls.
* Preserved values. The 9/11 attacks provoked an all-too-human urge to sacrifice core U.S. principles of civil liberties, human rights and the rule of law in the battle against terrorism. Our constitutional checks and balances are helping swing corrections into place, such as the congressional investigations into the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuses.
America's optimism and founding beliefs have taken plenty of battering since 1776: through the Civil War, two world wars, Vietnam, the civil rights movement and much more. Today, they're challenged by a spectrum of threatening ''what ifs:'' What if the Iraq war opens up a major terrorist front? What if anti-Americanism grows even more virulent around the world?
While America may feel beaten up a bit on this 228th anniversary of independence, all it stands for -- as the Freedom Tower will attest -- has survived, and then some.
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