Fascinating.

Seven years into the war that officially started with the 9/11 attack, and even though Al Qaeda is serving up yet another boastful video, a large part of the world still claims not to know who was responsible for 9/11.

The survey of 16,063 people in 17 nations found majorities in only nine countries believe al Qaeda was behind the attacks on New York and Washington that killed about 3,000 people in 2001.

I mean really. I can understand why people in the Mideast might be in denial. But what's with the Germans? And the Mexicans?

The U.S. government was to blame, according to 23 percent of Germans and 15 percent of Italians.

Respondents in the Middle East were especially likely to name a perpetrator other than al Qaeda, the poll found.

Israel was behind the attacks, said 43 percent of people in Egypt, 31 percent in Jordan and 19 percent in the Palestinian Territories. The U.S. government was blamed by 36 percent of Turks and 27 percent of Palestinians.

In Mexico, 30 percent cited the U.S. government and 33 percent named al Qaeda.

In many ways, the war on terror is and remains at least as much a propaganda war as it is a series of military operations. We seem to do a better job with the latter than with the former.

I mean, take the fact that a major American writer for Salon compares Sarah Palin to Osama bin Laden. (Via Glenn Reynolds, who has more.) The reality of such preposterousness makes my derisive snorting about German or the Mexican denial almost seem like a form of denial. This war brings out the worst in people as well as the best.

Which is why I think it's important on this day to say Never Forget.

I can hardly do those two words justice in a short post like this, but Michele Catalano can and does:

Never forget? That phrase always made me cringe. Who could forget such a thing? Who could forget the pain, the loss, the rage, the image of smoke, fire, and buildings collapsing while people ran for safety? Who could forget such a powerful, staggering loss?

Not me.

It was a perfect day. Blue skies, fluffy clouds, September warmth. I sat at my desk, the day's work put aside briefly for my morning blog entry, something mundane about not getting the timestamps right on the blog. Normal, ordinary day. I still lived in a state of mind where I felt the world was a mostly decent place, that people were mostly good, that life would hold no big surprises that I couldn't handle. And then it happened.

The perfection, the absolute banality of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, was shattered.

We have not forgotten Pearl Harbor, nor should we, and the same applies to 9/11.

Glenn Reynolds links this memorial and a great piece by James Lileks, who says, "I am resigned, in advance, to the loss of an American city by a nuclear weapon." So am I, and it's a been a real life adjustment to have been thinking that for seven years.

Glenn recalls his own thoughts on the day it happened. I wasn't blogging then, but four years ago I recounted my thoughts of that day:

As an admirer of Ayn Rand for most of my life, I share her view of the American skyscraper as more than just a building. Each one is a monument to individuality, to the American "can-do" spirit, and, most of all, to freedom. The Twin Towers stood as gigantically strong, seemingly indestructible, twin pillars of freedom. I will never be able to shake that awful memory of how, in the instant these giants came crashing down, they were suddenly not strong at all, and certainly not to be taken for granted. Instead, they appeared very frail and delicate.

Quite significantly, (as the Examiner noted this morning), not much has happened on US soil:

Exactly seven years after 9/11, the war against jihadist terrorists has been an unappreciated success. Nobody should take that success for granted. In those seven years, despite numerous plans and several attempts by terrorists to replicate or even surpass that horrendous day, they have not succeeded a single time on U.S. soil. No body count of innocents. No successful biological or chemical attacks. No airports, bridges, buildings, or trains blown up. Nothing. President Bush's strategy has succeeded far beyond what the experts predicted would be the case in the weeks following the horrors at the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the rural field where Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, Pa.

All the more reason to remember.

MORE: Abe Greenwald fears we are squandered the chance to remember ane relearn:

The truth is something vital has been squandered in the years since we were attacked. It's not the world's sympathy or money or American lives. I fear we've squandered the chance to remember and relearn what it means to be a part of the longest-running and most honorable revolution in world history. To appreciate not just the fruits of American democracy, but the frustrations and sacrifices that were endured in creating and defending it. Instead of excoriating our president for his blunders and setbacks, we should have been rallying, as a nation, recalling in our history the many times we triumphed in the face of determined and evil adversaries. We're told we've forgotten about the principles of our Constitution, but as Americans sit around and freely describe our elected leaders as fascists and our soldiers as indiscriminate killers, it's clear we've forgotten what it takes to keep those principles alive.

Don't miss Ace's tour de force account of that day, and a very articulate explanation of what he thinks happened since. Excerpt:

It's not that the "lessons of 9/11" have been forgotten by some; it's that they never truly believed them to be lessons, or at least did not see the same lessons most of us did. What 9/11 taught most of us was that our respective political philosophies were not simply correct but more demonstrably correct than ever; what may have been incongruous or discomforting to liberals about 9/11 has since been recontextualized, retrofitted, and retconned so that for liberals too 9/11 proves they were right all along.

From The Anchoress, a prayer:

In the tragedy and terror of 9/11 we saw the best and the worst of humanity. I pray never have to again.

George Bush leaves office with al-Qaeda now the enemy of Islam in much of the Muslim Street. Just as there are Nazis running around still today, one day soon al-Qaeda will just be the sign of a sick and deranged mind, hopefully trapped by the laws of lands barely tolerant of them due to the basic respects to the individual of democracy. We are well on the path to reaching that day - thanks to George W Bush.

Thank you sir, for working to keep us safe all these years. Many of us realize it will be decades, probably well after I have left this world, before the true stories of what we faced come out from behind the security classifications. Until then, your results - the changes you achieved - will have to speak for your efforts.

Logic is irrelevant in combating these fears, as it is with children who fear monsters under the bed. This is not to disparage these fears. The threat is real. And while statistically remote, there is a factor that elevates terrorism beyond the many mundane fates we all dodge daily. It is the malice.

There are men out there who want us dead. This is undeniable. They want to see us all dead. Each and every one of us. They don't know our names, they don't know what our thoughts are about their grievances. They don't know what our actions are and how we've lived our lives. They don't care. They just want us dead.

For most Americans, 9/11 is just another day. Stuff happens.

I remember 9/11 being a terrible day.

It ended with a group of congressmen singing "God Bless America" on the Capitol steps.

The late Peter Jennings, anchoring coverage by ABC News, said that their song was nice, but in a few weeks, everything would return to normal and Democrats and Republicans would be at one another's throats again.

Jennings was admonished for saying that.

Time proved Jennings right.

The presidential candidates were to speak in a joint appearance in New York City today. It was billed as bipartisan.

I want better. I want nonpartisan.

This is not a day for normalcy. This is not a day for politics. This is a day for the president to remind everyone of what happened, of how we reacted, and what still needs to be done.

MORE: I think it was very decent of both John McCain and Barack Obama to put aside their differences in order to remember 9/11:

SHANKSVILLE, Pa. (AP) - Recalling the nation's unity in a time of peril seven years ago, presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama placed their partisan contest on hold Thursday and spoke as one in honoring of the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Obama and McCain were making ground zero in New York their common ground, joining in homage to the dead from the fallen Twin Towers and the hijacked planes flown into them.

Beforehand, McCain spoke briefly at a simple ceremony in remote, rural western Pennsylvania, held on a large hilly field close to where United Airlines Flight 93, the third of four airliners commandeered by terrorists, crashed. Investigators believe some of the 40 passengers and crew rushed the cockpit and thwarted terrorists' plans to use that plane as a weapon like the ones that hit the World Trade Center and Pentagon. All aboard all planes died.

The Arizona senator said those on the flight might have saved his own life, as some believe the terrorists wanted to slam that plane into the U.S. Capitol. He said the only way to thank those who died on the flight is to "be as good an American as they were."

"We might fall well short of their standard, but there's honor in the effort," McCain said.

Obama, in a statement, said that on Sept. 11, 2001, "Americans across our great country came together to stand with the families of the victims, to donate blood, to give to charity, and to say a prayer for our country. Let us renew that."