The national unity that followed the attacks has dissolved into bitter disputes over rhetoric and policy.

On Sept. 11, 2001, the world changed.

It’s a truth that was spoken on that day and many times since.

But the far-reaching effects of the terror attacks have followed an unpredictable trajectory, changing the ground rules for even the inconsequential acts of making a telephone call, visiting Canada or boarding an airplane.

The relationship between Mainers and their government has been redefined.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks that felled the World Trade Center and smashed the Pentagon, the country rallied around President George Bush.

The world stood with the United States, with a sentiment captured best by the French newspaper Le Monde’s declared: “We are all Americans today.”

The partisanship of a contested election was over and the old things that seemed to separate the country were put aside.

It was “the end of irony,” and we wondered if we would ever laugh again. David Letterman, late-night funny man, for a time stopped doing his New York-based show. Funny wasn’t so funny then.

Now five years later, the tentacles of 9/11 have spread around the world, drastically altering everyday reality for millions of people.

We laugh again – at the same vapid and boorish things as before. Maybe more vapid and boorish things.

It was the post-9/11 unity that disappeared instead of irony.

We are divided today by politics, by party, by race, by war, by region – like before, or maybe even worse.

We live in a time and place forever remade, and not necessarily for the better.

Everyday reminders

In Maine, the state is being sued by the federal government, 19 soldiers with Maine ties have died while deployed in Afghanistan or Iraq, including seven members of the Maine Army National Guard. And, more than 1,700 members of the Guard have been deployed along with more than 750 airmen and women of the Maine Air National Guard. There are 367 Maine guardsmen and 199 members of the Air National Guard currently deployed.

Concerns over security led Gov. John Baldacci to quietly reverse himself on a question of police powers and immigrant interrogation and have created problems crossing the border into Canada, exasperating the economic interdependence off many Downeast and northern Maine communities who are closely tied to their international neighbors.

The state created a Homeland Security Task Force that has made a series of recommendations on how to improve preparedness and the director of the Maine Emergency Management Agency, Arthur Cleaves, has been spirited away to be the New England director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Maine’s loss is the region’s gain.

And state and local leaders are talking about homeland security. Before 9/11, that didn’t happen.

The war at home

Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11. In the run-up to war, though, it sure seemed like it did.

The United States might have eventually invaded Iraq regardless of the events of 9/11, or maybe not. It was the mood in the post-attack U.S., the threats of imminent danger – of mushroom clouds – and questionable intelligence making a case for war that ultimately lead to the March 2003 invasion.

With about 140,000 U.S. soldiers on the ground, more than 2,650 dead and an indefinite commitment to “stay the course,” the war in Iraq has divided the country – now with a majority of people saying they oppose the war, according to a CNN poll from earlier this month – and led to a spit fight in which otherwise well-intentioned and reasonable people describe one another as war mongers, war criminals, terrorist appeasers and traitors.

One out-of-state group that wraps itself in the cloth of religion has used the war in Iraq and its casualties to spread its own despicable message.

The Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., pickets the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan with slogans like “Thank God for dead soldiers” and “God hates America, land of fags.”

The members celebrate the deaths as God’s punishment against an immoral nation that encourages and protects homosexuals.

The group – which lives on hate and publicity – threatened to bring its macabre traveling circus to Maine and the funerals of two soldiers.

The fringe group, at least temporarily, united the state in its efforts to honor its heroes and protect their families. And, ultimately, its members never came to Maine.

In June, a group of state lawmakers – Democrats all – launched a group called Maine Legislators for Ending the War.

The war, the group says, is hurting Maine’s ability to invest in its future, to protect itself from terror attacks and to take care of its residents. Every dollar spent on the war, they say, is one that can’t be spent on meeting other important needs. So far, the war has cost more than $300 billion. According to an estimate by the National Priorities Project, Maine’s share of the total equals more than $930 million.

Republicans countered that the group was only trying to distract Mainers in an election year.

“Our problems here are 30 years in the making and totally unrelated to the war effort in Iraq,” said Republican Senate Leader Paul Davis at the time. “They continue to shift the focus away from themselves because they know they can’t run on their record of fiscal recklessness.”

Dove vs. dove

Jean Hay Bright is the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate this year. She is challenging the ever-popular incumbent Republican Olympia Snowe.

Hay Bright is described is an old-school liberal and she doesn’t run from the title. Yet, in the upside-down world of post-9/11 politics, in addition to Snowe, who has generally supported President Bush’s hawkish policies, Hay Bright is also facing independent, anti-war candidate William Slavick, a longtime Maine peace activist who’s running for the U.S. Senate as an independent.

Hay Bright’s bid to unseat Snowe was always going to be uphill but, despite having little room on her left, that’s where Slavick fits in. Despite protests to the counter, his candidacy draws from Hay Bright’s base.

Fellow independent Dexter Kamilewicz, who is challenging Democratic U.S. Rep. Tom Allen and Republican Darlene Curley in Maine’s 1st District, is also running against the war in Iraq.

Allen, a traditional Democrat and liberal, has opposed the war, but has voted to fund ongoing operations there and that’s given Kamilewicz enough room to launch his long-shot campaign.

While Hay Bright, Kamilewicz and Slavick aren’t likely to win in November, the three are making sure that their opponents – and voters – are thinking about the war in Iraq and its consequences.

Shhh! It’s a secret

In August, the U.S. Justice Department sued the Maine Public Utilities Commission, trying to stop inquiries into whether telephone giant Verizon had participated in a legally questionable program of domestic surveillance.

The PUC had stopped short of a full-scale investigation, despite pleas by the Maine Civil Liberties Union and 22 Mainers for a full investigation. It had simply asked that Verizon executives attest to the truth that their previous public statements regarding domestic eavesdropping were truthful.

The Justice Department sued to stop Verizon from responding. Similar lawsuits have been filed in Missouri and New Jersey.

In a letter sent to Verizon about the lawsuit, the Justice Department said the MPUC actions “infringe upon federal operations” and are “invalid under the Supremacy Clause” of the U.S. Constitution.

Justice also said that the information sought by the MPUC is a state secret and could harm the security of the country.

U.S. Reps. Tom Allen and Mike Michaud, Maine Democrats, responded with a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

“We share the growing concerns of many of our fellow citizens about the erosion of basic civil liberties under policies administered by the Executive Branch,” Allen and Michaud wrote.

“Surveillance of suspected terrorists is appropriate,” the letter continues. “However, the domestic surveillance programs authorized by the Administration have raised serious question on a national and local level about the constitutionality and the legality of how these programs are carried out.”

Talking about security

In October 2005, Maine’s Homeland Security Task Force began a two-year review of the state’s emergency preparedness.

The Task Force traveled the width and breadth of the state and generated a report in February that made nine recommendations, including improved communication among first responders, a more powerful Maine Emergency Management Agency, a $3 million disaster relief fund, better oversight of how federal homeland security funds are spent, a study of hospital capacity in the event of a major disaster and better community outreach and coordination.

A number of the recommendations were codified in law during the most recent legislative session, including establishing the statutory creation of a Homeland Security Advisory Council and the qualifications for the director of MEMA.

Next week, MEMA will test many of the systems put in place in response to the Homeland Security Task Force, including the protocols to temporarily use statewide radio frequencies during a major emergency. On Sept. 18, MEMA and the Maine Center for Disease Control will report back to the Task Force on the results of the drill, which will be held in Portland and South Portland, and on its other initiatives.

“The Task Force has taken a very holistic view of homeland security,” said Lynette Miller, a spokesperson for MEMA, “but it’s also gotten into the details.”

According to state Sen. Ethan Strimling, the co-chair of the Task Force, the Legislature first had to correct the bureaucratic hurdles that could have limited a statewide response.

“We had a lot of the same problems that the federal government had,” Strimling said. “We had to do on the state level things that (U.S. Sen.) Susan Collins was doing on the national level. … Clear up the lines of authority and communication.”

After 9/11, homeland security became a more urgent topic in the state. But it was after Hurricane Katrina that it rose to the top, Strimling said.

“People saw what happened and said we had to make sure we’re prepared if something happens,” Strimling said.