Sorry, I misunderstood the context.
sqlite> select * from datetest;
k d
---------- -------------------
1 2005-03-17T16:21:30
sqlite> select strftime("%m", substr(d,1,10)||' '||substr(d,-8,8))
...> from datetest;
strftime("%m", substr(d,1,10)||' '||substr(d,-8,8))
---------------------------------------------------
03
sqlite> select abs(strftime("%m", substr(d,1,10)||' '||substr(d,-8,8)))
...> from datetest;
abs(strftime("%m", substr(d,1,10)||' '||substr(d,-8,8)))
--------------------------------------------------------
3
