9/11 - The Twin Towers - more than a blow job

Question

SPOILERS (sort of) for Mini-series: The Path to 9/11 v
V
v
V
v
V
v
New Zealand was one of the first countries to get
to see the Mini-series: The Path to 9/11 which
will be (or is) playing tonight in the States. It's worth following to get the perspective just five
years after the tragic event. Visually, it films
like all the episodes of a season of 24 crammed
into a few hours. It really is hard to fix on any
one scene for too long. It retains an almost
impassionate observation of the main players,
and the mistakes those entrusted to protect
democracy made. It's not just a boy's club
either women play their part around the
world including Monica's lips. Talk about
having your chance to wipe out a key player
in terrorism and blowing it...
Second part plays tonight - looking forward
to it.
Paul ;-)Nz

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]SPOILERS (sort of) for Mini-series: The Path to 9/11 v V v V v V v New Zealand was one ... out a key player in terrorism and blowing it... Second part plays tonight - looking forward to it. Paul ;-)Nz[/nq]
Yeah, the perspective after only five years. Courtesy of richard mellon scaife. Did you actually use the words:

"an almost impassionate observation"
in your idiotic statement above?

Usenet · Answer

^^
[nq:2]Or anything about 9/11, for that matter. Of course, he's in NZ, but don't forget, Australia is run by another *** right-wing lunatic...[/nq]
^^
[nq:2]Or anything about 9/11, for that matter. Of course, he's in NZ, but don't forget, Australia is run by another *** right-wing lunatic...[/nq]
[nq:1]Not sure why you equate Australian politics and policy with ours. We're two entirely different countries in both geography and ... on this new movie then fine. Fire away if it makes you feel better. No loose change here. Paul :-)Nz[/nq]
To the knee-jerk frothing at the mouth lunatic fringe so-called writers on this newsgroup (which doesn't include everyone), ANYONE who REMOTELY says anything that could construe support and sanity in a real war on terror is a "right-wing lunatic."
I never expect them to be logical about the fact that a very real portion of the world wants to destroy the West because it represents freedom. You'd have to be able to think to see that; they're incapable. That explains the response you got.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]To the knee-jerk frothing at the mouth lunatic fringe so-called writers on this newsgroup (which doesn't include everyone), ANYONE who ... about the fact that a very real portion of the world wants to destroy the West because it represents freedom.[/nq]
You're conjoining one principle I think we could all agree on some terrorist groups want to destroy America with another that plays fast and loose with meaning and motivation "because it represents freedom".

While I don't believe religious extremists want the world to enjoy universal religious freedom, I also don't believe they see us as representing anything of the sort. They see us as agents of cultural oppression and the desire for christian/jewish hegemony.I believe these groups are populated by the stupid, poor, hateful and misguided members of their religions, lead by the smart, rich, hateful and misguided. But the one guiding insight that governs all of them and most of us is that we know we can't trust what our governments tell us so we have to go looking for our truth elsewhere. The big differences between us lie in where we go for our accepted truths. Here in America we have our own theories about why we're at war in Iraq availability of oil, capitalist foothold in the middle east, maintaining the dollar-based oil trade, delayed vengeance on Hussein for years of nose-thumbing but virtually nobody believes the official explanations.

Outside America, the popular theories about our motivation are somewhat different, and often center on us as religious crusaders or promoters of the Jewish state.
Its funny to me, because being a non-Jewish American, I would think about the state of Israel about as often as I think about Gambia except that it's forced so often into the news by current events. But to others it looms as large as America, China or Russia. For religious and cultural reasons it occupies an almost planetary terrain for some people, such that all their theories of world events feel its gravitational pull.

I don't sense that pull, so I sometimes have a hard time seeing America as the rest of the world sees it, as this big tool that Israel can use as it will to pound on its enemies. I find that theory ludicrous in the extreme, even while knowing that it stems from the same basic principle that governs at least some of what I believe: massive distrust of the government.

As David Cross points out, if the terrorists were actually "freedom haters" the Netherlands would be toast.
Alan Brooks

A with an Underwood
Lies, **** Lies and Political Promises
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Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]To the knee-jerk frothing at the mouth lunatic fringe so-called writers on this newsgroup (which doesn't include everyone),[/nq]
You must be referring to yourself, here, right? I'm in the Writers Guild. Are you, fascistboy?

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]To the knee-jerk frothing at the mouth lunatic fringe so-called ... world wants to destroy the West because it represents freedom.[/nq]
[nq:1]You're conjoining one principle I think we could all agree on some terrorist groups want to destroy America ... Brooks A with an Underwood Lies, **** Lies and Political Promises MWSM FAQ: http://www.panix.com/~mwsm/faq.html Filtering Trolls: http://www.panix.com/~mwsm/trolls.html[/nq]
Well Alan, I have a long view of history and I have a memory. As I recall, your wife or a friend of hers (?) escaped going to work at the Top of the World restaurant that day because of a kid to school or something and all their friends died there. So in responding to you I do so with special sympathy on this day because it was real up close and personal for you and yours.
In my life, I have a client in Israel. I have a former student who won the first Sundance Online Film Festival adn then worked on "The Incredibles" and other things and now has the only animation company in Israel.
So that's kind of on-topic on this group for me and I have real reasons for wanting Israel safe.
I think this statement of yours is right on -
[nq:1]I believe these groups are populated by the stupid, poor, hateful and misguided members of their religions, lead by the smart, rich, hateful and misguided.[/nq]
I think this one is old, worn-out, muddle-headed and reeking of hippie nonsense -
[nq:1]But the one guiding insight that governs all of them and most of us is that we know we can't trust what our governments tell us so we have to go looking for our truth elsewhere.[/nq]
I actually know people in government, ranging from ex MI-6 (that would be UK), Navy SEALs, chief of staff on both sides of the aisle, Democratic governor, etc.
The idea that governments always lie to you is ***. It's simplistic, it's "I am underdog, hear me whine!"
I think we're trying to do something damned near impossible in the Middle East - stop all that **** that's been going on for 3,000 years by establishing representative democracy there. And it's got a shot to work.
The head of Qatar's wife showed up at a big meeting after we invaded Iraq in Western dress. Caused an uproar, but women there have been doing it ever since.
Women don't get their heads chopped off in a stadium in Afghanistan any more just because the *** a guy.
The dicator of Libya GAVE UP and became cooperative.

Remember how we couldn't possibly win in Afghanistan because Alexander couldn't do it, the British couldn't do it, the Russians couldn't do it (all from the liberal so-called intelligentsia).
And now they have a democratic government aborning there.

I watched the show last night and I'll watch tonight. It was excellent.

The good guys are winning, despite Muslim encroachment trying to take over all of Europe by moving in - read Londonistan (book) some time - and the rest of the West by creating a cancer within us and blowing up children and everyone else in a cowardly way.
Some times, a demon is just a demon and you have to destroy it.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Well Alan, I have a long view of history and I have a memory. As I recall, your wife or ... do so with special sympathy on this day because it was real up close and personal for you and yours.[/nq]
I had friends in the tower, most of whom got out. Friends of friends, and a cousin-in-law died, but my strongest feelings really stem from the experience itself, and being a New Yorker (though I was up at my weekend house in Woodstock, that morning 5 years ago). I'd bet at least half of all New Yorkers had the same connection I have, or something more direct.

Anyway, I'm not looking for any free sympathy passes.
[nq:1]I think this statement of yours is right on -[/nq]
I wouldn't claim to know any governors personally, but I too know people at most levels of government.
[nq:1]The idea that governments always lie to you is ***. It's simplistic, it's "I am underdog, hear me whine!"[/nq]
No government lies all the time, but they do lie constantly, and I'm surprised you read that as muddle-headed hippie nonsense when it reads as whacko right-wing nutjob nonsense to me. Even if I wrote it.

But it's true. Our government lies constantly. All governments lie constantly. Not every time a press secretary's lips move, but constantly. They lie for reasons of national security, they twist the truth to gain political leverage. They invent motivations when the real ones are unappealing to the demographic they're trying to impress. And sometimes "they" simply lie about things because "they" are people, and some people lie. Politicians have a hundred more reasons than the average joe to tell lies, and a thousands times the motivation to tell those lies with a straight face.
I'm not repeating some thoughtless cant about government lies, but I'm also surprised to hear that you, who have claimed to have secret sources that are more reliable than the public sources, would stake a claim for government honesty.
All I'm saying is that we each try to figure out the truth from the sources we trust, and we build different versions of that truth where official channels seem murky. Muslims in the middle east build a truth that's so orthogonally different from the truth most Americans try to construct, that it would sound like a fairy tale to hear it told.
[nq:1]I think we're trying to do something damned near impossible in the Middle East - stop all that **** that's been going on for 3,000 years by establishing representative democracy there. And it's got a shot to work.[/nq]
No, it doesn't.
[nq:1]The head of Qatar's wife showed up at a big meeting after we invaded Iraq in Western dress. Caused an ... the Russians couldn't do it (all from the liberal so-called intelligentsia). And now they have a democratic government aborning there.[/nq]
And the highest output of opium ever. The Taliban may they rot in **** at least kept a cap on that. The "democratic" government in Afghanistan would collapse like a used condom if NATO forces withdrew.

Quadaffi is playing his own game, which is nothing like democracy. There are very positive signs coming from Libya, but the future of that country is still a **** shoot.
For every example you've given of democracy initiated at the point of a gun or via economic arm-twisting there is another example of Marxist guerrillas trying to establish a new communist state (Indonesia, Nepal), or religious fanatics fighting for control of local politics (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kansas). Our current policies make us as many enemies as friends.
Mind you, I think every country in the world should adopt a system like America, Britain or France's, where everybody has a vote, and the political parties, for all their faults, are relatively representative of the population. But nobody has ever dictated this sort of arrangement from without, and it's never going to happen in Iraq until the Iraqi people figure out how they themselves want things arranged.

America is not going to make it happen, no matter how many wet dreams Karl Rove has about the Nobel Prize.
[nq:1]I watched the show last night and I'll watch tonight. It was excellent. The good guys are winning, despite Muslim ... everyone else in a cowardly way. Some times, a demon is just a demon and you have to destroy it.[/nq]
Um... Are you talking about terrorists, religious extremists or all Muslims? One I can agree with. One is a slippery slope toward dictatorship. And one is a fast track to a membership in the Michigan Militia.

Alan Brooks

A with an Underwood
Wishin' accomplished
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Usenet · Answer

@reader2.panix.com:
[nq:1]I never expect them to be logical about the fact that a very real portion of the world wants to destroy the West because it represents freedom. You'd have to be able to think to see that; they're incapable. That explains the response you got.[/nq]
The only thing people in the world want more than money is freedom. The primary reasons for the two attacks on the United States were our unwavering support of Israel, our military presence in Saudi Arabia, and our multiple conflicts with Iraq which culminated in the occupation of an Arab country; probably the very worst thing we could have done if we had any intention of improving these problems.
If you want to find somebody in the world who hates freedom, try Washington D.C. Our government under conservative rule has done more to curb and destroy our freedoms than any terrorist ever has.

pwt

Usenet · Answer

You paint a picture of the majority of people in government lying all the time.
That is simply not true. It's not even close to true in my experience.

I don't condemn the human race because it's troublesome.

You spoke of all government around the world as being a pack of liars. That's a very glum assessment of humanity, and I don't agree.

The fact is, this is the third incursion of Islam trying to take over the world. You can hem and haw about governments and wrongs and "so many other Muslims don't agree" but that doesn't change it. This time they'll fail like they did the other two times and this time they might effectively kill the religion. It's not governments, it's religious zealots - and don't start about right-wing Christians. Pat Robertson et al. might be crazy but they don't slit throats on camera or off.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]@reader2.panix.com:[/nq]
[nq:2]I never expect them to be logical about the fact ... see that; they're incapable. That explains the response you got.[/nq]
[nq:1]The only thing people in the world want more than money is freedom. The primary reasons for the two attacks ... D.C. Our government under conservative rule has done more to curb and destroy our freedoms than any terrorist ever has.[/nq]
Or, as Keith Olbermann put it:
This Hole in the Ground
By Keith Olbermann
MSNBC Countdown
Monday 11 September 2006
Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space. And for 40 days after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.
All the time, I knew that the very air I breathed
contained the remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in the planes and - as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still into my soul - two more in the Towers.
And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors.
I belabor this to emphasize that, for me this was, and is, and always shall be, personal.
And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft,"or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.
However, of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast - of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds - none of us could have predicted this.

Five years later this space is still empty.
Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.

Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.
Five years later this country's wound is still open.

Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked.
Five years later this is still just a background for a photo-op.
It is beyond shameful.
At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial - barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field - Mr. Lincoln said, "we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."

Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.

Today our leaders could use those same words to
rationalize their reprehensible inaction. "We cannot dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground." So we won't.
Instead they bicker and buck pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they're doing instead of doing any job at all.
Five years later, Mr. Bush, we are still fighting the terrorists on these streets. And look carefully, sir, on these 16 empty acres. The terrorists are clearly, still winning.
And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it.
And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this city, and in the fabric of our nation. There is its symbolism of the promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution.
The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.
Those who did not belong to his party - tabled that.

Those who doubted the mechanics of his election -
ignored that.
Those who wondered of his qualifications - forgot that.

History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage.

Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.

The President - and those around him - did that.
They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice
President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."
They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.
The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication."

The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."
Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space, and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.
Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.
Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated, that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible for anything in his own administration.

Yet what is happening this very night?
A mini-series, created, influenced - possibly financed by - the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes.

The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option.
How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical
advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you - or those around you - ever "spin" 9/11?
Just as the terrorists have succeeded - are still
succeeding - as long as there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero.
So, too, have they succeeded, and are still succeeding as long as this government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans.
This is an odd point to cite a television program, especially one from March of 1960. But as Disney's continuing sell-out of the truth (and this country) suggests, even television programs can be powerful things.

And long ago, a series called "The Twilight Zone"
broadcast a riveting episode entitled "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."
In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by extra-terrestrials disguised as humans. The electricity goes out. A neighbor pleads for calm. Suddenly his car - and only his car - starts. Someone suggests he must be the alien. Then another man's lights go on. As charges and suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are inevitably produced. An "alien" is shot - but he turns out to be just another neighbor, returning from going for help. The camera pulls back to a near-by hill, where two extra-terrestrials are seen manipulating a small device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice that there's no need to actually attack, that you just turn off a few of the human machines and then, "they pick the most dangerous enemy they can find, and it's themselves."
And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod Serling sums it up with words of remarkable prescience, given where we find ourselves tonight: "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men.

"For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own - for the children, and the children yet unborn."
When those who dissent are told time and time again - as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus - that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American ... When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11" ... look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:

Who has left this hole in the ground?
We have not forgotten, Mr. President.
You have.
May this country forgive you.

Usenet · Answer

A far better 9/11 documentary about what happened is http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7866929448192753501&hl=en

LOOSE CHANGE 2
PS I saw Dr David Ray Griffin give an excellent talk and Q&A last week here in London. He's currently on his European tour.

9/11 - The Twin Towers - more than a blow job

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