Not to point out the obvious, but several people have said that the US should not be involved in the creation of a foreign country's constitution.
Does anyone remember Japan pre-US occupation? How about Japan post-US occupation? I seem to remember Japan being a bigotted, war hungry, killing machine until the US came in and wrote a new constitution.
Maybe that's just conservative revisionism, though.
heres an essay of a survivor...Adam Mayblum...
...And lastly tonight a Special Comment on why we are here. 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.
And 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 can not dedicate - we can not consecrate — we can not 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 can nto 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-Qaeda 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 areseen, 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.
-Keith Olbermann
movies.crooksandliars.com/CountDown-SpecialComment-Bush-911.mov
F*ck Kieth Olberman.
I'm curious Paul, did you watch it?
It makes Condelezza Rice and George W. Bush, not to mention George Tennet, former head of CIA and Bush's own leader of the Department of Homeland Security, look just as much at fault, and just as much a bunch of clueless f*cks.
The 9/11 debate is fine in any other threads, and should continue, but for now on, lets keep this thread to the mini-series, particularly to those who saw it.
Grade: B+
It was good. I didn't come away with an overwhelming hate of any Democrats, nor feel any blame for them in particular.
It was our system as a whole that failed, and bureaucracy, red tape, and political correctness (on both sides of the aisles) that was the true "path to 9/11".
From the NY division of the F.B.I. which had warnings about the men involved in the WTC bombing of '93 (and were even under F.B.I. surveillance at one point) from an Egyptian colonel in the U.S., to our disregard of CIA field agents requests to aid and fund the Northern Alliance to strike the Taliban (something Reagan DID do when they fought communist Russia), to warning Pakistan about missiles meant for Bin Laden heading over their airspace (whether or not it was Secretary Albright personally, or not makes no difference since we did warn them), to President Clinton not wanting to strike back after the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole because he was only in office for another 3 months, to President Bush not doing anything about it either, to Condelezza Rice basically telling Richard Clarke (head of anti-terrorism) to take a hike, to the CIA having info of "attacks inside the U.S., in aviation, hijackings" and not warning airlines because they needed specifics, .........
Man.
We screwed up, royally.
I think, in a sense, that we deserved it.
(not the thousands of innocent office workers and brave firemen and police, but the idiots in charge of keeping all those people safe.)
After the first nights broadcast, ABC news had a few of the men involved to point out some of the discrepancies (and some of the truths) and one that stuck with me was that a general said :
"We knew where the al-Queida training camps were, but it was deemed a waste of a million dollar missile to blow up a jungle gym camp."
Where desert fools shoot at target ranges and practice hand-to-hand combat..... he didn't say that part, but it's reasonable to assume that somebody did.
If only they knew that those hand-to-hand techniques with blades were what would gain a few men the chance to strike our country in the worst way in the last 100 years.
On a personal note, I found very tragic the story of John P. Reilly, the character played by Harvey Kietel, who worked with the F.B.I. for over 25 years (spending the last 10 dealing with terrorists, bin Laden in particular) and left due to disagreements and frustration at his efforts to get bin Laden going nowhere.
Only to take a job as head of security for the WTC and be killed on 9/11.
Thats f*cked up.
Almost as much as how our government officials wouldn't grant a FISA warrant to look in Moussari's laptop, but the Philippine cops just had the balls to take Ramsey Youseff's and get his info.
(there's that useful FISA program again, there.)
Anyway, the film left me saddened and seriously pissed off (only a little at al-Quieda) and hoping that we learn something from our past.
Based on the ending, which shows that of the 41 recommendations that the 9/11 commission made, our report card in Dec. of '05 had five 'F' 's and 13 'D' 's (in airport security, ports/border security, immigration) and one 'A' (stopping terrorist funding) I am doubtful that we have.
As for the films accuracy, or more to the point, its "LIES", I'd like for anybody who's seen it to post what EXACTLY was false.
Not the conversations between officials, because obviously we'll never have a decent record of those, but of the time-line of events, of attacks, decisions, and responses.
Guess I'm done, anybody else who saw it wanna chime in.....?
"to President Clinton not wanting to strike back after the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole because he was only in office for another 3 months"
a lie. just a flatout lie. clinton ordered airstrikes on suspected terrorist targets immediately after the bombing of the u.s.s. cole. he was then accused of "wagging the dog", by conservatives and liberals alike.
im not trying to make clinton out to be not guilty of negligence, but please stop posting lies.
Well, there you go, that's one.
I'm not deliberately posting lies, just what was in the film.
There is a scene of a meeting with Secretary Albright, Tennet, some generals and such immediately after the bombing of the Cole.
The idea of a missile strike is brought up, but seen as ineffective. One of the generals says that they need boots on the ground, but an invasion, a war, has never been started in the last 3 months of any Presidents final term, somebody says, and it also might look like a stunt to help Gore.
The film then skips to Condelezza Rice and George W. making asses of themselves, and doesn't say what course of action was taken.
I assumed that there was none, so blame me, not the film.
Although smart editing would have included such a strike, if only to show that it didn't do anything and that the general was right.
While not a lie, the timing and editing of the film led to my conclusion which was wrong.
So good catch PVS, I'm a little ignorant of the facts in some parts (those years from '99 to the beginning of '01 was when I was involved in a bunch of personal bullshit) and didn't know that Clinton ordered a strike.
Good for him.
I'll tell you one thing, while I'm still a Bush republican (no surprise to you there), I have a whole lot more issues with him and our government as a whole after seeing this film.
Guess if it was supposed to be pro-conservative, it failed.
Did you see it?
Originally posted by Darth Kreiger
Again, there were Disclaimers, but I guess that means nothing to you, especially if you didn't watch it.
i watched half of it, and a disclaimer means nothing.
but i guess if they made a movie about bush ordering the attacks on the wtc, with a boldface disclaimer at the beginning of the film, you'd be cool with that.
:edit: oh shit...that was deano bait...forget i said it
Originally posted by PVS
i watched half of it, and a disclaimer means nothing.
but i guess if they made a movie about bush ordering the attacks on the wtc, with a boldface disclaimer at the beginning of the film, you'd be cool with that.
Want to know the differance? The film is about a Fake Event for Conspiracy Theorists, Path to 9/11 was based on fact with added Hollywood. They attack both sides, kindive like South Park
Edit: Damn it! I responded too quick
Originally posted by Darth Kreiger
Want to know the differance? The film is about a Fake Event for Conspiracy Theorists, Path to 9/11 was based on fact with added Hollywood. They attack both sides, kindive like South ParkEdit: Damn it! I responded too quick
no. its either a documentary or its fiction. you cant selectively condone blatant lies, just as long as they suit your pallet. at best, even by your odd sensabilities, this fiction is extremely tasteless. perhaps if it was leftist slanted fiction, you would react differently, like if michael moore was to produce a drama...based on real events.
Originally posted by PVS
no. its either a documentary or its fiction. you cant selectively condone blatant lies, just as long as they suit your pallet. at best, even by your odd sensabilities, this fiction is extremely tasteless. perhaps if it was leftist slanted fiction, you would react differently, like if michael moore was to produce a drama...based on real events.
The things in the film were a Skewed version of what happened, Clinton is still thought of as backing down, and again, Bush was attacked too
Originally posted by Darth Kreiger
The things in the film were a Skewed version of what happened, Clinton is still thought of as backing down
he ordered immediate airstrikes on suspected terrorist targets in afghanistan, which is fact, and which you have ignored. yet you still say that he "backed down". this is the danger of ignorance/prejudice/partisan encouraging misinformation touted as fact*
*...tagged with an ineffectual disclaimer