The Path to 9/11

[falcon]

Looks like a good show coming up. Is hollywood starting to re-think its ways? Don't think so but we can always hope.






I recently attended an advance screening of ABC’s outstanding, epic miniseries The Path to 9/11 (airing this September 10-11), and I came away enormously impressed. Writer/producer Cyrus Nowrasteh (”Into the West”), director David Cunningham (”To End All Wars”), and the whole production team did a magnificent job in presenting the complex events leading up to 9/11 with accuracy, fairness, and artistry. The writing, acting, directing, editing, cinematography, and overall story-telling are first-rate. The Path to 9/11 is fast-paced and thoroughly gripping the whole way. I was not bored for a minute - and you won’t be either. The five-hour miniseries (aired over two nights) is based on the 9/11 Commission’s report, and also on ABC News correspondent John Miller’s book The Cell. ABC is going to air the first three hours on Sunday night September 10, and the final two hours (which culminate in a shattering depiction of 9/11) will be shown Monday night, September 11.


Let me start by saying that “The Path to 9/11″ is one of the best, most intelligent, most pro-American miniseries I’ve ever seen on TV, and conservatives have got to support it and get the word out about it!
This is the first Hollywood production I’ve ever seen that honestly depicts how the Clinton administration repeatedly bungled the capture of Bin Laden. One unbelievable sequence in the miniseries shows how the CIA and the Northern Allliance had Bin Laden’s house in Afghanistan surrounded and were about to capture him, but then National Security Advisor Sandy Berger refused to give them the order to go ahead, and actually hung up the phone on the CIA agent on the ground! The miniseries also has a scene in which the CIA has crucial information identifying some of the 9/11 hijackers in advance of 9/11, but refuses to share the information with the FBI because of the “wall” put up by certain Democrat officials to prevent information sharing between government agencies. The CIA is depicted as sitting in a meeting with the FBI (with John O’Neill present), and showing the FBI surveillance photos of terrorism suspects - some of whom will later turn out to be the 9/11 hijackers. The CIA asks the FBI for help in identifying the men in the photos, but refuses to give the FBI any of the information they have on who they are. John O’Neill protests that it’s impossible for the FBI to help the CIA identify the men, if they won’t give them any information whatsoever. When O’Neill tells the FBI to keep the photos so they can at least work on them, the CIA becomes hostile to O’Neill and grabs the photos back. Tragically, John O’Neill himself will later die in the 9/11 attacks, in part because agencies like the CIA refused to share crucial information like this. Scenes like this really buck the current mindset of Hollywood by showing that the Patriot Act is crucial to the safety of this country and that political correctness and bureaucratic inefficiency are Islamic terrorism’s greatest friend.

[American Patriot]

Beat me too it, Falcon.

[falcon]

A lengthy and very favorable review in Human Events. Excerpt:

Fortunately, Nowrasteh and the producers of this miniseries have gone out on a limb to honestly and fairly depict how Clinton-era inaction, political correctness, and bureaucratic inefficiency allowed the 9/11 conspiracy to metastasize. Let me say here though that "The Path to 9/11" is not a partisan miniseries or a “conservative” miniseries. It simply presents the facts in an honest and straightforward manner (the producers have backed up every detail of the miniseries with copious amounts of research and documentation), and the facts are that for seven years, from 1993 to 2000, the Clinton administration bungled the handling of the world-wide terrorist threat. The miniseries is equally honest in depicting the Bush administration. It shows a few points where administration officials, following in the tradition of the Clinton years, do not follow certain clues about the terrorist plot as zealously as they should have. Nonetheless, "The Path to 9/11," by honestly depicting the unfolding of events over eight years, makes it clear that most of the conspiracy leading up to 9/11 was hatched during the seven years of the Clinton administration, and that since Bush was in power for only eight months when 9/11 occurred, he can hardly be blamed for the entire disaster.

"The Path to 9/11" does a tremendous job in bringing to life the complex web of international characters and organizations that lay behind the events of that tragic day. ABC has created a miniseries that is truly epic in scope - a richly textured tapestry that weaves together a fascinating array of people, places, organizations and events both here in America and around the world. I was impressed by how vivid every character was, however briefly he or she may have been on the screen - and how quickly, clearly, and economically Nowrasteh and Cunningham depicted complex events. I absolutely loved the on-location work they did, and the great character actors of every nationality that they brought together. Cyrus Nowrasteh's background as an Iranian-American seems in particular to have given him a special insight into both the Middle-Eastern and American aspects of the story. Director David Cunningham, the son of a missionary, also brings an obvious love of foreign cultures and locales to his direction. The result is an engrossing, atmospheric tale of foreign intrigue. It was fascinating to see the crowded urban slums of Pakistan where the CIA captured Ramzi Youssef, the desert fortresses of the Taliban and Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, the Manila nightclubs where the 9/11 hijackers planned their attacks, the Tanzanian locales where the embassies were blown up, the meetings of the terrorists in Spain, and the various locations across America where the conspiracy comes together.