Re-living United 93
I saw United 93 on Saturday night. It was the single most powerful film I’ve seen in my life. The film lacks any element of fiction. I didn’t feel as though I was being told a story, so much as I felt that I was a ghost given permission to observe events at the FAA, NORAD, and onboard United 93.
What I observed was the incredible vulnerability of human systems confronted by something new, the tenuousness of authority in the face of relentless second-guessing by media and legal professionals, and the willingness of people to keep working in the most impossible situations.
The recreation of events on the flight are super-realistic. We only get one side of phone calls. We see the rapid formation of a plan by men who know only that they have to do something and that failure will be no worse than a death sentence 95% already delivered. By the time the passengers move against the attackers you are so keyed up and identify so fully with their plight, you move with them. I could almost smell the recycled air of the cabin.
The closest I can come to explaining the experience is to invoke the holodeck of Star Trek fame. I felt as though I had walked into a holodeck taking me through September 11 and United Flight 93. I couldn’t help, but I could feel the emotions and take in the atmosphere.
When the passengers finally move against their captors, I felt a dam break inside me and all the tension, fear, and anger racked my body as tears literally jumped out of my eyes. I knew no one in the theatre would notice because the other people were going through the same thing. When the credits came up, no one moved.
After a few moments, we recovered from our shock and walked from the theatre in a procession just as orderly as a funeral.
If a lot of people see this film (and I pray they will), there will no longer be much debate about Iraq or Iran. Wide recognition will dawn upon Americans that we are in uncharted territory and that something is exponentially better than nothing when facing an implacable foe. We need to churn up as many difficulties as possible so that our experience will be wide and we will never again display the innocence we did just a few Septembers ago.
No matter how much we wish it were not so and pretend it is not true when previous memories fail, we are violently reminded that there is evil in the world and that its practitioners are convinced of their rectitude.
April 30th, 2006 at 10:26 pm
“We need to churn up as many difficulties as possible so that our experience will be wide and we will never again display the innocence we did just a few Septembers ago.”
With all due respect, do you really believe that getting in more and more fights around the world somehow makes us less vulnerable to attack. Reasonable arguements can be made in favor of the Iraq War and IMHO we probably won’t be able to judge whether on balance it was right or wrong, but 9/11 had nothing to do with it. Yes, Saddam had tenous links to Al-Quaeda, but no responsible person has ever suggested that he had anything to do with 9/11. Moreover, he was never motivated by radical Islam, but by Baathism, an equally evil ideology but of a completely different flavor. For example, Saddam Hussein proved that he would never blow himself. The same cannot be said for Ahmadinejad. I will grant you that he is a Muhammad Atta who may soon posses an atomic bomb.
May 1st, 2006 at 12:18 am
Bowman makes a good point. I’m annoyed when people use “9/11″ and “Iraq” in the same sentence as justification for the war in Iraq. The Administration can’t pull that one over on me anymore.
May 1st, 2006 at 3:07 am
With all due respect, do you really believe that getting in more and more fights around the world somehow makes us less vulnerable to attack.
Offense being the strongest defense, yes “getting in more fights” will reduce attacks, when your enemy is already determined to harm you anyway.
Do we really have to re-learn this lesson over and over? Chamberlain shouted “peace in our time,” waving around a peace treaty with Hitler. And we all know how that went.
When I was nine years old, I was hounded by a bully. The kid locked on me and decided I was his prey. I avoided him every way I knew how, but it wasn’t until I beat his butt that he left me alone. Now if such tenacity is possessed by a schoolyard bully, how much more so by murders and tyrants? Does anyone possess the knowledge to satiate or reason with madmen?
Reasonable arguements can be made in favor of the Iraq War and IMHO we probably won’t be able to judge whether on balance it was right or wrong, but 9/11 had nothing to do with it.
1. Removing a tyrant who killed a million of his own people and giving them a chance at free self-government is always a good idea, for us and for them. For reference, see Japan.
2. Arguing that it had nothing to do with 9/11 is like arguing that we shouldn’t have gone after the Germans because they didn’t bomb Pearl Harbor, to which i say, “Birds of a feather…” 9/11 was one campaign, by one group in a GLOBAL movement.
Yes, Saddam had tenous links to Al-Quaeda, but no responsible person has ever suggested that he had anything to do with 9/11.
But he did have direct links to a bevy of other terrorist groups, including the provision of training camps. But, more fundamentally, 9/11 was one campaign, nay, one mission in a war being waged against us, whether or not we fight back.
Moreover, he was never motivated by radical Islam, but by Baathism, an equally evil ideology but of a completely different flavor.
Arabs have a cultural connection to Islam the same way that Russian Cossacks have a connection to Orthodox Christianity. To suggest that Baathism–pan-Arab nationalism– goes hand-in-hand with Islamofascism in terms of a working relationship, especially since their immediate goals are the same.
For example, Saddam Hussein proved that he would never blow himself [up].
Neither did Arafat and can anyone actually name a senior level terrorist who has?
I’m annoyed when people use “9/11″ and “Iraq” in the same sentence as justification for the war in Iraq. The Administration can’t pull that one over on me anymore.
The Administration never said this. They said that (1) Iraq had or was going to have the ability to produce WMDs, (2) they had willingness to use them, and (3) they had connections to terrorism (”Axis of Evil”).
1 and 2 proved to be wrong, but 3 didn’t. The whole of the Iraq invasion was to begin removing the threat in the long term by removing a tyrannical regime from a enemy state that had connections to terrorism.
You could make arguments that NK or Iran were more valuable targets, but for a list of strategic reasons, they were also far harder targets to strike. With Iraq, we have at least established a foothold and made headway in changing the culture that breeds terrorism. We have also denied the initiative to our enemy, forcing them to respond to us, rather than us to them. As some have pointed out, Iraq has become a magnet for terrorist efforts and resources, while we have not experienced another attack since 9/11.
May 1st, 2006 at 3:10 am
Correction: To suggest that Baathism–-pan-Arab nationalism–-does not go hand-in-hand with Islamofascism in terms of goals is to deny that link, especially since their immediate goals are the same.
May 1st, 2006 at 7:32 am
i am not worried about war…i support our troops but i do not look past the fact that they are troops. it is there job to fight when and where our government(note i said government not Bush) they knew what would be asked of them when they signed up. this is why people should not gripe about the wars we fight..it is not vietnam…any person who does not think that 911-and iraq go hand in hand is not keeping up with history…we need a better toe hold in that part of the world. we did not beat russia in the cold war by charging into moscow with tanks..we did it by countering their moves with our armed forces, wearing them down with our industry, and also wearing them down with our culture…all we need in the middle east is time
May 1st, 2006 at 8:04 am
David Marcoe,
Cheney on Meet the Press did link 9/11 and Iraq and use it as a justification.
Powerful film yes, but I’m not sure what it’s message says about taking out Saddam (though there were legitimate reasons to do so, as Bowmanguy suggests).
May 1st, 2006 at 8:38 am
From April 25th Powerline:
…read Blog of the Week Thomas Joscelyn’s superb discussion of the Clinton administration’s 1998 attack on a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant named al-Shifa, and its ongoing relevance to debates over intelligence and the connections between Iraq and al Qaeda. Joscelyn notes along the way that recent coverage of al-Shifa by the New York Times has been “ridiculous,” and sets out ten basic facts about the 1998 bombing. Here are just a couple:
President Clinton authorized the intelligence community to discuss the multiple threads of evidence used to justify the strike. One thread, in particular, was more important than the others. The NSA intercepted communications between the father of Iraq’s chemical weapons program, Emad Al Ani, and the plant’s management. Thus, the soil sample was not the only, nor even the strongest piece of evidence used.
That was back in the days when the Democrats were in favor of having the NSA eavesdrop on terrorists. (They will be again, as soon as they control the Executive Branch.)
Richard Clarke, Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon have all defended the intelligence surrounding al-Shifa from the beginning. The indictment referenced above was unsealed in November 1998. The 9-11 commission report notes that when Clarke read the passage above it “led Clarke, who for years had read intelligence reports on Iraqi-Sudanese cooperation on chemical weapons, to speculate to Berger [National Security Advisor] that a large Iraqi presence at chemical facilities in Khartoum was ‘probably a direct result of the Iraq-Al Qida agreement.’ Clarke added that VX precursor traces found near al Shifa were the ‘exact formula used by Iraq.’”
Please read all ten, as well as Tom’s just-published article on the topic in the Daily Standard.
May 1st, 2006 at 8:57 am
I think some people are missing the moral of Flight 93 when suggesting that starting fights for their own sake is the best way to fight terror.
The great thing about flight 93 isn’t the courage of the passengers - there was plenty of courage on 9/11 in NYC and at the Pentagon. Even the hijackers were brave, however rotten they were. But the passengers were *smart*. Within an hour or so they realized that the hijackers had implemented a new kind of terror attack, come up with a solution, and implemented it. They did this on their own initiative, with no orders from authority. It took al-Qaeda years to plan 9/11, and it took average Americans about sixty minutes to find a solution that ensured that such an attack will never succeed again.
It seems to me that the flexibility, intelligence and initiative shown by the passengers are the real story, because they mirror American values. Everybody has courage. The Japanese had tremendous courage in WWII, but we out-thought them through codebreaking, Island-hopping, new bombing techniques, mastering airfield construction, etc., etc.
Those who advocate lashing out at all Arab regimes have it exactly wrong– they think a show of muscle is the answer. I would suggest that we emulate the passenegrs of Flight 93 by thinking the problem through and taking intelligent action. That can mean attacking the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. It should not mean wasting assets on peripheral issues like regional dictators with tenuous ties to al-Qaeda.
May 1st, 2006 at 10:07 am
“To suggest that Baathism, pan-Arab nationalism, does not go hand-in-hand with Islamofascism in terms of goals is to deny the link especially since their goals are the same.”
If you think that radical Islamists and Pan-Arab nationalists naturally go together than you are ignoring history. The founder of Baathism, Michel Aflaq, was a Christian. Moreover, the first Pan-Arabist leader, Nasser, and the intellectual founder of radical Islam, Sayyid Quutb, lived in the same country at the same time. How did they deal with one another? Simple, Nasser had him and his followers, the Muslim Brotherhood, thrown in jail and tortured while Quutb called for Nasser’s assassination and the installation of an Islam regime. In Syria, during the 80s, the Muslim Brotherhood actually led an uprising against Hafez Assad’s Baathist regime that was crushed when Nasser’s troops wiped out the city of Hama, killing about 38,000 people. For that matter Saddam Hussein repeadetly tortured and murdered Islamicists within his own country and invaded another country, Iran, after an Islamicist government took over. These are not the actions of people who are allies. Moreover, if the Baathists actually allied themselves with Islamicists then they would be fools since radical Muslims make it clear that their major goal is the overthrow of all “non-Muslim” governments in the Islamic world and the imposition of Islamic governments over every Muslim state. If you think I’m wrong, read Gilles Keppel’s “The Prophet and the Pharaoh.”
May 1st, 2006 at 11:04 am
Islamo-fascists? Muslim Brotherhood? Baathists? Who cares? They are all enemies because they all do the bidding of the great liar - Satan. They believe in authortarianism and socialism (which unlies Islam). They are all competing against each other out of power enby - one of them wants to be in power over the other. Be they secular Muslims (Saddam), radical Muslims or devote Muslims, they worship at the alter of a demigod who was an authoritarian in his behavior and so-called visions.
May 1st, 2006 at 11:06 am
Islamo-fascists? Muslim Brotherhood? Baathists? Who cares? They are all enemies because they all do the bidding of the great liar - Satan. They believe in authortarianism and socialism (which underlies Islam). They are all competing against each other out of power envy - one of them wants to be in power over the other. Be they secular Muslims (Saddam), radical Muslims or devote Muslims, they worship at the alter of a demigod who was by definition an authoritarian in his behavior and so-called visions.
May 1st, 2006 at 12:10 pm
Sorry for the double post. I’m not tyring to hog the space, I don’t know what I did for it to happen. Sorry….
May 1st, 2006 at 12:13 pm
we needed a foot hold..iraq was as good a place to start as any…oil war? we need oil it is worth fighting over
May 1st, 2006 at 2:28 pm
At the end of the movie I could not contain myself, I was outraged, and I stood up and shouted, “Jesus Christ is Lord.” We need to be Christian Soldiers - we need the His armor for what is coming.
May 1st, 2006 at 2:45 pm
wow.
i shudder at the reactionist nonesense of this post. sure, 9/11 was terrible and the loss incalculable. but how on earth does that loss and suffering — writ large on a theater screen — move someone to write something as dim as:
“we are in uncharted territory and … something is exponentially better than nothing when facing an implacable foe.”
give me a break.
that sentiment translates loosely to: attacks on u.s. soil are new and scary, so we should be willing to do ANYTHING to restore our sense of security and prevent any further attacks — even if that means waging a perpetual global war against anyone (and perhaps everyone) with whom we disagree strongly enough.
i guess fear and terror after 9/11 should simply short-circuit our capacity for reasoned and careful study in pursuit if thoughtful solutions to the myriad complex international problems facing us. let’s just kill ‘em all and let god sort em out, huh? good to see all that formal education did you so much good.
and, i can’t help but point out this gem from the comments:
“[all muslims are enemies] because they all do the bidding of the great liar - Satan. They believe in authortarianism and socialism (which underlies Islam).”
sweet jesus!
talk about a fringe group convinced of their rectitude.
May 1st, 2006 at 2:50 pm
“We need to be Christian Soldiers- we need his armor for what is coming.”
So what happens to those of us who are Jewish?
Where in the Koran are Muslims commanded to “do the bidding of the great liar-Satan”? The copy of the Koran I read makes it clear that they worship the same God Abraham, Moses, and Jesus worshipped. Moreover it explicitly stated that Jesus was born of a virgin, was the Messiah, and would come back during the second coming on Judgement Day.
“They believe in authoritarianism and socialism(which underlies Islam)
Can you point me towards the parts of the Koran where Muhammad explained to his believers the principles of dialectical materialism?
“They worship at the altar of a demigod who was authoritarian by his nature
and his so-called visions.”
Who was this demigod? It obviously wasn’t Muhammad since he insisted that he not be worshiped and repeatedly condemned idolatry?
May 1st, 2006 at 2:51 pm
Well put, HB. Well put.
May 1st, 2006 at 4:09 pm
Let see, Syria (authoritarian), Iran (authoritarian), Turkey (authoritarian), Yemen ….
Where is the teaching of Christ in these countries? Where is the freedom to chose your religion? Where is there free-market? Where are human rights honored?
Dialectical Materialim - that is a Marxist construct - but even at that all I see are authoritarian regimes built on a socialist model - Pakistan, Jordan, Saudi Arabia. If Muhammed did not teach it, they certainly learned it well from someone (Hilter?).
Preception is everything and as a poor ole farm boy - that’s all I see.
It would be highly instructive if you would educate us out here why his followers kill Christians and Jews and Muslims- anyone who disagrees with them?
Where is there a regime built on the teachings of Islam that has implemented a republican form of government?
The Koran might say one thing but its adherence certainly do another.
Muhammed may have said not to worship him but it sure sees like they do….
May 1st, 2006 at 11:16 pm
Nice post, Muskrat.
May 2nd, 2006 at 8:05 am
they kill us because we kill them and we have been killing them for 1000 years. christ will not reach all of the ears of the world before his coming..all the missions from 2000 years ago to 2000 years from now will not change this