Ok, so I watch about 60% of "The Path to 9/11"

[underpants]

I missed the first two hours (HGTV's "Designstar" finale if that lets you know how interested I was in the "Path") but I caught the last hour Sunday night and both hours last night.

Here are some observations

The film itself was made with the most dramatic effect that it could possibly have. The moving gyrating camera work was both irritating and unsettling.

Since the 9/11 Report doesn't actually state what happened in the airplanes some artistic license was allowed. Basically the hijackers were shown to move pretty smoothly and directly. They basically were depicted as being the only ones who had any idea of what was happening. There was a very eery (fuzzy) shot at the end of the first night in which you look down the row of seats to see one hijacker entering the cockpit and the door closes behind him.

Of the scenes that we had heard about that were fictionalized there were others that my memory of the 9/11 Report didn't support (I have read it) and still doesn't.

-the North Alliance General tells "Kirk" his CIA contact (Donnie Walberg) that the Clintons had given the Taliban $130,000,000 and now Bush was giving them $43,000,000. I had never heard of the money going to the Taliban in the Clinton administration and a quick google check turns up nothing.

-At the end of the movie Cheney is on the phone and he hangs up and says "The President has given the shootdown order". This is completely false as far as I know. The report itself (and other sources) have stated that inexplicably Cheney gave the order.

Okay those are two specifics. Let me add that during the Clinton administration part of the film Clinton is mentioned often. He is tied directly to every action or inaction. Once it has been established that Bush is in office there is little mention of him except for the very last part. Nothing that happened between inauguration and 9/11 was directly or indirectly tied to Bush.

Oh-the Phoenix memo was illuminated as was Condi reading (with dropped jaw) the August 6th PDB.

Moussaui is pictured as an instrumental part (KSM mentions him to Atta at a meeting in Madrid in July) of the operation-the report paints him as more of a liability that KSM and everyone involved just hoped wouldn't freak out and call attention to himself-that is why they left him here they didn't want him doing anything stupid if they tried to pull him back in. Also a FISA request to get into Moussaui's laptop is shown as being a sit down meeting in which the request is incredibly turned down. I thought that there were few or NO FISA warrants issued or even applied for during the Bush time pre9/11 but I could be wrong about that. Either way it makes the FISA process seem like it is very cumbersome.

[kurth]

1. The impression was Bush wasn't home but still very much in charge

The decisive and resolute Great Leader who had to clean up Bill Clinton's mistakes...

[LynneSin]

2. You have a stronger stomach than I have

I watched about a minute of it and just felt nauseated over the concept that propaganda could be so widespread on free Network TV. Joseph Goebbels would be proud :cry:

[halobeam]

3. I don't also don't know about the money going to the Taliban,

but as far as


-At the end of the movie Cheney is on the phone and he hangs up and says "The President has given the shootdown order". This is completely false as far as I know. The report itself (and other sources) have stated that inexplicably Cheney gave the order.

--
I understood that it was proven Cheney didn't speak to Bush until later.. it was a "timing" thing that came out later.. he couldn't have gotten the authorization from Bush at that time, the record of the phone call shows the time they first did speak was AFTER that... sorry but I don't remember the source...

anyone?

[Igel]

4. The number for aid under Clinton seems a bit high.

Apparently both prezes provided aid to the Taliban, but it was almost entirely in the form of food. The *-provided aid is much more notorious, with "$43 million in food aid" > "$43 million in ... aid" > "$43 million in aid". The latter understood as "... in cash ...".

Spend the money here or in other food-rich countries, airlift it to Afghanistan. The horror of it all, keeping Afghans from starving. Not something I play politics with.

[The Count]

5. Not only didn't Clinton give them any money, he forbade any business with

them. An EO that W promptly cancelled after he stole the presidency. They wanted Enron to do business with Afghanistan, and Clinton's little law(EO?) was in the way.
And this is yet another actionable lie.
(which remind me - there was a similar order in place for Iraq, but unca Dick's Halliburton was illegaly still doing busines - had an office there and everything)

[underpants]

6. French Subisidiary Dresser

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1012-33.htm

[snooper2]

7. One of the main items I noticed...

Was that the film made John O'Neill out to be a hero, and showed how Condisleeza "restructured" the NSA giving couterterrorism less priority while all of the threat information was coming in. I watched the whole thing and noticed they did make Clinton look pretty bad, and near the end seemed to go easy on Bush. But the core of the story surrounded John O'Neill and the Northern Alliance.

I really don't understand why everyone is up in arms, considering all of the conspiracy sites out there single out the fact John O'Neill was killed on 9/11 as some sort of proof of cover up. John O'Neill was the main character in the entire show in my mind, and I thought everyone on DU was a fan....

Remember this Frontline????

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/knew/

[underpants]

9. I didn't get any sense that the O'Neill part was in question

Clearly they needed a main character so they used O'Neill even though I don't remember him beign in that much of the 9/11 report. I didn't see any conspiracy about him anyway.

I dunno.

What the film did show (using O'Neill as the focal point) was how all the guys in the trenches were trying to make it happen but they either were getting obstructed by the higherups (in the Clinton admin) or the dots weren't being connected.

[kentuck]

10. They never showed how O'Neill ended up with his job at the WTC...

That seems like an important aspect to the story?

[underpants]

Okay I am drawing a blank here.

They showed that he basically was sick of the bureacracy at the FBI and left. I must not know the O'Neill part of this well enough.

[lectrobyte]

13. They did sort of cover that. He was basically forced out of the FBI after

his brief case was stolen, which contained classified documents that weren't to have left the premises.

[kentuck]

8. This was the most important omission, imo...

"Nothing that happened between inauguration and 9/11 was directly or indirectly tied to Bush."

[lectrobyte]

12. 5 hours and no time for a shot of him at Crawford as the hijackers

make plans or something? What happened to the "swatting at flies" quote -- I thought that was about focusing on Russia etc. and ingoring terrorists, but in the movie they turned it around to mean he was going to take out bin Forgotten. I'd have liked to see the "cover your ass" scene with the CIA analyst, too.

[underpants]

15. "The President is tired of swatting at flies"

Yeah that was a really weak attempt at getting her testimony worked into the dialogue.

Condi was shown in a very good light at all. Kinda lets us know what the pecking order looks like huh? Not only was she (correctly) shown to demote Clarke she turns immediately to him on 9/11 to cover all their asses. The shot of her reading the PDB was actually funny, in an "oh please" kind of way.

[Rosemary2205]

14. I thought it was unwatchable.

Forget the truthiness of the material. As a film it was just too hard to watch. The camera shots made me dizzy and I kept asking my husband "what did he say" because the sound was so bad. I lasted 45 min the first night and had to quit.