"This Thing Is Exhausting"

That was my husband's reaction to "Inside 9/11," which aired last night on the National Geographic Channel.

The four-hour documentary aired with limited commercial interruption in two two-hour segments, the first of which dealt with the birth of Al Qaeda dating back to the waning days of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and the second looking at the events of 9/11 themselves.

I simply cannot endorse this outstanding documentary strongly enough.  If you have not yet seen it, you still have at least one more chance.  NGC will air the first part, "War on America," at 4 a.m. EDT on August 29, and the second part, "Zero Hour," at the same time the next morning.

More thoughts and two video clips after the jump ...

Almost four years after that terrible day, "Inside 9/11" brought back everything I felt at the time in a visceral and vivid way that nothing else has since then.  My husband put his hand on my knee to try to stop the nervous fidgeting of my leg.  My stomach twisted into knots, even as I knew the inevitable was coming.  I spoke back to my TV at every missed opportunity to foil the attackers.

And I cried.  More than I can remember crying about the attacks at any time since reading the Newsweek story that gave the first coherent glimpse at the heroism aboard Flight 93.

Of all the images and individual tragedies that played out that day, it is still Flight 93 that sticks with me most.  I remember what I felt when I read Newsweek's gripping account, the defiance that was borne out of the survival instinct of a few courageous passengers, and the revolt that saved countless other lives.

Then I think about what has emerged since, the 9/11 Commission's conclusion that the intended target of Flight 93 was the U.S. Capitol, from which I was perhaps only a few hundred feet throughout the ordeal.  It does not take a wild stretch to imagine that my life might be one of those saved by the heroes of 9/11.

And I remember watching the Pentagon burn, the thick, almost sweet smell of smoke as I drove home across the 14th Street Bridge that night.

"Inside 9/11" brought this all back to me, and I now think about it in my new city as I scan the Manhattan skyline, and its conspicuous gaps to my south.

It also brought my anger, simmering for years, back to a rolling boil.  It is anger, of course, at the terrorists and the incomprehensible ideologies of hate and destruction to which they pledge fealty.

But there is something new: anger at those who squandered the brief time of national unity that existed afterward.  I do not mean the Bush Administration, as is fashionable in some circles to believe; I mean those on the other side.  The ones who criticized the invasion of Afghanistan.  The ones who have mercilessly picked apart the PATRIOT Act, even when "Inside 9/11" and others remind us of the absurd hurdles that existed to fighting terrorists before we were struck.  The ones who fail to see that Iraq, and ever was, a key to the war on terror.  They are the same ones who would foolishly sacrifice the freedom of others for their own illusory safety.

They are the ones who prefer slumber to the clear light of day.

There were many things that I hadn't heard before "Inside 9/11," a product of my own 9/11 fatigue.  (I am almost ashamed to admit that I made a somewhat conscious decision to tune out a lot of things when our nation's focus shifted from killing terrorists to scoring political points.)

For instance, I did not remember Mohammed Atta's code for when the attack should occur: "Two sticks, a dash and a cake with a stick down.”  (Co-plotter Ramzi Binalshibh would explain, "The two sticks represent the number 11, then the dash, and then the cake from which a stick dangles represents number nine."

I also did not know that an airline desk agent in Portland, Maine, who had checked in Atta and Abdul Aziz al Omari en route to Boston suspected the men to be terrorists, then mentally reproached himself for what he thought to be an unfair stereotype.  (Profiling, anyone?)

The documentary was gimlet-eyed in its look at where policymakers went wrong at every step, in both the Clinton and Bush administrations.  The former was faulted on a number of counts including the multiple occasions when Osama bin Laden could have been assassinated but was not out of fear of collateral damage; the latter was criticized primarily for its lack of attention to the infamous Aug. 6, 2001, intelligence memo.

Implicit in that criticism was that President Bush was focused too narrowly on his domestic agenda -- and was indeed promoting education reform on 9/11 itself -- to the exclusion of the gathering terrorist threat.  September 11 provided the Administration a wake-up call, but nearly four years later, most Americans have already hit the snooze button.

Indeed, bloviators like Michael Moore who criticize Bush for staying five minutes to hear a reading of "My Pet Goat" on 9/11 paradoxically fault him for his subsequent, supposedly overzealous, reaction to terrorism.

OK, enough of that for now.

The first clip I will admit is shamelessly exploitative.  It deals with the raw emotion involved when human beings must decide between a gruesome fate in a burning building, or death on the pavement below.  We have seen these disturbing pictures before, but the news media's calculated conspiracy of desensitization would prefer that we forget that sort of pain.

[Watch video -- 11.2mb, WMV format -- WARNING to sensitive viewers]

I will end on a slightly more upbeat note.  The second clip tells the story of a Muslim man who escaped the collapsing North Tower with the aid of a Hasidic Jew who referred to him as "brother."

I would like to think that someday our nation, and our world, might return to the same unity of purpose that was only fleeting four years ago.  We must never forget the stakes illustrated by Osama bin Laden himself in a quote at the conclusion of "Inside 9/11": "As much as you value life, we love death."

[Watch video -- 6.9mb, WMV format]

Comments

[The Uncooperative Blogger]

I am not going to be awake at 2 AM mountain time, but I am sure it will be on again. since you recommended it, I will watch it; but I am holding you accountable!