Last night on Firedoglake I caught a unique post, following Bill Clinton's slicing ABC open like a flailing trout Taylor Marsh put a call in to John Kerry's office to get his reaction.
The Senator called Taylor back on her cellphone and apparently turned the air bright blue with his response on the issue not only of "Path to 9/11", but also the sad and dangerous incompetence of of BushGov as they failed to contain al-Qaeda, failed to capture of kill Osama Bin Laden and turned Iraq and our foreign policy into a world-wide disaster.
What I find most stunning in all of this is that now five years after the real 9/11 - as if any fiction could somehow make more searing what each and every one of us lived with our own eyes and ears - is that we need less revisionism about the past and a hell of a lot more reality about what's going on now. Right now.Instead of the fiction written to excuse the invasion of Iraq by exploiting the 3,000 mothers and fathers, sons and daughters who were lost that day -- they were attacked and killed not by Saddam Hussein but by Osama bin Laden - we need the truth.
Here's a little truth: The President pretends Iraq is the central front on the war on terror. It is not now, and never has been. His disastrous decisions have made Iraq a fuel depot for terror - fanning the flames of conflict around the world.
The terrorists are not on the run. Worldwide, terrorist acts are at an all-time high, more than tripling between 2004 and 2005. Al Qaeda has spawned a vast and decentralized network operating in 65 countries, most of them joining since 9/11. The Taliban now controls entire portions of southern Afghanistan, and just across the border Pakistan is just one coup away from becoming a radical jihadist state with nuclear weapons. The Middle East is more unstable than it has been in decades. Hezbollah flags fly from rooftops in Shiia slums of Sadr City and Iran is rebuilding Southern Lebanon. We have an Iraqi Prime Minister sustained in power by our forces, who will not speak against the Hezbollah terrorists, who will not say that Israel has a right to exist, and who will not condemn the Iranian nuclear program, who will not even as a national leader support the national army over the Shiite militia. In other words, the Iraq government that the administration cites as the front-line force in the fight against terrorism won't even take our side when we are fighting terrorists. No American soldier should be asked to stand up for an Iraqi government that won't stand up for the values and interests that draw them into battle every day. Oh, and the 9/11 commission recently gave our government a failing grade on implementing intelligence reforms.
I love watching movies, but with the world looking the way it is right now I think this is a good time to stick with just the facts. After Iraq, we've all had enough fiction to last a lifetime.
Senator John Kerry
Me thinks the attempts to silence Bush critics by Rumsfeld and the President himself have failed - like so many of his policies - miserably.
If BushGov thought that calling their critics "appeasers" would get real traction with the public, they thought wrong. If anything, with the pending debut of this five hour smear against the Clinton administration - their efforts are about to backire in a big way.
Starting initially with thinkprogress.org's comments from Richard Clarke on the films inaccuracies - this situation has metastisized into a full blown cancer on the Bush Administration and their enablers in Congress.
Madaline Albright, Sandy Berger and even several 9-11 Commissioners have all spoken out about about this project. Former Vice-President Al Gore has spoken up.
By all accounts, "The Path to 9/11″ is riddled with inaccuracies and contains material that directly contradicts the factual findings of the 9/11 Commission. I am deeply concerned that ABC is considering going forward with their plans to broadcast this so-called docudrama. The lessons from the events leading up to that tragedy are too important to trivialize, and it would be fundamentally irresponsible to air such distortions.
Two FBI Consultants hired to work on the project quit because of it's inaccuracies.
Even Conservatives who are openly critical of the Clinton administration such as Charles Mintner and Bill Bennet have pointed out that the truth is Clinton's failed attempts to capture and kill Bin Laden damning enough - you don't have to stoop to making shit up.
But - as I diaried on thursday - most of the right-wing still doesn't get it. They think this is a Free Speach issue - or somehow equivelent to the release of Micheal Moore's Fahrenheit 9-11. Although Moore did take some editorial liberties with his award winning documentary - he didn't have actors walk around and dramatize a bunch of crap that didn't happen. The Bush family really did have financial ties to the Bin Laden family. George really did spend seven minutes reading "My Pet Goat" as the World Trade Center Burned. Moore may have speculated in his commentary that these two issues were related, but he didn't make that up.
However the writer and director of "Path to 9/11" have been shown to be Conservatives with a specific agendy to transform Hollywood.
Cunningham Linked To YWAM. David Cunningham was contracted by ABC to direct Path to 9/11. Cunningham is the son of Loren and Darlene Cunningham, the founders of Youth With a Mission (YWAM), a Christian evangelical group that actively tries to get "youth into short-term mission work and to give them opportunities to reach out in Jesus' name."YWAM Sponsored the Film Institute To Change Hollywood. YWAM created an "auxillary" group called the Film Institute, which was explicitly aimed at achieving a "Godly transformation and revolution TO and THROUGH the Film and Television industry."
Film Institute Began the "Untitled History Project." The Film Institute's first project was simply referred to as the "Untitled History Project" (UHP). In July 2005, Fox News reported that filming had begun on an ABC miniseries about 9/11 that ABC officials and producers were referring to it as the "Untitled History Project." A production company entitled "UHP Productions," which was co-founded with Disney began filming Path to 9/11 in late 2005.
UHP Became Path to 9/11. UHP Productions has only produced one movie. Harvey Keitel, who stars as FBI special agent John O'Neill in the movie, said that when he received the original script, "it said ABC History Project."
The words "Defamation" and "Slander" have been tossed around. Those are legal/fighting words. But on her show yesterday Air America host Randy Rhodes argued that ABC/Disney may be more than willing to take the Defamation hit - even if the suit costs them millions - if the result of airing "Path to 9-11" helps preserve the Republican Majority in Congress. The potential windfall in terms of tax breaks, Net Nuetrality and Media deregulation could mean $Billions for the company.
Being sued is just the cost of doing business.
So it looks like, even despite the backlash, ABC is going to air their little propaganda peice without any significant changes. But looking yet again at the comments by Senator Kerry - it just might produce the opposite result than that which they intend.
Democrats are enraged.
Just like the response to Rumsfeld's jabs, Democrats are punching back - hard. If Republicans want to talk failure - ok, let's talk FAILURE.
Where's Osama Bin Laden?
Why have the Pakistan Government just sign a peace treaty with the Taliban? I thought we were gonna "Smoke 'em out", and that "If you are with us, you're against us?"
Just as Republicans were able to have the mini-series about the Reagan's pushed from Network TV to Cable, the blowback from "Path to 9/11" is likely to embolden Democrats - not silence them. Like Kerry they're going to be taking scalps.
Republicans are running scared. We've already seen the John Bolton nomination process go down in flames - again. While the Congress is still under Republican control Bush is seeking to pull an ex post facto on the War Crimes Act, retroactively making his many violations of this law legal by changing the law itself.
This can not be allowed to succeed.
Both the Supreme Court and Federal Judges have already poined out that Bush has violated this law. Since the current Attorney General has been directly complicit in these actions, only a Special Prosecutor could possibly bring charges - but this won't happen with a Republican controlled Congress. Only a Democratic Congress with Subpeona Power can possibly examine this issue, as well as the numerous other issues and crimes of the Bush Administration.
Gop-TV's mini-series ploy is about to blow up in their faces. All we need now is the popcorn.
Vyan
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