ABC shelves Path to 9/11 DVD. Yay!

Last year during the fifth anniversary of 9/11 ABC televised a mini-series "dramatizing" some of the events which supposed led to attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Now, amid virilent criticism of the accuracy of it's docu-drama, ABC has declined to release the film on DVD and it's writer/creator, avowed conservative activist, Cyrus Nowresteh is now hopping mad. From Today's WSJ.

Left-leaning pundits, politicos and bloggers waxed hysterical about its supposed inaccuracies and anti-Clinton bias, though the vast majority of them had not seen it.

This passive self-censorship is just as effective as anything Joseph Stalin or Big Brother could impose. The result is the same: the curbing of free speech and creative expression, and the suppression of a viewpoint that may be an inconvenient truth for some politicians.

But ABC pulling the DVD had nothing to do with "left-leaning pundits" and everything to do with the film being a pile of lying crap.

More blather from Nowresteh via Raw Story.

Last Wednesday, in a front page LA Times Calendar piece "Clinton and the missing DVD," reporter Martin Miller gave voice to the latest series of charges from the mini-series’ neo-con writer/producer Cyrus Nowrasteh who now claims that out of deference to Hillary Clinton, ABC is shelving the five hour mini-series which was hyper-critical of her husband’s counter-terrorism record.

Oh, so now this is a dastardly plot by the villious Hillary Clinton - do tell?

In his latest FrontPage booking, Nowrasteh whines, "Last year at this time it was a coordinated effort from the Clintons, Sandy Berger, the DNC, and the far-left loony blogosphere to swamp ABC with emails and phone calls and threats to get them to block the broadcast, or recut the movie. Since then it’s been more subtle. I know there have been phone calls to top execs at Disney from President Clinton himself, and friends of the Clintons, of which there are many in Hollywood."

Wow that Hillary sure is powerful. I wonder if she got some help from that dirty bastard George Soros?

Frankly, if this is what happened - if the "far-left loony blogosphere" actually managed to cause ABC to fix the gross errors in this movie, which as a card-carrying member of that loony far-left I blogged about thoroughly here, here , here, here and here last year (and I was far from alone) - I would be impressed.

Yet somehow, I don't think that's what happened.

I think the fact that film essentially defamed John O'Neill, Richard Clarke, George Tenet, Madeleine Albright, Sandy Berger and Bill Clinton by manufacturing failures of inaction on thier part which didn't take place and ignoring many successful aggressive anti-terrorist actions that did probably had more to do with it. And then there's also the issue of intellectual theft.

Don't take my word for it, listen to what Peter Lance, author of "1000 Years of Revenge" one of the books that was propurtedly a major source for "Path" has to say about it...

.... 1000 Years For Revenge, was one of the three works on which ABC based the mini. They acquired it for a quarter of a million dollars in 2005 under threat of litigation, after they’d lost the book in a bidding war with NBC.

Nowrasteh then proceeded to launder most of my critical findings on negligence by the FBI and the two Bush administrations and give Path a twisted pro-Bureau slant through the eyes of ex-ABC News correspondent John Miller, who now works as Assistant Director of Public Affairs for the FBI.

"Years" documents how various failures under Bush 41 within the NYPD and NY Office of the FBI were critical in allowing Ramzi Yousef, the original WTC bomber to roam free for several years and eventually conceive of the plot which became 9/11 to finish the job he'd started in 1993.

There was a rival book on the bidding table called "The Cell" which was essential a "Disney-ized" version of similar events, but was so white-washed it was " Like telling the story of John Dillinger’s takedown without mentioning FBI agent Melvin Purvis"

As it turned out, ABC failed to acquire the rights to "Years" after a fierce bidding war - so naturally Nowresteh simply appropriated parts of it to fit into his fictional narrative and went on his merry way. More from Raw Story.

Now, in July as the cameras began rolling on what ABC first called "the History Project," something told me that I should get a look at Cyrus’s script. When I turned to the first page of "Night One," I saw that Nowrasteh had lifted much of my book, scene by scene, dialogue for dialogue. He’d even titled the first two hours, "The Mozart of Terror," the name I’d coined for Yousef.

But beyond the hijacking of 1000 Years, what was most galling, was how Cyrus, hungry for some book on which to hang his story, had now embraced The Cell, the very book he’d bad-mouthed to me and elevated John Miller, who was about to take a job as chief FBI flak, to a lead character.

Worse, he’d taken the hapless Det. Lou Napoli – who had ignored Ronnie Bucca’s warnings and failed to follow the WTC bombers – and turned him into a lead member of the FBI posse out to stop bin Laden, a bullpen of real and fictional characters now led by John O’Neill.

Unable to legally acquire my book, Nowrasteh had simply appropriated it and used what he wanted from it and then set up The Cell with its pro-FBI slant as the "based on" underlying work for his re-telling of "History."

Nowresteh's unauthorized lifts from "Years" led to a lawsuit which was eventually settled for $250,000 and gave ABC the rights to the material that Nowresteh stole prior to it's airing. The settlement also included a gag-order to keep Nowresteh's theft and distortion of history and facts from becoming public - an order which Peter Lance has now knowingly breached in order to get the facts out.

Facts such as these which were not included in the film.

• Bill Clinton personally authorized each and every agressive action suggested to stop and/or contain Osama Bin Laden (Roger Cressey)
• Under Clinton the CIA had standing orders to Kill Bin Laden (9/11 Report Page 199)
• No U.S. military personnel were ever on the ground in Afghanistan prior to 9/11 and ever had visual contact with Bin Laden (Richard Clarke)
• Bill Clinton specifically ordered Joint Chiefs Chairman Hugh Shelton to develop a plan to put Special Forces on the ground in Bin Laden's camps, but it was the Pentagon who balked - not the White House. (Richard Clarke)
• The Development of the Armed Predator, under Clinton, to address the logistical problems which plagued Special Forces in Afghanistan
• Richard Clarke's urgent Jan 2001 warnings about Al Qeada to Condi Rice and call for an immediate Principles Meeting which was ignored for 9 months.
• The Bush Administration doing nothing in response to the U.S.S. Cole bombing once Al Qaeda had been confirmed as the culprits in early 2001.
• The Midnight Ride to Condi's Office by Tenet, Cofer Black and Clark to warn that something big "10 on a scale of 1 to 10" was coming, which was ignored.
• The August 6th PDB.
• George Tenet's personal briefing of Bush in August at the Crawford ranch to reemphisize the PDB and make clear that "They're Coming Here"
• The fact that the Armed Predator, though ready, was not even discussed for deployment by the WH until Clarke's "urgent" meeting finally took place on Sept 5th.
• Sept 11th, G.W. Bush and the seven minutes of "My Pet Goat".

In the Nowresteh retelling of events, the failures of both Bush 41 are Bush 43 are completely white-washed - while any misteps by Clinton are magnified and many are completely fabricated. In Cyrus-World Clinton did everything wrong, Bush (41 & 43) did everything right.

Fortunately most of live elsewhere and know better.

But how could we expect this film to give the Clinton Administration a fair and accurate shake when it was first announced and publisized triumphantly by Rush Limbaugh?

"The film really zeros in on the shortcomings of the Clinton administration in doing anything about militant Islamofascism or terrorism during its administration. It cites failures of Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright and Sandy Burglar."

The fact is that this film was never conceived of, and never will be considered a "documentary" or for that matter true. Numerous members of the 9/11 Commission have spoken up to point out that it fails to reflect their findings. It well past time that people like Mr. Nowserteh learned Freedom of Speach is not Freedom to Lie.

I myself regret that "Path to 9/11" won't be available on DVD since I actually missed it's original airing - I also love a good comedy.

Ok, ok... a really bad unintentional tragic hypocritical paranoid propaganda-laced bullshit black comedy (if you look at it from a Heathers-like perspective of "This is what some people actually think happened? Fuck Me Gently with a Chainsaw!" - but still a comedy.

Vyan

Republicans hold the keys...

Speaking the truth - regardless of your party affiliation - something that has been in short supply but has been a godsend. Democrats have been doing it for some time, but it's not until people on the other side of the ideological line start singing the same song that things truly begin to change.

People like former CIA Operative Larry Johnson, Republican, close friend and collegue of Valerie Plame-Wilson and extreme critic of the Bush Administration for their bumgling on foreign affairs, their scapegoating of the CIA for their own psychotic insistence that Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons, had nuclear weapons, was connect with al Qaeda - all of which were fever dream fabrications.

People like Tyler Drumheller, former CIA Operations Chief for Europe, the man who delivered the Iraqi Foreign Minister to Bush in the pre-war era to confirm the Saddam had no WMD's - only to see this highly credible source discounted and instead the ravings of a lunatic code-named Curveball were given more weight.

Republicans such as Francis Fukuyama, one of the prime architects of the neo-conservative movement has stated that Conservatism has failed

Republicans such as John Dean who has called the actions of the Bush Whitehouse "Worse than Watergate", and stated that we are headed fast toward a new form of neo-facism where 23% of our populace will be the shocktroops for the new Reich-wing of fear and intimidation.

Republicans such as Bob Woodard who says the President is in a tragic State of Denial.

Republicans such as former UN weapons inspector and U.S. Marine Scott Ritter.

Former Bush EPA head and moderate Republican Christine Todd Whitman who has tried, in vain, to proclaim "It's My Party Too" - only to have her pleas fall on deaf ears.

Republicans such as former State Department Chief of Staff Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powel's "go to guy" who has said "I think this is probably the worst ineptitude in governance, decision-making and leadership I've seen in 50-plus years. You've got to go back and think about that. That includes the Bay of Pigs, that includes -- oh my God, Vietnam. That includes Iran-contra, Watergate."

This current state and future of this country is not a partisan issue. It is not about Democrat vs Republican - it's about Fact VS Bullshit.

The neo-con cabal (as Wilkerson put it) has used fear and cynical manpulation to destroy our internation prestige, and our national pride. We are now a country that tacitly condones torture and coerced confessions of terrorism suspects -- not proven convicted terrorists - suspects.

These are the actions of tin-pot banana republic, not the most perform super nation on earth.

This country withstood 40+ years of the cold war - where we were quite literally on the brink of mutally assured destruction every single minute, and we never even conceived of openly santifying the types of treatment that is now officially sanction at Gitmo, Bagram AFB in Aghanistan and Abu Ghraib.

These people don't know what the FUCK they're doing.

To quote Bill Maher (again) from this week's "New Rules"

And finally, New Rule, in two parts: A) You can't call yourself a think tank if all your ideas are stupid. And B), if you're someone from one of the think tanks that dreamed up the Iraq War, and who predicted that we'd be greeted as liberators, and that we wouldn't need a lot of troops, and that Iraqi oil would pay for the war, that the WMD's would be found, that the looting wasn't problematic, and the mission was accomplished, that the insurgency was in its last throes, that things would get better after the people voted, after the government was formed, after we got Saddam, after we got his kids, after we got Zarqawi, and that the whole bloody mess wouldn't turn into a civil war...you have to stop making predictions!

How many times do these nitwits have to get it wrong before we kick their asses out of office?

Repeatedly the Repubicans in power play the fear card. Claim any who disagree with them are "morally confused", "soft", "appeasers of the enemy". In Orange County one immigrant candidate (vietnamese) tries try scare other legal immigrants (Hispanic) away from the polls with threats of being arrested. In Virgina - Senator Macaca-witz Allen lies repeated about his racist past and present. In Tennesee - they've practically put an Aunt Jemima apron on Rep Harold Ford Jr. as he vies for the Senate.

Their actions have been so heinous even Chris Matthews the MSNBC paleo-con has finally called them the Racists that they've been ever since the Civil Rights movement.

They'll stop at literally nothing to retain and maintain their influence and power.

How much of this crap are expected to put up with?

They couldn't protect the people of the Gulf Coast from a natural disaster that we could see coming FROM SPACE!

They can't provide our troops proper armor, proper medical and psychatritic treatment or even uncontaminated water.

They can't protect our children even within the U.S.A. from Pedophiles stalking the halls of congress.

They laugh at our faith and devotation to God - exploiting it as they would a junkie in desperate need of his next fix.

This has to fucking stop.

The best way to do it - is simply and cleanlythrow the bums out. We need to tip the scales and place Democrats back into power - but don't just sit back and expect them to play Mr. and Mrs Fix-it. Ride their asses until they create some genuine accountability for this misguided pointless war. Where the hell did our $9 Billion go? What are we paying another $491 Billion for in Iraq? When are going to talk tough and serious with the Iraqi Government about getting their SHIT together? Why are they forcing our children to fear safe sex? To question Science and Fact?

Meanwhile even Disney/ABC TV has finally noticed there just might some problems with electronic voting systems. Hmm. Ya thinK?

November 7th is just the beginning of the fight, the beginning of the process to repair our honor - our prestige.

There's no excuse not to make your voice heard, and be sure that your vote is truly counted.

The time is now. Stand UP!

Vyan

Fox Tries to Relight PT9-11 Smear

Saturday on Heartland with John Kasich, the issue of the Clinton Administrations attempts to "get Bin Laden" were once again brought out and flogged. Kasich asked former CIA Operative Gary Berntsen if Clinton had "tried hard enough" to capture or kill the terrorist leader.

In response Mr. Berntsen claimed that "they had approached this as a law enforcement problem" and that "there was one oppurtunity in 2000, where we were up in the mountains of Afghanistan - chasing bin Laden - where they refused to pull the trigger"

The claim is identitical to the one made by the ABC/Disney docudrama "Path to 9-11" which asserted that U.S. forces had bin Laden "in their sights", but Clinton Administration Officials simply refused to do what needed to be done to get him.

Former NSA Counter-terrorism Chief Richard Clarke in response to the allegations made by the film has already stated:

1. Contrary to the movie, no US military or CIA personnel were on the ground in Afghanistan and saw bin Laden.

2. Contrary to the movie, the head of the Northern Alliance, Masood, was no where near the alleged bin Ladin camp and did not see UBL.

3. Contrary to the movie, the CIA Director actually said that he could not recommend a strike on the camp because the information was single sourced and we would have no way to know if bin Laden was in the target area by the time a cruise missile hit it.

Thinkprogress also noted:

According to the 9/11 Commission Report (pg. 199), then-CIA Director George Tenet had the authority from President Clinton to kill Bin Laden. Roger Cressy, former NSC director for counterterrorism, has written, "Mr. Clinton approved every request made of him by the CIA and the U.S. military involving using force against bin Laden and al-Qaeda."

So just what the heck is Berntsen, who is a decorated CIA veteran office with over 20 years experience - and was there in person at Tora Bora when Bin Laden escaped - talking about?

Apparently according to Frontline it's this:

Can you talk about the [2000] attempted capture of an Al Qaeda aide?

Well, I'm, of course, at home in the morning, 7:00, ... and I receive a phone call. It's the deputy in the bin Laden shop, and he's panicked, and said, "Gary, how's your Persian?" I said: "Well, actually, my Persian's pretty good at the moment. I'm in language review." ...He says: "Can you come in? We're having a crisis." So of course I drive in, go to the office, and he said: "Look, we have a team. We've been training these guys for the last two months to ... undertake some highly dangerous missions in Afghanistan. Would you be willing to go, because we only have one Persian speaker on the team?" I said, "Well, when are you leaving?," and he said, "Well, in a couple of hours." I said, "Well, how long is this mission going to be?" They said, "Several months." So I said: "OK, I'm in, let me pass the bad news to my spouse." Then, of course, I went on the mission. Went home, grabbed a couple of thousand dollars, went and bought several thousand dollars' worth of camping gear, good equipment -- told the young sales boy that I was moving to Alaska -- and then, of course, showed up several hours later.

We are flown into the Panjshir Valley [in Afghanistan] ... on a North[ern] Alliance helicopter, which looks like it's held together with bubblegum and bailing wire. I had been a crash firefighter in the Air Force; I knew an aviation accident when I saw one getting ready to happen. It was unbelievable. The aircraft tires had big bubbles the size of 50-cent pieces. There were holes from ground fire throughout the bird. There was an internal fuel tank which shouldn't have been in the middle of the body of the aircraft; it was leaking. We had to open the windows because we would have been asphyxiated. Then we flew in on that. It was quite an exciting flight. ...

That was your first time in Afghanistan?

That was my first time in Afghanistan, and it was fabulous. I was thrilled to be there. ... Unfortunately, there were some reports that came out of left field ... that said, "Bin Laden is aware that there are Americans in the country." He had put a bounty on the life of any CIA officer that could be captured in Afghanistan and brought to him for $3 million. Our headquarters panicked, and they said, "You have to come out." ...

Tell me what the mission was.

Well, we were in there to collect intelligence and, working with the Northern Alliance, to identify one of those key lieutenants near bin Laden ... and to snatch him, to kidnap him.

Did you know who you were after?

We had two or three choices. ... We knew several of the ones that we were looking at.

... Now we come back after being withdrawn. First they tell us, "You have to leave." ... We said, "We can't, because it's cloudy." Well, we were lying. It wasn't cloudy; it was blue sky, but we were trying to do anything possible to extend our mission on the ground. Finally, [there was an] intervention on the seventh floor [of CIA headquarters]: "No, you have to come out, or we'll discipline you, because we know you're not telling us the truth. We're looking at weather maps." This is what we were told. So we had to fly, and the Afghans were horrified. They were horrified that we would tell them that we wanted to come ... and then [at] the slightest threat we would abandon them. It was disgraceful.

Who was it?

It was the CIA's leadership. I would put that on [Director George] Tenet and [Deputy Director of Operations Jim] Pavitt, put that right on them. It was heartbreaking. When I came back, of those six men, two of those men would resign -- ... good men -- because they were just disgusted. They said, "We'll go do something else with our lives."

So first of all, they weren't there to capture or kill Bin Laden himself, there were after a few of his deputies -- second the recall order didn't come from Bill Clinton, it didn't come from anyone in the White House, it came from George Tenet.

Mr-Slam-Dunk-Mobile-Labs-Medal-o-Freedom himself.

As he will be shown saying to Chris Wallace today on Fox News Sunday, Bill Clinton, following the bombing of the U.S. Cole had invasion plans for Afghanistan drawn up and ready to go, but the CIA -- Tenet -- refused to certify that bin Laden had been responsible, so those plans remained on hold.

Berntsen was definately a "hard charger" one who was involved in the hunt for bin Laden fairly early, long before he became a topic of common dicussion among government officials.

Do you remember the first time you heard the words "Al Qaeda"?

I think that it was in the early '90s, and it was because Mike Scheuer had formed that group within CIA, the bin Laden Group [UbL] and was talking about the Sunni terrorism and this individual, [Osama] bin Laden, this financier. It was Scheuer who first brought that up, ... and he convinced me early on that this was a growing problem. Later, when the bombs in East Africa go off [in the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998], I'm sent to lead the team because we think this is possibly Hezbollah. Hezbollah had done the attacks on the embassy in Beirut, had done the Marine barracks [there]; they had done the Israeli Embassy in ... Argentina in '92 and '94. They had been involved in [the bombing of] Khobar Towers [in Saudi Arabia] in '96. So it looked like yet another attack done by Hezbollah. Of course, I get out there on the ground, and it's not; bin Laden has gone big.

... Where are you when you hear about [the bombings in] Dar es Salaam, [Tanzania]?

Well, of course, I'm sleeping; it's 4:20 in the morning in my townhouse in Virginia. The phone rings. I have a telephone that is encrypted in my house. I got up, turned the key and go secure, and now I'm told by the watch center that bombs have just gone off in East Africa, and that Jeff O'Connell, chief of CTC, would like me to come in immediately. I throw my clothes on, fly out the door, and go in. Then I'm with this small group -- O'Connell, [former CIA analyst] Paul Pillar, myself and a couple of others. ... O'Connell was a very decisive guy, and said, "Gary, you're going to Dar es Salaam," and he gave out the air assignments. Then we proceeded. ...

And the meaning of it being an Al Qaeda attack?

Something else big now we have to worry about. Bin Laden's gone big. Scheuer's [bin Laden] unit was about to be closed; there was discussion about folding it into something else, and there was a
lot of politics around that. Of course Scheuer got new legs after that bomb went off.

But why would Berntsen give the impression on Heartland that someone in the White House was the one pulling the plug? Maybe because, well, he's kinda of a dick. Aka - a Neo-con.

So when does it cross your field of vision that there's a real interest in the agency and in the American government ... to go kill Osama bin Laden or capture him if we can?

That's years later before we feel that they're serious. Those embassies are blown up, and the response is cruise missiles. It was a pathetic response. Bin Laden was on the ground there. We had realized it was him. We should have just sent troops in and taken him at that point. It [was] an act of war doing what he did, but the administration wanted none of it. ...

... Why, do you think?

They didn't want to have to pay the price of conflict. Now, individually, in my unit, I'm aggressive; I'm always going after these guys. I continue as aggressively as I can in every operation, every day that I'm there, ... and frequently force people's hands so they have to do the operations in the way I design them.

Why?

It's easier to get forgiveness than permission. When pursuing terrorists, I would do as much as I could, and at the last moment, you'd execute the capture and say, "Here we are; we have these guys."

You mean you were actually capturing them?

We would use some of our sources and influence other governments to do that, yes. ... I'm sort of the guy in CIA -- I was like the sixth or seventh man on the basketball team: Any time they needed a tough foul delivered or something done, I get sent in, and I always got the best playing time.

I was very, very lucky, because I'm the guy who gets to go to East Africa for the bombings. I get sent in to Afghanistan 15 months before, at the last minute. I get to go [back] on the 11th of September and replace Gary Schroen [of the CIA's Directorate of Operations] on the battlefield there. ... Whenever they needed something, I was always ready to put my hand up and go. ...

Berntsen is a field guy, hanging his ass way out there in the wilds of Afghanistan -- what does he know about conversations at the White House? Did he know that Clinton had authorized bin Laden to be killed. Did he know that he had requested Hugh Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to implement exact the plan that Gary suggested - bring in Special Forces and blow bin Laden away - but that it was the Pentagon Boys, the big bad macho military guys, who refused because of logistical issues?

Clarke speaking with Mike Sheehan, the top State Dept Counter-terrorism official in about the lack of response to the Cole bombing in 2000:

"What's it gonna take, Dick?" Sheehan demanded, "Who the shit do they think attacked the Cole, fuckin' Martians? The Pentagon brass won't let Delta go get bin Laden. Hell, they won't even let the Air Force carpet bomb the place. Does al Qeada have to attack the Pentagon to get their attention?"

When it comes to Tora Bora, when the finally did let Delta and the Air Force lose - yet Bin Laden still got away, Berntsen feels that the reins were pull back not by Tenet, but by CENTCOM (Central Command) --- that's Rumsfeld and the Pentagon Brass.

[But couldn't the president (Bush) have ordered the troops in?]

... Of course. During the 2004 campaign, when you had the Kerry/Bush discussion on this, and John Kerry says, "The president contracted this all out to the Afghans to do this," well, that's not exactly true. ... It was mostly us. We had our teams out there calling in air strikes. We did use Afghans as blocking forces, and Delta Force would go in. ... The Afghans didn't want to fight. ... We had to pay them, had to yell at them, had to threaten them, had to do all sorts of things to get them to get into combat.

There was truly a fog over what occurred, and it doesn't surprise me, because there is often lots of bureaucracy between that man in the field, whether he's a CIA officer or a military commander, and the commander in chief back there. ... And the president, of course, relied on the people around him. I don't think the president was served well. ... I know the president would have done anything possible to kill bin Laden at that point, but I'm certain my requests never got to him.

You blaming Tenet?

... It was CENTCOM's decision. ... I think Tenet stepped up on that.

So with [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld?

There's a book written by [CENTCOM deputy commander] Mike DeLong [with Noah Lukeman] called [Inside] CENTCOM: [The Unvarnished Truth About the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq]. In that book, DeLong talks about a conversation that he has with Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld calls CENTCOM and says, "Send in troops," and CENTCOM's response is: "The altitude's too high. It's too cold." It's this, it's that -- makes up a lot of reasons. And Rumsfeld says, ... "I ski at 14,000 feet, and I'm 70," and the response is, "You don't have to carry a pack." And he says, "OK, do what you think is right."So the secretary of defense wanted them in there, but he left the final decision to the commanders on the ground, and they didn't want to do it, based on the reading of Mike DeLong's book.

Nice to see that he reads books, maybe he should try reading Clarke's.

And by the way, Fred Barnes says the President told him this month that “bin Laden doesn’t fit with the administration’s strategy for combating terrorism.

Fancy that?

Vyan

The Path to Propaganda and Right Wing-Nuttery

In the midst of the "Path to 9-11" furor, I've noticed one factor that's been missing - what has the right have to say for itself in this debacle? Do they think it's just fine to smear and American President just because he happened to be a Democrat? (Well, sure - that's a no brainer) But have they really no conscience what so ever about flat-out lies being portrayed to the American public and more importantly - to our children - reaching them in a way that the actual 9-11 Commission Report never will?

The Amazing thing is that they're not only fine with it, they think that what this ABC Docudrama is showing - IS THE FAIR AND HONEST TRUTH!

I Shit you not.

A few lines after the money quote from Hugh Hewlett concerning the results of the emergency Disney/ABC confab over changes to "Path to 9-11" which has been propagaged by Thinkprogress among others.

- The message of the Clinton Admin failures remains fully intact.

There's an even more fascinating treasure trove of wing-nuttery.

The story here is the backlash that the Disney/ABC execs experienced was completely unexpected and is what caused them to question themselves and make these changes at all. Had this been the Bush Admin pressuring, they wouldn't have even taken the call. The execs and studio bosses are dyed in the wool liberals and huge supporters of Clinton and the Democratic Party in general.

Ok, let me get this perfectly straight. DISNEY EXECS are now "dyed in the wool liberals"?

Hold the phone, the horses and my lunch. The Disney Corporation is a long way from being friendly with the Democratic Party or Liberals. We all should know well how Disney tried to completely derail the release of Farenheit 9-11 in 2003.

On April 13, 2004, after [Miramax Chief Harvey] Weinstein saw a rough cut, he went back to Eisner and asked him to reconsider his year-old decision not to distribute Fahrenheit 9/11. After getting a report on the content, which included footage from such sources as Al Jazeera and Al-Arabiya television, Eisner saw no reason to change his position. He again declared that Disney wouldn't have anything to do with the movie.

This was after Mel Gibson's Icon Productions had already ducked out of it's contract with Moore. And we all now know that Mel is like real "liberal" and stuff. Yep.

Besides Walmart, Disney remains one of the most Labor and Union hostile companies in the country.

What's Disney paying its workers in Haiti to produce kids' $19.99 garments based on the hit movie 101 Dalmatians?

Answer: Six cents a garment.

(Subtext: Contrast this with the way Disney treated the Dalmatian puppies during the filming of the movie. According to the company, it gave pups round-the-clock care in special dog motels staffed by personal trainers. "Our animals were treated better than most humans," the company glowed in one of its press kits.")

Well, better than the Humans that work for you.

More from Hewitt.

As I understand this, the lawyers and production team spent literally months corroborating every story point down to the sentence. The fact that they were the attacked and vilified by their "own team" took them completely by surprise; this is the first time they've been labeled right-wing, conservative conspiracists.

The first time? As Digby (via Kos) has already pointed out - this far from the first time.

Disney/ABC cancelled the reality show featuring a gay couple, "Welcome To The Neighborhood," ten days before it was to air when James Dobson and the religious right threatened to withdraw their support for the conservative classic "Narnia."

They made a deal with Mel Gibson, beloved on the religious right for his film "The Passion," to produce a film about the Holocaust even though they knew at the time he held extremely controversial views about the Holocaust and Judaism. They only cancelled the project when he was caught by the police drunkenly saying "all the wars in the world are caused by the Jews."

When the James Dobson and the Right-wing calls, Disney jumps! When President Clinton calls - they put him on hold.

According the Hewitt he's already seen "Path to 9-11", but President Clinton, Madaleine Albright and Sandy Berger are still waiting...

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger have also requested copies of the film from ABC, and both have been denied.

That's not exactly how you treat the guys your "own team" is it?

Let re-emphasize one of Hewitt's points for a moment:

the lawyers and production team spent literally months corroborating every story point down to the sentence.

Every Sentence? Really? Then why does Tom Kean Sr. the Former Republican Co-Chair of the 9-11 Commission seem to have been completely unaware of the offending scene where Sandy Berger is shown hanging up on the CIA Operatives who have Bin Ladin "in their sights"?

In a conference call with Reporters...

Kean said, "I don't think the facts are clear" about those events, and that while ABC had "chose to portray it this way," "my memory of it is that it could have happened any number of ways."

But here's the kicker - it's seem that entire scene was ad-libbed according to mini-series author Cyrus Nowrasteh.

Mr. Berger's character is also seen abruptly hanging up during a conversation with a C.I.A. officer at a critical moment of a military operation. In an interview yesterday with KRLA-AM in Los Angeles, Cyrus Nowrasteh, the mini-series' screenwriter and one of its producers, said that moment had been improvised.

"Sandy Berger did not slam down the phone," Mr. Nowrasteh said. "That is not in the report. That was not scripted. But you know when you're making a movie, a lot of things happen on set that are unscripted. Accidents occur, spontaneous reactions of actors performing a role take place. It's the job of the filmmaker to say, `You know, maybe we can use that.' "

Ok, wait a second - the problem isn't that Sandy didn't slam the phone down, the problem is the entire scenario of having Bin Laden "in their sights" of CIA and Special Forces in Afghanistan simply didn't happen.

To be fair, there are points in his book "Against All Enemies" during October-September of 2000 where former NSA Terrorism Head Richard Clarke believes he spotted Bin Laden -- through the Camera of an unarmed Predator Drone -- but American assets were simply not in any position at that time to do anything about it.

AAE Page #221

From the Camera images on three flights, I am convinced that I was looking at Bin Laden [But] there were no submarines off the coast to fire [a cruise missile attack like that which missed Bin Laden in 1998]

It was only after these sets of flight that request was put to the Air Force to arm the Predator's with missiles. Since then the armed Predator has been used frequently, including this part January where an attempt was made to killed Al Qaeda's Number "2" man - Al Zawahiri. These failed to find their target, and have been seem by some in the world as nothing more than an attempt to help protect and bolster the Musharraf regime.

On January 8th and 13th, 2006, the United States bombed its ally Pakistan with the pretext of trying to eliminate "Al Qaeda's Number 2 man", Al Zawahiri. Since then, important demonstrations have taken place in Pakistan against these actions, which are actually part of the ethnic repression unleashed by the United States in that country, in order to help General Musharraf's dictatorship to keep control of the Baluchistan region, rich in natural gas.

A highly cynical view to be sure. But still not nearly as cynical as Hewitt as he reviews the film and it's critics.

In the self-serving complaints about this scene or that take delivered by Richard Ben-Veniste and other proxies are replayed again the deadly narcissisms of the'90s. The program's great faults are --they say-- in the inaccurate portrayal of Bill Clinton and his furrowed brow and continual efforts to track down bin Laden.

It is all about them, you see. Just as it was in the '90s. To hell with O'Neill or the victims of 9/11, and forget about the worldwide menace that continues to nurse its hatred, though now from caves and not compounds.

Not a word from these critics about the program's greatest strength, which is in the accurate rendering of the enemy, and the warning it might give about the need for continual vigilance.

That fact that al Qaeda are dangerous and dedicated killers, does not need to be repeatedly ad nauseum. What's clearly missing from this film is that which the right-wing itself is so often clamoring for.... Balance.

Did Clinton attempt to kill Bin Laden and fail? Yes. Just like Bush attempted to kill al-Zawahiri and failed.

It's unquestionable that Clinton might have been able to do better, if he'd gotten the right lucky break. He didn't.

But Clinton didn't spend the first eight months of 2001 ignoring Al Qaeda and warnings of his own NSA Terrorism Chief about Bin Laden. Clinton didn't ignore the August 8th PDB stating "Bin Laden determined to Attack in the U.S.". Clinton didn't sit there with "My Pet Goat" as the Nation was being attacked.

All of these actions - by President Bush - are glossed over in "Path to 9/11".

Not to mention the fact that after 9/11 Bush diverted forces from Afghanistan into Iraq (prior to Congressional approval) and failed to capture or kill Bin Laden at Tora Bora.

Balance is : Clinton did everything he could do - short of starting a War - to get Bin Laden, and at that point in time he'd already gone through a knock-down-drag-out-fight to get our forces into Bosnia to end the Ethnic Cleansing going on there. There was no way he was going to get a Republican Congress to go along with going to War with Afghanistan to get Bin Laden - because when he'd tried in 1998, they accused him of "Wagging the Dog". Republicans fought his attempts to beef up our anti-terrorism and wiretapping capabilities tooth and nail.

The claim that Clinton was "distracted by Monica" is bogus. in his own book President Clinton talks about how as a child growing up with an alcoholic father he's long ago learned to compartmentalize portions of his life which simply couldn't be dealt with or resolved. During the Lewinsky Scandal he kept focused purely on his job, only diverting from it when he had to meet with his attorneys -- and had any and all news about Monica and the Impeachment trial removed from his Newspapers before he read them, just so he could remain focused on his job without that distraction.

The ones who were distracted from their job by Monica - was Congress.

Now they want to claim - through their syncophant proxies at Disney - that Clinton was "Soft on Terrorism"?

Bullshit.

Clinton had standing orders to have Bin Laden Killed, but the Pentagon Brass simply wouldn't do it. Clinton told Gen Hugh Shelton - Chairman of the Joint Chiefs...

"Hugh, what i think would scare the shit outof these al Qaeda guys more than any cruise missle... would be the sight of U.S. commandos, Ninja guys in black suits, jumping out of helicopters into their camps, spraying machine guns. Even if we don't get the big guys, it will have a good effect." Shelton looked pained. He explained that the camps were a long way away from anywhere we could launch a helicopter raid. Nonetheless, America's top military oficer agreed to "look into it".

But the Pentagon wasn't having any more of Clinton's "wild adventures" in Africa and the Middle-east - not after Somalia.

In October of 2000, Richard Clarke discussed the problem following the bombing of the Cole with Mike Sheehan, then the State Depts top Counter-terrorism official.

"What's it gonna take, Dick?" Sheehan demanded, "Who the shit do they think attacked the Cole, fuckin' Martians? The Pentagon brass won't let Delta go get bin Laden. Hell, they won't even let the Air Force carpet bomb the place. Does al Qeada have to attack the Pentagon to get their attention?"

Yes, they did.

Meanwhile George Bush's steadfast and brainlessly resolute March to Freedom has just brought us a spanking brand-new Treaty Between Pakistan and the Taliban - which establishes a Safe Haven for Al Qaeda and Bin Ladin.

Heckuvajob - Bushie.

But then again, I'm sure none of this would impress Hewitt.

There is, by the way, zero mention in the fve hours of the allegations that Clinton let bin Laden slip through his fingers when the terror chief was offered up by Sudan.

Well, that's probably because that shit didn't happen!

There is no Atta meeting in Prague, no suggestion of a Saddam history of terror ties unrelated to 9/11

That would be because Saddam had no ties to 9-11.

--in short, there is no reaching by the writer/producers/director.

No reaching? Of course not, but there's more than a little reacing and bullshitting by the actors -- and the director just went "maybe we can use that." Yeah, that's the ticket.

It is an objective show, and not one that will cheer the right. But any show that does not praise Clinton or hopelessly conflate the eight years of the Clinton tenure with the eight months of the pre-9/11 Bush Administration is to be condemned.

No, any show that completely distorts the facts in order to promulgate a frothing partisan fantasy is to be condemned, and is being condemned.

Support the DNC's Call to Take This Piece of Propaganda Off the Air.

Vyan

Clarke debunks ABC Mockudrama

The upcoming 2-Part ABC Docudrama "The Path to 9/11" features a key scene during it's first night "where former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger refuses to give the order to the CIA to take out bin Laden -- even though CIA agents, along with the Northern Alliance, have his house surrounded".

But Thinkprogress now has a response from former Counter-Terrorism Chief [and on-air ABC Consultant] Richard Clarke which indicates that this scene never happened.

In the film the situation is depicted as:

The CIA, the Northern Alliance, surrounding a house where bin Laden is in Afghanistan, they're on the verge of capturing, but they need final approval from the Clinton administration in order to proceed.

So they phoned Washington. They phoned the White House. Clinton and his senior staff refused to give authorization for the capture of bin Laden because they're afraid of political fallout if the mission should go wrong, and if civilians were harmed...Now, the CIA agent in this is portrayed as being astonished. "Are you kidding?" He asked Berger over and over, "Is this really what you guys want?"

Berger then doesn't answer after giving his first admonition, "You guys go in on your own. If you go in we're not sanctioning this, we're not approving this," and Berger just hangs up on the agent after not answering any of his questions.

This is an old canard, one that first arose just days after the 9/11 attack.

Clarke's response:

1. Contrary to the movie, no US military or CIA personnel were on the ground in Afghanistan and saw bin Laden.

2. Contrary to the movie, the head of the Northern Alliance, Masood, was no where near the alleged bin Ladin camp and did not see UBL.

3. Contrary to the movie, the CIA Director actually said that he could not recommend a strike on the camp because the information was single sourced and we would have no way to know if bin Laden was in the target area by the time a cruise missile hit it.

Thinkprogress notes:

According to the 9/11 Commission Report (pg. 199), then-CIA Director George Tenet had the authority from President Clinton to kill Bin Laden. Roger Cressy, former NSC director for counterterrorism, has written, "Mr. Clinton approved every request made of him by the CIA and the U.S. military involving using force against bin Laden and al-Qaeda."

The facts stand in stark contrast to the film, which was apparently written by a "friend" of Rush Limbaugh's.

Yet there's even more data which makes the claims made by this movie against the Clinton Administration even more outlandish. As early as 1996 concerted efforts by Clinton to increase our anti-terrorism funding and the capabilities were blocked by the Republican Congress.

"We need to keep this country together right now. We need to focus on this terrorism issue," Clinton said during a White House news conference.

But while the president pushed for quick legislation, Republican lawmakers hardened their stance against some of the proposed anti-terrorism measures.

One key GOP senator was more critical, calling a proposed study of chemical markers in explosives "a phony issue."

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, emerged from the meeting and said, "These are very controversial provisions that the White House wants. Some they're not going to get."

"If they want to, they can study the thing" already, Hatch asserted. He also said he had some problems with the president's proposals to expand wiretapping.

It may be possible that "Path to 9/11" author Cyrus Nowrasteh didn't completely make up the scene of Bin Laden's escape from U.S. Forces - he simply transplanted it to before 9/11, when in fact this harrowing escape by Bin laden took place in 2001 at Tora Bora.

The Bush administration has concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the battle for Tora Bora late last year and that failure to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda, according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge.

Intelligence officials have assembled what they believe to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border. Though there remains a remote chance that he died there, the intelligence community is persuaded that bin Laden slipped away in the first 10 days of December.

During his term President Clinton considered Osama Bin Laden to be a grave threat and top priority. He vastly increased counter-terrorism funding, refocused priorities including creation of the "Bin Laden Desk" at CIA which was headed by Michael Scheuer - but the fact is that Clinton not only had enemies in the Republican Congress, he had enemies within the goverment and military who sloughed off his requests and even dragged their feet when given direct orders to Kill Bin Laden.

From Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies pg 225-226.

Because of the intesity of the political opposition that Clinton engendered, he had been heavily criticized for bombing al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, for engaging in "Wag the Dog" tactics to divert attention from a scandal about his personal life. For similar reasons, he could not fire the recalcitrant FBI Director [Republican Louis Freeh] who had failed to fix the Bureau or to uncover errrorists in the United States. He had given the CIA unprecedented authority to go after bin Laden personaly and al Qaeda, but had not taken steps when they did little or nothing.

Because Clinton was criticized as a Vietnam War opponent without a military record, he was limited in his ability to direct the military to engage in anti-terrorist commando operations they did not want to conduct.

In the absense of a bigger provocation from al Qaeda to silence his critics, Clinton thought he could do no more. Nonetheless, he put in place the plans and programs that allowed America to respond to the big attacks when they did come, sweeping away political barriers to action.

Despites his efforts and his hammering on counter-terrorism as a priority - Clinton was often ignored and derided by his political opponents. He could "do no more" because Congress and the Military wouldn't let him do more.

"..Enemies" page 204.

On the issue of the White House authorizing CIA to kill bin Laden, much has been written. Several reporters, including Barton Gellman in the Washington Post of December 19, 2001, have written that President Cliton approved multiple intelligence documents authorizing CIA to use lethal force against Osama bin Laden and his deputies. Sandy Berger elaborated before the Join House-Senate Inquiry Committee, saying. "We received rulings in the Department of Justice not to prohibit our efforts to try to kill bin Laden, because [the assasination ban] did not apply to situation in which you're acting in self-defense or you're acting against command-and-control targets"

Yet bin Laden was not killed. President Clinton as reported in USA Today [November 13.3001] reflectetd his frustration by noting "I tried to take bin Laden out... the last four years I was in office."

The Assasination Ban was no small legal issue, but was simply used as an excuse to not accomplish the mission. Time after time, the Military and CIA balked when oppurtunities arose to kill bin Laden. When the issue of arming the Predator drone with missles was considered, then CIA director George Tenet didn't want responsibility for giving kill order, he was quoted by reporters as saying "It would be a terrible mistake" to have the CIA conduct an assasination as it would endanger the lives of CIA operatives around the world.

The bottom line is that they didn't take bin Laden seriously and thought Clinton and his deputies including Berger and Clarke had "Osama on the Brain". Clarke continued...

When Clinton left office many people, including the incoming Bush administration leadership, thought that he and his administration were overly obsessed with al Qaeda. After all, al Qaeda had killed only a few Americans, nothing like the hundreds of Marines who died at the hands of Beirut terrorists during the Reagan administration or the hundreds of Americans who were killed by Libya on Pan Am 103during the first Bush's administration. Those two acts had not provoked U.S. military retaliation. Why was Clinton so worked up about al Qaeda and why did he talk to President-elect Bush about it and have Sandy Berger raise it with his successor as National Security Advisor Condi Rice?

Why indeed?

Better question, why did BushGov completely ignore these urgent warnings about OBL - and the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole - until August of 2001?

Vyan