It Took an ABC Movie by Motte Brown on 09/18/2006 at 5:08 PM

I recently had a similar reaction to Candice's in her post regarding the essentiality of our engagement in "Representative Democracy." Except mine wasn't from listening to a story with my kids, it was from watching ABC's The Path to 9/11.

Based in large part on The 9/11 Commission Report, the ABC movie did a masterful job of linking the terrorists involved in the bombings since the 1993 World Trade Center attack -- the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen -- with "the tall one," Usama bin Laden. These ties to al-Qaeda and bin Laden illuminate a very important reality for us all: that the events of 9/11 were not meant to be the culmination of Islamofascists against America, but only as just another step in their reign of terror.

Though ABC admitted to taking some dramatic license, The Path to 9/11 script writer Mr. Nowrastch assures us in today's Wall Street Journal that "Fact-checkers and lawyers scrutinized every detail, every line, every scene." This is important given that the series covered, in great detail, our government's failure to respond adequately to the attacks and threats over the course of the eight years leading up to 9/11.

Mr. Nowrastch writes that, "'The Path to 9/11' was intended to remind us of the common enemy we face. Like the 9/11 Report itself, it is meant to enable us to better defend ourselves from a future attack." It is the "us" in these sentences that is our concern.

I am convinced in the face of this ongoing threat (the defining conflict of our generation) that who we elect this November and beyond will largely determine whether or not men "'can stand up,' free, everywhere".

It Took an ABC Movie by Motte Brown on 09/18/2006 at 5:08 PM

I recently had a similar reaction to Candice's in her post regarding the essentiality of our engagement in "Representative Democracy." Except mine wasn't from listening to a story with my kids, it was from watching ABC's The Path to 9/11.

Based in large part on The 9/11 Commission Report, the ABC movie did a masterful job of linking the terrorists involved in the bombings since the 1993 World Trade Center attack -- the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen -- with "the tall one," Usama bin Laden. These ties to al-Qaeda and bin Laden illuminate a very important reality for us all: that the events of 9/11 were not meant to be the culmination of Islamofascists against America, but only as just another step in their reign of terror.

Though ABC admitted to taking some dramatic license, The Path to 9/11 script writer Mr. Nowrastch assures us in today's Wall Street Journal that "Fact-checkers and lawyers scrutinized every detail, every line, every scene." This is important given that the series covered, in great detail, our government's failure to respond adequately to the attacks and threats over the course of the eight years leading up to 9/11.

Mr. Nowrastch writes that, "'The Path to 9/11' was intended to remind us of the common enemy we face. Like the 9/11 Report itself, it is meant to enable us to better defend ourselves from a future attack." It is the "us" in these sentences that is our concern.

I am convinced in the face of this ongoing threat (the defining conflict of our generation) that who we elect this November and beyond will largely determine whether or not men "'can stand up,' free, everywhere".