Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

Watched the show "Path to 9/11" on ABC last week. I guess a lot more people preferred to watch football instead of learning from the lessons of 9/11. The rating was way low compared to Sunday and Monday night football games. The show generated a lot of controversy because the Democrats felt that it was biased against them. Among the criticism was that it showed Sandy Berger and Madeline Albright making decisions that prevented the capture or killing of bin Laden before the Bush administration took over. I am maybe biased because I am a friend of the writer of the show but I thought it was fair for the most part. Whether Berger or Albright were the ones that made the mistakes or not, there is no question that mistakes were made during the Clinton administration. The film also showed people in the Bush administration in poor lights, including Condi Rice. If less mistakes were made by the Bush administration in this film, it was only because they were in power less time before 9/11 occurred. I don't think the film changed anyone's mind. As an independent I thought both administrations made mistakes that led to this tragedy. The film did not change my mind.

There are several lessons one can learn from this film:

1. It is not easy to play defense. You have to be right all the time while the terrorists only have to be right or lucky one time.

2. Fortunatly it is not that easy for the bad guys to pull off a big one. While they can commit a crime easy enough, to do something that will get world wide attention successfully is difficult. That is one reason there was 8 years between the 2 attacks on the WTC. The larger the project the more people are involved and the easier it is to be detected.

3. Of course while the bad guys are making mistakes we have to catch their mistakes. This was the main theme in the film. There were many times the terrorists left clues that should have been picked up. The most galling thing to me was that our law enforcement agencies would not pass information to each other and thus connecting the dots. The alarming thing is that even though this was stressed in the 9/11 commission report, a followup review at end of last year gave the government a D mark in fixing this area. This is incredible to me!

4. The film also showed the conditions of some third world country. The poverty of places like Pakistan, Yemen and Africa are breeding grounds for religious extremists and terrorism. It is a monumental if not impossible job but decreasing poverty will decrease terrorism.

5. The best defense against terrorism is not high technology or force. Terrorists were stopped by ordinary policeman or border agents because these heroes and heroines were alert and took their jobs seriously. The bomb maker Ramsi Yousef was captured because a courageous man in Pakistan, who despite hating the policies of the U.S., decided to come forward because he did not want innocent people die. So there are people out there who are willing to do the right thing but we must do our part and be sure our policies are fair and right.

These are some of the intersting points I got from the film. While one can argue that the film is biased against the Democrats, I don't think it portrayed the Democrats as badly as Michael Moore's film portrayed the Republicans. In any case, I don't think if the two administrations were reversed in order of controlling the White House, the result of 9/11 would have been much different. This is a wake up call to all of America, not just to any one party. I would suggest that if you have not watch it to rent it when it comes out on DVD. It is not great entertainment but it is a lot more educational than Monday Night Football.