Customer Reviews

Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire

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This excellent documentary traces how a small group of Republicans on the far Right -- the "neo-cons" -- had been planning for two decades how to take over America and make the USA into an world-dominating empire through the use of violence and military escalation. Part of the plan was to withdraw from international treaties and roll back civil liberties at home as well. Sounds like a conspiracy theory? It was indeed a conspiracy, and one that got us into an unnecessary war in Iraq by playing on our fears after 9/11 and convincing us that Saddam Husein had weapons of mass destruction -- which we now know never existed. Was that really a case of bad intelligence reports? Or was the whole thing concocted from whole cloth to give the US an excuse to invade? Good question. But the film does not stop there. It shows how Bush was marketed as the "All American Cowboy" to evoke manhood images (even though what you saw was just footage from photo ops), how repeating the same lies over and over again made them seem believable; how the vagueness of constant "terror alerts" kept the nation in a state of easily manipulated fear; how the media was censored so the public did not see actual footage of the carnage of war, only shots of weapons and soldiers firing them, etc. This is an excellent study in how propaganda works, as well as explaining what was going on behind closed doors in the Bush era. There is both a full-length 54 minute version, and a condensed 30-minute version that would work well for use in a history class. Whatever your politics, this film will definitely make you re-evaluate your beleifs about how we got mired in Iraq.

For some time I was searching for the real reason why we went to war with Iraq in 2003. Long ago all the reasons given by GW Bush and his administration were shown to be lies. Ten days after his inauguration GW Bush directed the members of the National Security Council to prepare plans for the invasion of Iraq. Note this was 30 Jan 2001, 8 months BEFORE the events of 9/11. This was part of the plan laid out by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) described in a letter they sent Clinton on 28 Jan 1998.

When combined with the books: The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill based on the experiences of Bush's Treasury Sec Paul O'Neill and Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror by Richard Clarke Bush's anti terrorism czar a clear picture emerges. In the book Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics, The U.S. president has lied to the voters in order to get into a war (FDR, Nixon, Bush43 and now Obama).

Obama also believes in the same policies as GW Bush when it comes to defense spending, has increased the opacity of his office, is more anti Whistle blower and has us in two shooting wars. He is carrying out the policies of the new group made up of the former members of the PNAC now called Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI).

This is also explained by the DVD Constructing Public Opinion: How Politicians and the Media Misrepresent the Public by Media Education Fund (free preview on YouTube) (the same group that did Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire. The media report on the real differences between the Democrats and Republicans, things like gay rights, abortion, the death penalty, etc. but don't report on where they agree, things like, defense spending, war, health care, etc.

I have on order the book For God's Sake: The Christian Right and US Foreign Policy which may explain why the PNAC, and now the FPI, believe in America as the rulers of the world.

this tells the truth baout how bush and his criminal buddies lied about eevrything from wars, to 911 and in between, maybe someone will prosecute bush and put him in prison along with his thug buddies, but then again the american people are not that smart to call for justice like that, they are the ones who voted for this criminal.