Customer Reviews

The Road to 9/11

5 star:		(5)
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3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If only our country's leaders could have had such a great education about what shapes the conflicts that plague our history, and unfortunately, our future! A terrific presentation of the unfolding story that is the Middle East.

It is frustrating to watch the news and all of the various explanations for the current conflict in the Middle East when the cause of it all is never explained. When did the problems arise and why haven't they been resolved? Who is to blame and what can be done? Is it really all for oil, is it a religious issue, or a clash of cultures? Many people want to be informed but are never given the facts or enough unbiased information to draw their own conclusions.

This documentary provides information about the beginning of the conflict which began surprisingly due to WWI and the way the land was divided in Europe. Great Britain decided to turn the Arab states into colonies and tried to westernize them. In response, the Arabs resisted the change and all things westernized. As a result of consistently alligning with losing groups (ex the Nazi Party, the Soviet Union), the Middle East has been embarassed by their history and their inability to become independent. The resentment of the west has spawned violent subgroups like Al Qaeda who act on their hatred. These problems have been growing for more than 80 years and can not be fixed quickly.

Despite the title, this film focuses little on the actual events of 9/11. Instead, it provides insight into why such an event happened and how similar attacks are likely in the future.

This PBS item has interwoven interviews with America's leading liberal-left academics, journalists, and Islamists. Consequently, no inconvenient facts which interfere with the basic left-wing and Islamic narrative of "history" is included. No mentions of the Armenian genocide, Ottoman Islamic empire-building, theft of everyone else's lands and culture over 1400 years of conquest by Arab Muslims -- including the shameful claims about Islam being the only "civilization" for many centuries without mentioning the immense slaughter and slavery of non-Muslims throughout the entire period, or how much of "Islamic invention" was likewise stolen from Hindus, Greeks, Jews and Christians. No mention of Islamic admiration for Hitlerism due to shared Jew-hatred, which for Muslims was Koran-inspired and led to many atrocities well before Zionism or Israel even existed. No mention of Koranic verses which advocate for mass-murder of infidels and Jews especially, with Bernard Lewis' false proclamation that "anti-Semitism is a recent invention" -- as if the periods when Muslims allowed Jewish communities to exist within their borders, where they lived as dhimmi slaves and paid a yearly "head-tax" (the Jidza, which granted to them the rights to live for another year) wasn't intrinsically Islamic supremacist in nature (it was). Once more, this documentary leaves the impression that colonialism and Israel are mostly to blame for Muslim anger and violent atrocities, suicide terror bombs, and -- in agreement with Osama Bin Ladin -- for 911 as well.

Also some of the interviewees, whom I know would strongly disagree with the overarching presentation are given only a few seconds of interview time. Such is the danger when an editor can stitch together comments from different parts of interviewed experts, and just cut away whatever might challenge his bias. Oh well, this is typical for PBS. Suggest to instead get the DVD "Obsession" Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West and "Islam: What the West Needs to Know" Islam: What the West Needs to Know with interviews by conservative scholars such as Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes and Bat Ye'or. Or the books by them, and especially by Bat Ye'or and Andrew Bostom on the subject of Islamic dhimmitude slavery. Or better yet, get the old PBS item "The 50-Years War" The 50 Years War - Israel & The Arabs if you can find it. PBS did that years ago, and assuming they haven't edited it down, it is excellent. For some years, they refused to keep it in production because it gives too many inconvenient facts, such as the head of Palestine TV declaring on camera how he was ordered to fabricate atrocity stories about the battle of Dier Yassin, creating yet another Jewish blood-libel.

I also note the claim by a few reviewers that this PBS item is "Zionist Revisionism" or pro-Israel is way off, and only shows how the political extremists at both ends could call it such merely for PBS putting a small bit of the blame onto Muslim shoulders. (The common meeting ground of both Islamist-Communists and neo-Nazis is their shared Jew-hatred and democracy-hatred.) Maybe the one interviewer who tries to defend Nasser should research his speeches in favor of Jewish extermination, his pro-Hitler stance, his meetings with the war-criminal Mufti of Jerusalem al-Husseini who participated in the Holocaust murder of Balkan Serbs and Jews, recruited Muslims into special SS divisions, tried to set up Jewish death-camps in Palestine, and helped many old SS officers to flee into Egypt after WW-II, where they later re-appeared with Muslim names and clothing, leading brigades into battle against Israel. Nasser's provocations and sabre-rattling, his inept stupidity when later acting as general (announcing his plans for massacre-invasion of Israel on radio in advance, along with having a series of provocative acts-of-war, leading to a predicable and devastating pre-emptive strike by Israel). Add to this his stupidity in leading Egypt into the Soviet camp -- PBS did a good job in exposing that -- for the sole reason the West would not give him sufficient replacement weaponry for yet another ill-conceived war against the hated Jews. But Nasser also made military strikes against all his neighbors, including the Libyans, Sudanese, and even against the Saudis at one point -- all in efforts to build himself up as the Big Dictator for Arabs, as if to rebuild the Caliphate in Cairo. But I digress...

The PBS documentary also accurately exposed, in a small way, how many of the anti-Shah leftists quickly ran off to support the Ayatollah Khomeini, who was basically allowed into power by our leftist President Jimmy Carter. "Iran needs a spiritual revolution" they all said. And they got one, complete with massacres of non-believers in their Islamic spirituality. They never bothered to read the Ayatollah's "Mein Kampf" to see what he had in plans for Iran, and elsewhere. They only knew the Ayatollah was anti-Shah, anti-capitalism, and anti-West, so they rallied to support him in large numbers. Blood and tears followed in Iran, making the old Shah appear by comparison like a pacifist reformer for human rights, women's rights and democracy -- and truth be told, in some measure he was!

And yes, this is NOT the original ABC item "The Path to 911" which presented too many other inconvenient facts about President Bill Clinton bungling the attempt to kill Osama Bin Ladin, and so was never released -- being shown in a censored-cut version on television only once. To get a handle on that one, see the video "Blocking 'The Path to 911'". Blocking The Path To 9/11

A must for anyone who doubts that America is at war with evil people.

The folks who put this together did a fantastic job of bringing together history and a grim glimpse of the future.

Balanced, interesting and thought provoking.

This is a must see for all non-Moslems to view and learn why they hate us. The record of the West in the Middle East is not loveable. I do not say this to justify 9/11. As a retired FBI Profiler from the Behavioral Science Unit I say this because I know from experience that to defeat an enemy one must first understand him.

This is not "The Path to 9/11," the five hour two night ABC/Disney docudrama that drew the ire of the Clinton administration, even though it was equally critical of the Bush administration. The producer of "The Path to 9/11," Disney and ABC, has refused to release it despite critical acclaim and viewer and stockholder requests.

This documentary has many subtle and not-so-subtle biases that really hinder its overall quality and usefulness as a teaching tool. It is presented almost completely from a pro-Western, pro-Israel perspective, with no mention of the events in Iran in 1954, the Suez in 1956, or the plight of the Palestinian people since 1948 (except to place the blame solely on Arab regimes), among other problems. It does however tightly cover quite a bit of the 20th century Middle East political experience, and features various prominent commentators like Bernard Lewis, Fareed Zakaria, and Thomas Friedman, and the production quality is of high value. You just have to learn to ignore the ominous, quasi-satanic music playing in the background when Nasser is mentioned, and the inspiring trumpet blasts of freedom and human decency when the story moves on to Israel. So long as this isn't the only source you consult in your efforts to understand the "road to 9/11" then it is worthwhile in spite of its flaws.

The only star this film earns is the Star of David. If the viewer is searching for cinematic scholarship he would be well advised to go elsewhere. This piece of Pro-Israeli propaganda belongs in the film library of every synagogue. It is an engaging tale festooned with rare footage of post World War I notables sandwiched between the commentary of 8 cyl. The commentary is punctuated by Pro-Israeli pundits like Thomas Friedman and the whole dialogue mass is well kneeded by a 24 ct. Brandeis University (not surprising, eh?) Zionist. The most remarkable feature of the 59 min film is the fact that the state of Israeli is hardly mentioned. The true genesis of Middle Eastern malaise remains unmentioned.