The Path To 9/11: ABC

As we all know, there was some controversy surrounding the airing of this documentary based off of the 9/11 Commission Report, the book Dereliction of Duty, other books/reports, and eyewitness interviews. Most of the hubaloo was generated by the Clinton spin machine - undoubtedly not wanting to tarnish the legacy of the magnanimous Bill Clinton. There appeared to be a coordinated effort for all of them to start griping about the docudrama at the same time.

But, I digress. Since the first commercial I saw for this documentary a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to watch it. I'm glad I watched both nights. There were a lot of things that I had forgotten about during the Clinton Administration, so that was good to see. I didn't really have any expectations going in other than seeing the failures of the Clinton Administration that were already well-known and documented.

So, what did I get out of it? First of all - WOW! It was great to watch. It was in no way made in a manner to lay all the blame on a single person. One of the main problems regarding the Clinton Administration was that it considered the war on terror nothing more than "a law & order problem." Personally, I think the documentary painted Richard Clarke as almost a hero. He really was unrelenting in wanting to do something about Bin Laden, et. al. My wife came out thinking that Clarke came across as just acting like he wanted to do something but knowing all the while that he couldn't. That's possible, but regardless this documentary painted him as one who had a passion to stop terror but had his hands tied by the CIA, FBI, and Executive Branch. John O'Neill was the FBI agent who was also passionate to stop terrorism. But both Clarke and O'Neill ran into the brick walls that were George Tenet (CIA) and The Administration. One group saw legal grounds for killing Bin Laden while the CIA wasn't convinced. So, Tenet never gave a go-ahead. And Bill Clinton just wanted to play nice with "area interests" so he warned Pakistan of a missile launch to get Bin Laden. Pakistan then told Bin Laden to clear out...

All in all, this was a great documentary/docudrama. It's estimated that about 96% is true, so it's not like they were setting out to scandalize anyone without facts. And I don't know where the idea came from that suddenly ABC is an arm of the vast right wing conspiracy out to defame Bill Clinton. That's just too funny!

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