Why It Matters

by digby

Dean Barnett, of Hugh Hewitt’s blog, is having some second thoughts about “The Path to 9/11:”

THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT “The Path to 9/11” centers on one scene where CIA operatives and Northern Alliance irregulars under the leadership of the awe-inspiring Ahmed Shah Massoud have the opportunity to kill bin Laden. They phone NSA chief Sandy Berger for authorization to make the hit. Berger refuses to make the decision and in the scene actually hangs up on the operatives.

I’ve done a lot of reading and research regarding 9/11, and I have to admit that this story is new to me. The closest parallel I can think of is Tenet’s, Berger’s and Clinton’s irresolute follow-through on the Predator program which had the very real likelihood of knocking off bin Laden assuming the administration was willing to risk the death of innocents. Given the fact that Clinton was willing to take such a risk when the Lewinsky scandal reached its most fevered pitch, the fact that he wasn’t as bold without the looming specter of political calamity is damning. What’s more, the Clinton administration’s lethargic and chronically dilatory efforts to deal with bin Laden are an irrefutable part of the historical record.

The preceding leaves us with two possible explanations regarding the controversial scene. One is that the filmmakers have unearthed a previously unknown jewel that they can fully document; that Berger really did slam down the phone on a field agent looking for guidance. If that’s the case, then this entire conversation is irrelevant and you should cease reading this essay.

The other explanation is that, being a docudrama, the filmmakers included a fabricated scene (which was a composite of many real factors) to dramatize the ineptitude and fecklessness that so characterized the Clinton administration. One can (if one so chooses) give the filmmakers artistic license to do such a thing. But if that is what they have done, conservative analysts who back this movie as a historical document will mortgage their credibility doing so.

The second explanation is the correct one, as Thomas Kean admitted yesterday. And the problem goes much deeper than the credibility of conservative analysts. ABC is sending this thing out to 100,000 educators for free as a history lesson.

The “Student Resource Sheet” omits any mention of two crucial facts: We now know Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, and there is a voluminous and growing body of evidence that indicates that the Bush administration knew its claims about weapons of mass destruction were unsupported…

The “Student Resource Sheet” also seems to link the war in Iraq to the 9/11 terrorist attacks: “Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, the United States began a global “War on Terror” to stop terrorist groups and state-sponsored terrorism. President Bush has led the United States into Afghanistan and Iraq and reorganized the national government in an attempt to combat terrorist activity.”

The reason this matters so much, and why Democrats are so apoplectic at the way ABC has handled this material, is that popular culture has a way of inculcating certain concepts into people’s minds, especially young minds, far more effectively than talking head programs or earnest debates among political bloggers and columnists. This is the kind of thing that could taint the debate for generations if it takes hold.

The right howled mercilessly at Oliver Stone’s depictions of JFK and Nixon, claiming that he was rewriting history. He was, and he used very clever techniques to do it — particularly the odd, dreamlike optical montages that feel like memories. But the key is that these films were about events that happened long in the past — they were re-writing history, not writing the first draft while the immediate events were still being debated. Certainly, nobody sent out high school study guides saying they were based on fact or claimed they were based on The Warren Commission Report or Nixon’s memoirs. Stone never claimed that he was depicting a factual account but rather always said that he was providing an “alternate history.”

“Path to 9/11” is using the sophisticated techniques (if not the talent) of Stone’s “alternate history” style to create an alternate reality in real time. The purpose of this can best be compared to the “who lost China” and “sell-out at Yalta” campaigns of the late 40’s. The right made political hay for decades out of those — blaming the Democrats for being soft on communism. These set the stage for the next 50 years of full throated accusations of traitorous cowardice and we are dealing with the residual results of that cynical political calculation even today. (After all, the Republicans of the day were the reluctant warriors in WWII. They desperately needed to erase that image just as they desperately need to erase the image of the Bush administration’s failures on 9/11 and Iraq.)

If this nonsense is allowed to stick, we will be battling these inaccurate demagogic, phantoms for another 50 years — and I don’t think the country will survive it. These new rightwingers make the red-baiters of the 50’s look like Gandhi. In order for the Republicans to maintain power as often and as much as possible, they must find a way to blame the Democrats for terrorism and ensure that neither party can ever stray from the most hard line they can possibly maintain. It’s the same formula that killed over 50,000 Americans in Vietnam and it’s going to do far worse this time out if we let it happen again.

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