Tuesday, 12 September 2006
Okay... despite all the prior debate and vitriol (or perhaps because of it), I decided to go ahead and watch the 5+ hour ABC movie, THE PATH TO 9-11. After all the criticism I expected to encounter numerous inaccuracies so I was rather surprised to find that this was not the case. Overall, I was impressed with the brilliant effort the writers and producers did to present a historically accurate story. Those who take the time to objectively follow the events in the piece carefully (with an open mind, that is.) should come to understand some of the many complicated political and policy issues that worked together to prevent us from cutting off the snake's head when we had the opportunity to do so prior to 9-11. (At least three opportunities, actually.)
This is very instructive. It points out some very specific things we can do to improve our deterrents to terrorism in the future if we can simply learn from our mistakes and move forward. It is not reasonable to expect that we will be able to totally prevent all terror attacks but if we openly evaluate our past mistakes and seek out ways to fix the problems, we may have a chance of actually winning this war. The solution involves altering current attitudes, laws, policies and procedures. Some of these have already been addressed but we still have a long way to go. This is not an easy task perhaps, but it is possible if we can manage to drop the politics and begin working together for the mutual survival of our society.
Good job, ABC!
These are my opinions, for what they are worth. Do you agree, or disagree?
-Michael Jaquish
