The third and final installment of this documentary series did not waste any time getting to the heart of what this has been leading up to, 9/11. There was some buildup with some further explanation of Osama Bin Laden's image. He was shot on film with many soldiers around him, with the sole purpose to make Bin Laden look more intimidating. Then it happened, 9/11 a day that is not easily forgotten by any means. As the audience, we all knew the events were leading to this and some of the most interesting points of this film series was seeing how we got there. However, our reaction was in line with what the United States had been doing. They said Bin Laden was responsible and made up the idea of Al Queda. The various people questioned for the film were very clear, there is no such thing as an organized terrorist community. The material in this part of the documentary, in retrospect of course, is actually humorous. At the time I doubt many thought to question some of our countries actions, but looking back on them they were ridiculous. The worst was the video of the guys at Disneyland. The video was being used as evidence to prove they were terrorists. As crazy as it seems two of them were actually convicted! People looked into the video trying to ind evidence for what they wanted to see. For example, they said a quick shot of a garbage can was actually a code for a strategic bomb placement. The film gave plenty of more examples of similar stories, but one last one I want to touch on is cave searching. We were convinced Bin Laden was hiding in a superbase in the mountains. So naturally we bombed it. That did not work so we had soldiers search through caves. They never found anything of significance. That was really the gist of this portion of the film series. The whole US vs terrorism thing was a big swing and a miss. The US basically wanted to convince people there were constant terrorist threats. From dirty bombs, to Al Queda, it was all skewed to promote fear. Fear became the only agenda and what if scenarios became evidence. That's pretty convoluted if you ask me. They were trying to fight an idea that did not really have an exact target at all. This whole series raised a lot of questions, many of which cannot ever truly be answered, however it was informative and thought provoking.
I agree that the film made America's search for a network of Al Queda members appear totally absurd and unfounded. It reminds me of middle school or high school when one person starts a rumor about another person that is extremely damaging and COULD be true, and after the entire school finds out about it and believes the lie, the person who initially said it believes it, too. One or more members of Bush's administration led the president and those close to him to believe that Osama was the leader of a huge network of terrorists spanning 60 countries wide. The fact that we actually convicted people of being involved with this group just for filming some random shots at an amusement park is ridiculous. It shows just how paranoid U.S. intelligence was becoming about terrorism and future attacks. Overall this was my favorite installment because it was so clear and to the point as you stated.
I agree that the film made America's search for a network of Al Queda members appear totally absurd and unfounded. It reminds me of middle school or high school when one person starts a rumor about another person that is extremely damaging and COULD be true, and after the entire school finds out about it and believes the lie, the person who initially said it believes it, too. One or more members of Bush's administration led the president and those close to him to believe that Osama was the leader of a huge network of terrorists spanning 60 countries wide. The fact that we actually convicted people of being involved with this group just for filming some random shots at an amusement park is ridiculous. It shows just how paranoid U.S. intelligence was becoming about terrorism and future attacks. Overall this was my favorite installment because it was so clear and to the point as you stated.
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