I didn't plan to, but I ended up watching the documentary 9/11: 102 Minutes that Changed America on SBS last night. (It's available on SBS on Demand.) I hadn't seen it before, and found it very powerful and affecting.
If you haven't seen it, it's a documentary made up of mostly amateur footage of what was going on that day, with no voiceover, and only the occasional break away from the chronology of the events. (It runs for the same 102 minutes from the time of the first impact to the collapse of the second tower.) It's a strong reminder of the sense of disbelief and anxiety that it induced (at one point, someone on the street says they've heard that there was a threat that a new building would be blown up every 30 minutes.) It showed people in the World Trade Towers perched outside of windows, but has the good taste to not show people jumping or falling, although they did have some reaction from people who saw it happening.
A few reactions I had:
* watching it unfold, it feels pretty surprising that the death toll was not substantially higher. Like people watching in the street, it feels like it wouldn't be surprising if 10,000 had died instead of a few thousand.
* it's hard to credit how people can possibly believe anything about "controlled demolition" when you watch the buildings burn with great intensity in "real time" before the collapse.
* I know people were saying "but they didn't come from Iraq" before the Iraqi invasion, but it's hard to avoid the felling that an invasion of somewhere was going to be inevitable outcome of the event, and Iraq was just the unlucky country. (Who wants to try to control Saudi Arabia, anyway.)
PS: Graeme - don't bother commenting your conspiracy stuff - it won't get through.
you mean 11/9 don't you.?
ReplyDeleteYou just watched a show where they edited out the explosions. Thats not merely a television show. Its an intelligence operation. Try and find out who produced the show. If anyone not attached to the military-industrial complex made such a production, they would leave the explosions in. Just because someone edits out the explosions it doesn't mean they weren't there. This is basic philosophy 101. If a tree falls in the forest but nobody hears it and all that. Give me a link so I can look up the production crowd.
ReplyDeleteI'm a softy, Graeme, so I let your comment through.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I can tell, it was produced by the History channel.
I have no doubt that if you look hard enough, you'll turn up some executive you will manage to blame as being in on the conspiracy.