Tomgram: Ruth Rosen on Oliver Stone's WTC and the Iraq War
The attacks of September 11, 2001 remain both an overwhelming and under-considered horror. Tomdispatch will devote the week leading up to the fifth anniversary of 9/11 to various reconsiderations of that moment. In the meantime, the anniversary season was inaugurated early by World Trade Center, Oliver Stone's reverent blockbuster movie. Ruth Rosen went to see it recently and explains just why September 11th, which brought out so much that was positive in those who rushed to the scene to help, still brings out so much of the Bush-era worst in so many of the rest of us. Tom
Oliver Stone, 9/11, and the Big Lie
By Ruth RosenWhen World Trade Center ended, I left the theater tense, my muscles aching. The superb directing and acting, coupled with still hardly imaginable scenes of death and destruction, had sent painful muscle spasms up my back, evoked tears, and left me, yet again, with searing and indelible images of that hellish morning.
I felt disoriented in the bright sunlight of a Northern Californian afternoon. As my mind regained its critical faculties, however, another kind of shock set in. I suddenly realized that Oliver Stone's movie reinforces the Big Lie -- endlessly repeated by Dick Cheney, echoed and amplified by the right-wing media -- that 9/11 was somehow linked to Iraq or supported by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
It might surprise you that this Oliver Stone film is neither ideological, nor conspiratorial, which in my view is just as it should be. Instead, it is a portrayal of what the men who braved hell and the families who anguished over their survival experienced.
World Trade Center gives 9/11 a distinctly human face by following two Port Authority policemen and their families. We watch the men muster their courage to help evacuate people in one of the towers; we gasp as they are buried alive; we wince as heavy slabs of cement crush their bodies; and we hold our breath as they struggle to keep each other going in the face of imminent death.
Expert editing brings us the anguish suffered by their wives, children, and relatives. Some are in denial, others in shock. Some have faith; others are resigned to the men's deaths. They live in their own hell and we empathize with their wrenching agony.
Click here to read more of this dispatch.
posted by Annamarie at
8:50 PM
1 comment(s):
Peaceman, why are you posting only anti-Muslim vitriol? If you are indeed "Peaceman" like your handle implies, you should not be doing this. Terrorism is not endemic to Muslims. It has been-- and will be-- carried out by disaffected people of diverse religious persuasions, or no religiosity for that matter. Remember the Red Brigades as an example that comes to my mind? And Timothy McVey? The Reverend Jim Jones of Jonestown who caused the deaths of close to 900 of his ill-fated followers? What about the Hutu-Tutsi massacres in Rwanda? How about Idi Amin? There are many, many more... And need I remind you that the worst genocides were committed by a Christian, Adolf Hitler and a white man of no religion, Joseph Stalin???? What about the Christian missionaries in their fervent zeal to convert the 'pagans' in South America, Hawaii and elsewhere in the past? What did the British/European settlers do to the Indigenous Peoples of North America, upon whose blood the 'freedom loving, democratic' USA an Canada were founded? And if you want to go back far enough, how about the Crusades????
It is just that in the last several years, Muslim extremism happens to be at the forefront of media and world attention. As a pacifist, I condemn all violent acts. However, to single out Islam as a violent religion is wrong, narrow-minded, and incendiary.
A first step toward diffusing the tensions that lead to violence would be a more just, equitable solution of the Palestinian's plight and not supporting Israel in its suppression, oppression and wars on Arabs, and ending the U.S. occupation of Iraq -- and ending U.S. hegemony and imperialism in the Middle East. Just for starters.
However, the article I posted above is not about this issue. It is about the Bush-Cheney cabal's misrepresentation of who was behind the tragic events of 9/11, and film-maker Oliver Stone's complicity in perpetuating the myth that Saddam Hussein was mixed up in the bombings. Anyone who reads real news knows that this is totally erroneous and takes credibility away from Stone's otherwise poignant, evocative film.
I will not even bother to refute Anon's vituperative attempts to revile Islam's Prophet Muhammed. People who stoop this low about someone else's religious beliefs are nasty, hate-filled bigots, and I do not waste time with them.
I seriously think you should change your handle. Peaceman belies your true self, as evidenced by your comments.
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Annamarie, at
11:43 PM
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