{"id":76,"date":"2008-09-03T20:04:28","date_gmt":"2008-09-04T03:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cyrusnowrasteh.com\/?page_id=76"},"modified":"2008-09-03T20:04:28","modified_gmt":"2008-09-04T03:04:28","slug":"wall-street-journal-op-ed-a-path-to-911","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/cyrusnowrasteh.com\/?page_id=76","title":{"rendered":"Wall St. Journal: “A Path to 9\/11”"},"content":{"rendered":"

WALL STREET JOURNAL<\/strong> op-ed – Cyrus Nowrasteh\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On September 10th and 11th, 2006, ABC aired the docudrama I wrote, The Path to 9\/11<\/em>, at the\u00a0peak of a firestorm of political protest designed to discredit and shut down the miniseries even\u00a0before it aired.\u00a0 Left-leaning pundits and politicos and partisan bloggers waxed hysterical about\u00a0its supposed inaccuracies and anti-Clinton bias, though the vast majority of them had not seen it\u00a0\u2013 nor, they were determined, should anyone else see it either.\u00a0 They failed, and the miniseries\u00a0garnered nearly 28 million viewers and seven Emmy nominations.<\/p>\n

Despite what these would-be censors and the conspiracy theorists of the blogosphere fervently\u00a0believed a year ago, the miniseries was never about Bill Clinton.\u00a0 It is not about the political left\u00a0or right, but about our common enemy then and now, Islamist terrorism.\u00a0 It is the dramatization\u00a0of a clearly linked chain of historical events, beginning with the World Trade Center bombing in\u00a01993, continuing through the multiple attacks on American embassies and interests abroad, and\u00a0culminating in the horrific attacks on American soil six years ago.\u00a0 And it depicts not only the\u00a0institutionalized lapses and errors along the way, noted in The 9\/11 Commission Report<\/em> and other\u00a0sources drawn upon for the miniseries, but also the efforts of ordinary American heroes who did\u00a0their best to defend this country from its enemies.\u00a0 Both the failures and the successes are\u00a0historical facts, and neither the Clinton nor the Bush administration is spared its failures or\u00a0denied its successes in the miniseries, as its many millions of viewers can attest.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the aftermath of the airing a year ago, the controversy went away.\u00a0 The threatened lawsuits\u00a0never materialized; the attacks on the credibility of the miniseries dissipated.\u00a0 Indeed, since then\u00a0there has been only vindication for its veracity from such non-partisan experts as Michael\u00a0Scheuer, chief of the CIA\u2019s bin Laden unit from 1996-98 (?), Gary Schroen, the first American\u00a0field agent into Afghanistan after 9\/11, and Steve Emerson of the Investigative Project on\u00a0Terrorism, who all came forward to confirm the accuracy of the docudrama.\u00a0 Of course, none of\u00a0these men is a politician or a pundit or an amatuer blogger. \u00a0<\/p>\n

One year later, however, there is another attempt to shut down The Path to 9\/11<\/em>, this time the\u00a0DVD version – not in a frenzy of unfounded accusations but in a silence that nonetheless speaks\u00a0volumes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The normal time frame from broadcast to DVD for miniseries and movies is approximately four\u00a0months.\u00a0 Originally I was told by ABC that the DVD release date of Path<\/em> would be in January. \u00a0January came and went, and I was told June was the new release date.\u00a0 Then July.\u00a0 Now ABC\u2019s\u00a0official statement is, \u201cWe have not decided on a release date at this time.\u201d\u00a0 No further\u00a0explanation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But privately, I was told by an ABC executive that \u201cIf Hillary weren\u2019t running for President, this\u00a0wouldn\u2019t be a problem.\u201d\u00a0 The clear message is that ABC\/Disney isn\u2019t eager to reopen the wound\u00a0or feel the pressure again from politicians anxious to whitewash their legacy.\u00a0 They would rather\u00a0just let the miniseries die a quiet death.\u00a0 Executive Producer Marc Platt, a well-known Hollywood\u00a0Liberal, even had to finance the limited Emmy campaign himself because Disney\/ABC refused to\u00a0do so (which is unheard of for such a high-profile production).\u00a0 This passive self-censorship is\u00a0just as effective as anything Joseph Stalin or Big Brother could impose; the result is the same, the\u00a0curbing of free speech and creative expression, and the suppression of a viewpoint that may be\u00a0an inconvenient truth for some politicians.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And what of ABC\/Disney\u2019s responsibility to its shareholders?\u00a0 This was a $40 million project\u00a0that, because of the overblown controversy, attracted no sponsors and thus made not a penny\u00a0profit from its broadcast.\u00a0 It is a quality production, both entertaining and educational, that has\u00a0the potential finally to recoup a significant part of that cost, if not actually turn a profit, through\u00a0the sales of an eagerly anticipated DVD.\u00a0 Does ABC\/Disney not owe it to its shareholders to\u00a0make this basic effort to reclaim some of their $40 million?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But profit, while not an insignificant consideration, is not the heart of the matter here (certainly\u00a0not for me personally, as I would make literally a fraction of a penny for each Path <\/em>DVD sold).\u00a0The issue is that corporate timidity is preventing millions of Americans from finding The Path to\u00a09\/11<\/em> on DVD \u2013 though other politically controversial movies are readily available, such as Loose\u00a0Change<\/em>, which argues that the Bush administration targeted American citizens for death in an\u00a0elaborate and sinister plot; or Michael Moore\u2019s unabashedly biased Fahrenheit 9\/11<\/em>.\u00a0 These\u00a0highly-charged movies, which don\u2019t even offer a pretense of balance, and others can be found\u00a0online or in retail outlets and DVD rental stores across the country \u2013 and so they should be, just\u00a0as The Path to 9\/11<\/em> should be.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The issue is free speech, which is arguably the most prized of American rights.\u00a0 Whatever one\u00a0may think of the miniseries or of me as the writer, the answer \u2013 the American way \u2013 is not to let\u00a0The Path to 9\/11<\/em> languish in a cowardly purgatory but to release it for the general public to\u00a0appreciate and judge.\u00a0 If there is controversy, all the more reason it should be made available for\u00a0every American to decide for himself or herself.\u00a0 In fact, I suggested to Disney executives that\u00a0members of the Clinton administration be allowed to speak their piece in the DVD\u2019s special\u00a0features, a suggestion which was met with \u2013 that\u2019s right \u2013 utter silence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A year ago, the amped-up outcry preceding the airing of The Path to 9\/11<\/em> nearly drowned out the\u00a0truth; this September 11, it is the corporate silence regarding the DVD that is deafening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WALL STREET JOURNAL op-ed – Cyrus Nowrasteh\u00a0
\nOn September 10th and 11th, 2006, ABC aired the docudrama I wrote, The Path to 9\/11, at the\u00a0peak of a firestorm of political protest …Continue readingWall St. Journal: “A Path to 9\/11”<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":24,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-76","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cyrusnowrasteh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/76","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cyrusnowrasteh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cyrusnowrasteh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cyrusnowrasteh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cyrusnowrasteh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/cyrusnowrasteh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/76\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cyrusnowrasteh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cyrusnowrasteh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}