The confusion about The Path to 9/11

Scare tactics. These words are bandied about freely on either side of the divide between those who appreciated ABC's The Path to 9/11 or those who thought it was a conspiracy. Contrary to the oft-repeated mantra about Max Blumenthal's discovery of a conspiracy, there's no basis for thinking David Cunningham's involvement meant that Youth With A Mission (YWAM) initiated the film, just because his father is the founder of that organization.

Edward Wyatt's Sept. 12 article (subscription only )More Questions of Accuracy Raised About ABC Mini-Series on 9/11 Prelude revealed that ABC initiated the project. Here's the relevant quote:

The project would appear to have more benign roots however. Stephen McPherson, the president of ABC Entertainment, and Quinn Taylor, the senior vice president for motion pictures for television and miniseries at ABC, first conceived the idea of a mini-series based on the independent Sept. 11 commission’s best-selling report in 2004. Mr. Taylor contacted Mr. Platt, who had a production deal with Touchstone, the Disney unit that produces series and movies for ABC and other networks."

Daniel Henninger of The Wall Street journal wrote, "Movies do a better job covering the war than the news media do." He commended David for giving us an understanding of the terrorist mindset. The movie probed the 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef,  and his uncle Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) who has been moved to Guantanamo to await trial. KSM is identified as the mastermind of the 9/11 terror plot.

Cyrus Nowrasteh, the writer of the Path to 9/11 wrote a rebuttal to the critics who branded him a right-wing zealot. His The Wall Street Journal article reports:

The hysteria engendered by the series found more than one target. In addition to the death threats and hate mail directed at me, and my grotesque portrayal as a maddened right-winger, there developed an impassioned search for incriminating evidence on everyone else connected to the film. And in director David Cunningham, the searchers found paydirt! His father had founded a Christian youth outreach mission. The whiff of the younger Mr. Cunningham's possible connection to this enterprise was enough to set the hounds of suspicion baying. A religious mission! A New York Times reporter wrote, without irony or explanation, that an issue that raised questions about the director was his involvement in his father's outreach work. In the era of McCarthyism, the merest hint of a connection to communism sufficed to inspire dark accusations, the certainty that the accused was part of a malign conspiracy. Today, apparently, you can get something of that effect by charging a connection with a Christian mission.

All the quotes about YWAM that supposedly proved that "connection" are just in the minds of those who believe there was a conspiracy. They've ground the reputations of the cast and producers into the dirt for what? Just to prove that the movie was a lie? ABC does have fact checkers, that just might be why the movie was delayed from a May showing to the Sept 10 date.

US of A seems to be just like the portly businessmen seen at the end of the miniseries, dazed and unable to see the bigger picture. Why did it happen? That's the most important question of 9/11. Our lives depend on the correct answer.