Blatant Propaganda

ABC is marking the 5th Anniversary of 9/11 by re-writing history.

On Sunday and Monday, they’re showing “The Path to 9/11”, a “docudrama” that they claim is based on the findings of the 9-11 Commission Report.

However, the film completely contradicts the Report on several important points — most notably by going to significant lengths to pin the blame of 9/11 on the Clinton administration, fabricating entire scenes which portrayed the administration as having the opportunity to stop Bin Laden, but doing nothing because they were so distracted by the Lewinsky scandal. This is in direct contradiction to the report, which talked about the fact that Clinton was the only President to directly attack Al Qaeda, and, if you’ll recall, at the time Republicans criticized him for trying to “wag the dog” and distract from the Lewinsky scandal.

It blames every failure on the Clinton administration and the Democrats, while portraying the people who were actually in office at the time, Bush and his administration as saviors, on top of the crisis and leaping to our defense.

Former 9/11 commisioners like Richard Ben Veniste are hitting news shows talking about how innaccurate this show is, but Tom Kean, the former chair, accepted a position as a paid consultant on the show, and ABC is using that to tout its veracity.

Just in case you think I’m being paranoid: ABC arranged for conservative partisans to view the program prior to air date (and they’ve been on talk radio and news shows, talking it up), yet Democratic activists have been stiff-armed. Even former President Bill Clinton’s request for a DVD has gone unheeded by ABC.

It gets worse: ABC is providing “teaching materials” via Scholastic, so that the program can be used in schools. In the materials, we get such information as:

“Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, the United States began a global “War on Terror” to stop terrorist groups and state-sponsored terrorism. President Bush has led the United States into Afghanistan and Iraq and reorganized the national government in an attempt to combat terrorist activity.”

….Directly linking the invasion of Iraq to 9/11.

“”The dictatorial government of Saddam Hussein was overthrown in 2003, following an invasion led by the United States. The U.S. government believed that Hussein had been developing weapons of mass destruction that he planned to use against American and other targets.”

….No mention that those WMD did not, in fact, exist.

The best way for the NeoCons to get what they want is to poison the minds of the next generation. The NeoCon movement was galvanized when they saw what happened in the early 70s — an educated population protesting and nearly breaking out into open revolution, were able to bring an end to a war, and, with the help of journalists, eventually bring down a corrupt administration. Over the past three decades, a concerted effort has been made to dumb down the population, and marginalize the media, so that will never happen again. Open your eyes and you can see it happening, right in front of you.

If this makes you as disgusted as it makes me, tell ABC to tell the truth.

Of course, I doubt anything will come of the outcry. Remember when CBS did their miniseries about the Reagans, and conservatives complained that it wasn’t respectful enough, and got it pulled off the air? Do you really think that will happen in this case? Of course not.