United 93 begins with a chant. You hear the voice of Islam floating through the air like a whispered warning of death and destruction. We know the ending to this tale.
Bodies are shaved. Knives are in place. All that is left to do is wait.
The American government never knew what hit them. Disbelief gives way to mass confusion. The FAA doesn’t know what’s going on. NORAD is hamstrung. Battle stations are called. But they can’t get authorization from the president. It comes back to you like the rolling wave that hits your stomach when you’re about to throw up. You remember everything and it doesn’t stop until United 93 starts going down. That’s when all sense of proportion leaves your mind and all you want to do is scream, but it’s too late.
FAA: “We’re at war with somebody and until we figure out what to do about it we’re shutting down.”
The past interrupts. It plays in my head.
BIN LADEN DETERMINED TO ATTACK IN U.S.
I can’t erase it, though I try.
…and then it comes into view… the first burning World Trade Center building, as the FAA men and women stand staring in disbelief. Planes drop off radar screens. A white board is brought in to keep track.
NORAD:. “What the fuck are they doing over the ocean?”
The jets have to be turned towards land. But when the reality hits that NORAD has only 4 jets to cover the entire eastern seaboard, your mind crashes. It just doesn’t compute. The men in charge powerless, though more than ready to act. When you remember that NORAD didn’t find out about United 93 until after it hit, you start shaking inside. But it’s the fact that the closest jet to shoot it down was 100 miles away is the one that’s too much to take.
Somewhere amidst the outlying drama, the heroes of United 93 come to grips that this is a suicide mission and that no one will survive. They start talking…
United 93 heroes:. “Two planes just hit the World Trade Center, pass it back. … … There are explosions at the Pentagon. … … Get every weapon you can. …”
The terrorists: “The brothers have hit both targets. We’re in control. …”
The heroes have to do something. They’ve seen other passengers gutted with small knives. The pilots are dead. They’ve called their families. So all that’s left to do is gather weapons, knives, hot water, fire extinguishers, and the will of ten fighters in each one ready to rush the cockpit. But they still don’t give up hope. A man among them is a pilot, so they plot how he will take the controls and bring them to safety. No, we don’t know if this happened, because this is a movie, a brilliant work of hope and courage, but also fiction, based on evidence and guidance and records, plus real cast members who were there that day.
Played on this May day of prayer for a nation being steered by a man who long ago wore out his presidential pew propaganda, I can only think how little we’ve learned since 9/11.
Where is Osama? Roaming free. Other terrorists disappeared. No one held accountable for that day.
Where are we? In Iraq, following a path our president took when he had other choices he could make. He let slip his true mission just days after we were hit. A “crusade” he said. Then corrected himself, but everyone knew he had uttered exactly what he had meant. There was no going back. Our fate sealed.
But when you look at 9/11 through the prism of the Bush presidency today the message is clear. After 9/11 came Katrina, and in the middle of those two horrors is placed the Iraq war, as the good work our military did in Afghanistan disintegrates back to recurring stories of the Taliban and poppies. How can one man and one political party be caught on watch for three such calamitous disasters, all of which were handled worse than the one before. It is not a coincidence. If ignorance is bliss, the Republicans must be living Nirvana. To claim happenstance for such carnage would defy the facts for fiction, which is what President Bush and the Republicans have been doing for years.
9/11… the Iraq war… Katrina… civil war in Iraq… Afghanistan welcomes back the Taliban… God help us for what comes next.
A handful of heroes on United 93 took charge in a hopeless situation and changed the course of one disaster. When are the American people going to wake up and change the path of the politics that year after year brings yet another disaster for this nation? We need more heroes.
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