Part 3 of Adam Curtis’ series “The Power of Nightmares” focused largely on the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the twin towers and the Pentagon and how these attacks led to the culture of fear that we are saturated in. I found this series to be both informative and interesting and I thought that “The Shadows in the Cave” was particularly interesting because I was able to relate not only the discourse but the key players back to my own experience with 9/11 and it allowed me to check my own mentality in some respects which was quite eye-opening.
One thing in this segment that just left me speechless, that
I had no idea about before viewing the film, was that out own government is
responsible for the creation, or rather fabrication of the group “Al Qaeda”.
The film explains that Osama bin Laden and Aymen Zawahiri had tirelessly
attempted to create a group that they could rely on to carry out their missions
to spread Islam and ban western ideology but had failed miserably time and time
again. However, after the bombings at two U.S. embassies in East Africa, the
U.S. government decided to attempt to prosecute those who carried out the
attacks which proved to be very difficult. The FBI realized that they needed
each “terrorist” to be unified into a group of terrorists and out of that idea
Al Qaeda was born. Just to be sure we are on the same page, American officials
were actually the ones who created Al Qaeda, not the terrorists who were “a
part of it”. After hearing this in the film I had to take a break from the film
and think for a few minutes, I just needed to process this idea…which I still feel
as though I am processing as it is not easy to swallow the fact that this major
enemy that we have been running scared from for years now…was created by us!
Watching how the film explored the unfolding of the
Neoconservative agenda following the 9/11 attacks was equally disturbing
however, as I mentioned above, this is less of a shock to me as I am more aware
of the actions of Bush, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld. I believe that this series did
an amazing job exploring the discourse of good and evil between the United
States and the radical Islamists. The in-depth exploration of the history of
the issue as well as the development of the culture of fear through this particular
conflict has been eye opening for me and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I only
hope that eventually we, as a society will learn from our mistakes and begin to
be more critical of those in power, because at this point, it is really all
that we can do.
*just thought this was funny, coming full circle on the blog from Night of the Living Dead to Week of the Living Neoconservatives
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