The Looming Tower

I had to watch the whole series twice, mainly to identify the "good" and "bad" players. It certainly doesn't speak well of the CIA. Amazing performances, by all players, but Jeff Daniels and Tahar Rahim were outstanding. Curious about Ali Soufan, I watched several interviews with him, and Tariq nailed his accent/speech totally. We all know how it ended, but this series adds to the human element, the frustration and ultimate sadness.

When I read that there was a TV adaptation of Lawrence Wright's book I had great hopes. The result is not disappointing, the show is quite good, Jeff Daniels is perfect in his role and the story of John O'Neill is perfect for a movie. But the writers decided to focus only on the final part of the book, which details the internal wars between CIA and FBI which allowed the 9/11 plans to proceed unchallenged. The first part of the book, which describes the history of bin Laden and al Qaeda, starting from the ideology of Qutb, would have been much more interesting to understand what is going on in the world today. But I understand that story would be perhaps more suitable for a documentary than for a TV show, but it's a story that Wright wrote beautifully at that will deserve to be put on screen someday.

The last episode, which begins when the first plane hits (not a spoiler), brought me up against my own memories of 9/11. My son was in the city, and on that day I worried about him and listened to him on the phone. Aside from that, I was numb. It seemed utterly incomprehensible that this should have happened. Who? Why? How? Equally incomprehensible was the speed with which these questions were in fact answered, for reasons the Hulu series makes clear: the answers were already at the fingertips of various players who didn't know what to do with them (though the finale implies that various parties were prepared to exploit the bombing instantly). The series begins at the (or a) beginning, including the Kenyan embassy bombing, the USS Cole bombing, and interactions among the players on both sides. The questions have been answered, the lines drawn in such a way as to meet at this point, with the bombings. As I watched the last episode, I was able to feel for the people I love who were breathing that dust that day. I could finally weep for them, as well as for John O'Neill and Ali Soufan, whom I had not known about until now.

Aside from the excellent way it showed how the CIA and the FBI would not work together, they both had bad ideas of how to handle it. The CIA was mostly academic and the FBI was mostly just knock down doors. Both had the wrong prescription. I hope they are all doing it differently and together, but I fear that they are not. Bush didn't want to be "batting at flies" and I fear that Trump doesn't want to either.

Condaleesa Rice's comment after the Twin Towers that "no one would have thought that someone would do that" is particularly galling, because in fact a person on her staff who was the old Security Advisor would have told her just that if she ever took time to listen and take him seriously. History should really reconsider what it is now saying about her in light of these revelations.

The timing of the episodes seem perfectly timed to what was going on. It showed how we really didn't have much of a clue and the lack of sharing made each less knowledgeable and less able to get the needed incite.

A great insight into the self serving American bureaucracy and their buck passing.

I am stunned that the security of American citizens was in control of so many egomaniacs. Absolutely no flow of communication between anyone.

It is remarkable, considering the amount of intelligence that was harnessed, that this occurred and that the death toll wasn't greater.