ThinkProgress Logo

Stories tagged with “9/11”

Alyssa

‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ Is A Boring Blockbuster, And An Okay Discussion of Extrajudicial Killing

By Alyssa Rosenberg on May 16, 2013 at 1:06 pm

This post discusses plot points from Star Trek Into Darkness in some detail.

Starships and Klingons and tribbles, oh my! I’d expected that Star Trek Into Darkness, J.J. Abrams’ follow-up to his 2009 alternate-timeline reboot of the venerable franchise, with returning writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, could have been any one of a number of things: a confident coming-of-age for Captain Kirk (Chris Pine), a return to the tradition of space exploration that defined the original show and movies, with some unintended consequences thrown in to accomodate the tastes of modern action audiences, and even continuation of the sci-fi screwball romance between Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana). What I didn’t anticipate is that as a blockbuster, Star Trek Into Darkness would be impressively generic, but that in a summer when drone strikes and extrajudicial killings appear to have been on many screenwriters and directors minds’, it would do one of the clearest (if not deep) jobs of outlining the debates over the American drone program for a mass audience.

When we meet up with the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise again, they’re on a planet inhabited by a primitive species that’s about to be destroyed by a volcano. Spock, in a potential violation of the mission directive to explore the world, uses cold fusion to stop the explosion, but not without endangering his own life in a way that prompts Kirk to come to his rescue by means that blow the Prime Directive not to speed up that species’ technological development quite literally out of the water, or without hurting Uhura, now firmly established as Spock’s girlfriend. Their actions, and Kirk’s filing of a fudged report of them while Spock tells the truth, get Kirk demoted to First Officer under Christopher Pike, who returns to command of the Enterprise, and Spock reassigned to the U.S.S. Bradbury. But their split it short-lived after a man identified as Starfleet officer John Harrison induces a fellow member of Starfleet to bomb what appears to be an archive, an attack that turns out to be a trap to lure Starfleet’s top commanders to a single for a strategy session. When Harrison attacks that session from the air, killing Pike and other high-ranking Starfleet commanders, Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) gives Kirk back his ship and permission to go after Harrison, who turns out to be rather more than he seems.

The details of what how they do so are remarkably noisy and remarkably forgettable. But the nature of Marcus’s commission to Kirk and company provokes the movie’s strongest throughline and most clearly-developed ideas. The question in Star Trek Into Darkness is whether or not Kirk should follow strategic detail of Marcus’s orders to, using new and advanced torpedoes, “park on the edge of Klingon space, you fire, you take him out, and you haul ass,” or comply with Starfleet rules and make sure that Harrison receives a fair trial back on earth. That Star Trek Into Darkness presents that choice at all, outlining the debate in very similar terms to the arguments about the use of drone strikes to carry out extrajudicial killings of accused terrorists outside of the United States, differentiates it from the other pop culture explorations the subject, which has become a strikingly common feature of movies and television this year, including Iron Man 3 and Fox procedural Bones.
Read more

Health

STUDY: 9/11 First Responders Have Higher Rates Of Cancer Than The General Population

By Katie Valentine on Apr 24, 2013 at 3:00 pm

Responders to the September 11 attacks have a 15 percent higher rate of cancer than the general population, according to a new study published in the Environmental Health Perspectives journal.

The study examined data from 20,984 first responders in the seven years after the 9/11 attack, a short time period that the study’s authors say makes the findings more compelling. Since certain cancers often take decades to develop, an increased cancer rate in responders after just seven years could mean many more cases could develop among responders as time passes.

Though the link between cancer and Ground Zero exposure has been historically controversial — federal compensation for 9/11 responders who developed cancer was held up by debates for about a year before being authorized in 2012 — the claim that exposure to Ground Zero toxins resulted in illnesses for responders is widely accepted. Studies have found that rescue workers are likely to suffer from respiratory illnesses, depression, and Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome — ailments resulting in part from the multitude of harmful substances found in Ground Zero dust and debris. As CNN reported in 2011:

Researchers have reported the presence of hundreds of compounds in ground zero dust, among them known carcinogens. Potential cancer-causing agents such as asbestos that coated the Trade Center buildings’ lower columns, and benzene, a component of jet fuel that caused uncontrollable fires when planes barreled into the twin towers, have been a cancer concern for researchers.

This latest research to link cancer to Ground Zero exposure is consistent with others of its kind: in 2011, a study found firefighters who worked at Ground Zero were 19 percent more likely to develop cancer than firefighters who didn’t. In 2012, a study found a 14 percent increase in cancers among 9/11 responders and people who lived or worked near Ground Zero — a finding that, at the time, was said to be insignificant. Though an increase of 14 to 19 percent isn’t huge, the similarity of the three study’s results makes clear that the link between Ground Zero toxins and cancer could be stronger than previously thought, and should continue to be monitored.

According to the study, thyroid, prostate, and blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma saw some of the highest incidence rates among 9/11 responders. The incidence of thyroid cancer was 239 percent higher than it is in the typical population, while blood cancers were 36 percent higher and prostate cancer was 21 percent higher. Though the $4.3 billion federal compensation fund for 9/11 victims and responders provides coverage for more than 50 types of cancers, prostate cancer is not one of them — a fact that makes the study’s finding on the disease especially significant.

Alyssa

‘White House Down’ Uses Abraham Lincoln To Sell Roland Emmerich’s Crazy Conspiracies

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Mar 27, 2013 at 3:37 pm

I’m actually kind of impressed by the chutzpah it takes to roll out the trailer for White House Down, Roland Emmerich’s latest bit of disaster porn, with this particular quotation attributed—though not actually accurately—to Abraham Lincoln, a United States president who was actually repeatedly in danger, and whose assassins were tried in a military tribunal stacked to require fewer votes: “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

What’s grimly hilarious about this, of course, is given what happened when the Pentagon and two commercial buildings were attacked, America would probably go under martial law if the White House and the Capitol were both successfully destroyed. And Emmerich’s movies valorize extraordinary measures in the face of disaster and expansive use of executive power in the same way that would be used to justify major crackdowns after a more significant terrorist act than September 11.

Of course, there’s the whole separate issue that Channing Tatum’s character is an off-duty cop on a White House tour with his daughter when everything starts going down and he mysteriously becomes the only person available to protect the President of the United States, a scenario that probably gives White House Down the distinction of being the only movie to have its plot invalidated by the sequester. But I’m a lot more willing to forgive Channing Tatum-related ludicrousness than civil liberties chutzpah these days. If you’re going to quote Abraham Lincoln, you need to have more to offer up than a lot of helicopters and CGI flames to justify it.

Health

9/11 First Responders Begin Getting Their Health Payments

By Rebecca Leber on Jan 30, 2013 at 5:10 pm

More than a decade after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, 15 first responders were the first to receive health payouts on Tuesday as part of a federal compensation fund for victims.

The awards will help victims and their families face the unexpected healthcare costs, lost wages, and suffering that resulted from the exposure to toxic fumes, dust and smoke at Ground Zero. And as of last year, 50 types of cancer that may be linked to Ground Zero exposure are finally eligible for coverage as well.

Thousands have suffered from respiratory illnesses and other diseases since assisting in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, and the death toll for emergency responders has exceeded 1,000.

Because of the sheer number affected, the fund “could in theory, according to an actuarial calculation, have to pay $8.5 billion, far more than it can afford.” In 2010, Republicans temporarily blocked the plan in the Senate, and effectively cut down the health coverage able to be provided over the fund’s five-year period.

Alyssa

Martin Sheen and Woody Harrelson Sign Up For 9/11 Truther Movie ‘September Morn’

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Oct 22, 2012 at 12:03 pm

The 9/11 Truth movement, which denies that terrorism was the cause of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, has always had deep roots in movies. In 2005, the first Loose Change movie, which marshalled so-called evidence for the theory, was released streaming online and in a limited DVD run: three editions have been released since. But now, the movement is leveling up with September Morn, a closer-to-Hollywood production that’s meant to act as a call for a new investigation into the attacks separate from the 9/11 Commission. Normally, I’d ignore this kind of thing for the silliness that it is. But as the Truther movement’s ambitions have expanded cinematically, it also seems to have captured some new adherents, including two that could give the project a worrisome credibility.

It’s particularly depressing that Woody Harrelson and Martin Sheen would lend their credibility to a project like this, and I almost can’t believe that it’s true. Other members of the announced cast either burned through their talent or their credibility long ago. Daniel Sunjata, who’s probably best known for his work in Rescue Me, is a noted, long-term truther. As much as I share Jay and Silent Bob’s enthusiasm for Judd Nelson, he is not exactly what you’d call a major movie star these days. But Harrelson is at a second, impressive crest in his career, and Sheen has both accumulated West Wing good will to burn with politically-oriented filmgoers and has stumped for Obama in the past. Without them, this would be a project with a no-name writer, a director who did Jack Nicholson’s stunts in As Good As It Gets (I would, I have to admit, love to know what that entailed), and a collection of actors who might attract small, passionate followings, but nothing else. Harrelson and Sheen have made this project news instead of another entry in the conspiracy trash heap.

That’s the danger of actors’ influence, and movies’ power to reach, even for the least of them, what are comparatively large audiences in the context of almost any other medium. September Morn won’t just disseminate bad ideas that ought to have been discredited long ago, that linger as a symptom of what seems to be a plague of our country’s conspiratorial thinking. It will help credit the idea that people who have an enormous amount of influence can use it for anything substantive or socially valuable. The casualties aren’t just the unsuspecting who pick up conspiracy theories: they’re informed, serious people who could make a difference but get lumped in with what 30 Rock’s protestors would call the Hollyweirdos.

Security

GOP Leader Uses Memory Of 9/11 Victims To Argue Against Military Spending Cuts

By Ben Armbruster on Sep 11, 2012 at 5:24 pm

The Hill reports that House Minority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) invoked the memory of 9/11 victims to argue against military spending cuts:

“We honor those who fell 11 years ago today. We honor those who fought to try to save some of those who died,” Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said in a press conference following a closed-door conference meeting. “The best thing that we can do as a people to honor those individuals is to make sure that it never happens again, and we have looming massive defense cuts that this House has acted to substitute.”

The “looming massive” cuts Cantor refers to is the nearly $500 billion military spending sequester mandated by the Budget Control Act. There are perhaps a variety of reasons that (mainly) Republicans warn against these cuts but Cantor is moving into different territory by using the memory of 9/11 victims to make his case.

The reality is that, while the arbitrary automatic cuts probably aren’t the best way to reduce the Pentagon’s bloated budget (there are alternatives), the military spending sequester would bring DOD’s baseline budget back to 2006 levels.

Health

9/11 First Responders Gain Coverage For Cancers Resulting From Ground Zero Hazards

By Guest Blogger on Sep 11, 2012 at 11:48 am

First responders to World Trade Center have suffered major medical problems, both physical – caused by exposure to toxic dust – and mental. Some 1,000 deaths have been linked to illnesses caused by the environmental hazards at Ground Zero.

Now, following an advisory committee’s recommendation, the National Institute for Occupational Safety has announced that more than 50 types of cancer will now be covered by the health care program for 9/11 first responders. The BBC reports the decision entitles 70,000 surviving emergency service workers and other survivors to free care.

Compensation for cancer was held up because there was debate over whether there is a direct link between first responders and cancer risk. However, as ABC News reported in September 2011, there is a clear link between the two:

Those who worked at the WTC site seem to be at increased risk of cancer, especially thyroid cancer, melanoma and lymphoma. According to a study released of nearly 10,000 New York firefighters (half of whom worked at the WTC site), those from the site are 32 percent more likely to have cancer.

John Howard, administrator of the World Trade Center Health Program, said Monday’s announcement marked “an important step in the effort to provide needed treatment and care to 9/11 responders and survivors.” Most prior compensation was only for respiratory diseases caused by dust and debris. The cancers to be covered now include lung, colorectal, breast, bladder, leukemia, melanoma and all childhood cancers.

– Greg Noth

Security

9/11 And ‘Blowback’

By Matt Duss on Sep 10, 2012 at 4:08 pm

The 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon

On the eve of the eleventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Danielle Pletka, vice-president for foreign and defense policy studies at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, writes, “It’s time to lay waste to a special calumny that has gained prominence and entered the main stream from the fringes where it once resided: The notion of American guilt.”

The notion that U.S. foreign policy shapes “invitations” for terrorists to attack on our soil — and the concomitant idea that if we had no foreign policy, there would be no attacks –is entirely mindless.

It’s time to put Ron Paul, truthers, blowbackers, and all the adherents of such ideas back where they belong… on the fringes of American life, wearing tin foil hats, writing irate letters to the White House, exchanging newsletters, and building shelters in their moms’ basements.

Understandably, Pletka trains most of her fire on Ron and Rand Paul. As my colleague Brian Katulis wrote in the New York Times last month, the conservative movement is more deeply divided over foreign policy than it has been in decades, with neoconservatives like Pletka struggling to hold ground against neo-isolationist Tea Partiers, for whom the Pauls are standard bearers.

But neocons have their own version of “blowback” theory, perhaps most clearly articulated by Sen. John McCain in a May 2008 foreign policy address, during his presidential run: “For decades in the greater Middle East, we had a strategy of relying on autocrats to provide order and stability“:

We relied on the Shah of Iran, the autocratic rulers of Egypt, the generals of Pakistan, the Saudi royal family, and even, for a time, on Saddam Hussein. In the late 1970s that strategy began to unravel. The Shah was overthrown by the radical Islamic revolution that now rules in Tehran. The ensuing ferment in the Muslim world produced increasing instability. The autocrats clamped down with ever greater repression, while also surreptitiously aiding Islamic radicalism abroad in the hopes that they would not become its victims. It was a toxic and explosive mixture. The oppression of the autocrats blended with the radical Islamists’ dogmatic theology to produce a perfect storm of intolerance and hatred.

And here’s neocon don Bill Kristol at a 2005 Tel Aviv University symposium (pdf), defending the Bush administration’s reaction to 9/11: “Bush decided that, for reasons both good and bad, we had made too many accommodations with dictators”:

Read more

Security

Drudge Promotes Story From Conspiracy Website Claiming Obama Plans To Murder Conservative Journalists

By Ali Gharib on Jul 6, 2012 at 2:44 pm

The website Drudge Report, an aggregator that sends a massive amount of web traffic to stories linked on its pages, posted a report from the 9/11 Truther website InfoWars in which two of the nation’s leading right-wing conspiracy theorists Alex Jones with Joseph Farah discuss their paranoia about being attacked by the Obama administration.

In the interview, Farah said he saw a drone over his property in Northern Virginia and suggested that the Obama administration was targeting him. Here’s a screen capture of the Drudge link, with the words “Spy Drone Buzzes Journalist’s Secluded Home…” highlighted in red:

In the interview, Farah told Jones:

I live in one of the most rural places you could possibly live in Northern Virginia and there could only be one thing that this drone was spying on and that would be me, that would be my property. [...]

This is the first term. If [Obama] is re-elected, it’s going to be war. They will be openly at war. We will be hunted down like dogs.

(Listen to clips from the whole Jones radio interview with Farah here.)

Farah also mentioned another damaging right-wing conspiracy theory that vaccine programs are a dangerous and airport security patdowns as evidence of government “attempts to control us.” He went on:

This is where the resistance starts. Because this is part of conditioning for what is really the ened game for them…

It’s everything our founding fathers fought against. And we gotta be like our founding fathers all over again. And the only question in my mind is whether we have the fearlessness, the courage and the conviction that they had to do that.

When the Romney campaign recently outlined its strategy to ignore mainstream media and work its message through right-wing websites, Drudge was at the top of the list. ThinkProgress noted at the time that Drudge has a history of promoting Birtherism and Jones’s 9/11 Truther website InfoWars.

But it’s hard to keep track of the dizzying number of conspiracy theories Alex Jones and Joseph Farah can expound upon in one ten-minute interview. What’s most remarkable is that Mitt Romney’s favorite news aggregator linked to it. (HT: Michael C. Moynihan)

Update

Matt Drudge responds:


Security

New 9/11 Documents Reveals Underfunded CIA, Explicit Warnings Of Plane Hijackings

By Adam Peck on Jun 20, 2012 at 9:48 am

The reflecting pool at the national 9/11 memorial.

A new trove of previously classified CIA documents were publicly released for the first time yesterday, shedding new light on the run-up to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

The documents, which were obtained by the National Security Archive through the Freedom of Information Act, point to missed opportunities by intelligence agencies to apprehend or eliminate Osama bin Laden and better prepare security agencies for attacks involving hijacked civilian aircraft.

One memo, dated December 1998, details “planning by Usama [sic] bin Laden to hijack U.S airplane,” and notes that two individuals thought to be part of Al-Qaeda successfully evaded security checks at an undisclosed New York airport during a trial run. Another, dated March 2004, acknowledges that early Predator drone missions over Afghanistan in the fall of 2000 twice observed an individual “most likely to be Bin Laden” but the UAV was not equipped to act on the information.

Much of the new information reveals CIA counterterrorism units that were severely underfunded at the turn of the century and rendered incapable of aggressively pursuing bin Laden and his network of terrorists. “Due to budgetary constraints….CTC/UBL [Counterterrorism Center/Osama bin Laden Unit] will move from offensive to defensive posture,” reads one memo. It is dated April 5, 2000, just 17 months prior to the attacks.

The release of these documents undermines previous administrations’ insistences that they were fully committed to the capture or elimination of bin Laden and devoted adequate resources to achieve that end. And it also calls into question the Bush administration’s claim that they entered office with no readily available intelligence on how best to prepare for possible terrorist attacks. “Nobody organized this country or the international community to fight the terrorist threat that was upon us until 9/11,” said then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2006 during an interview with The New York Post.

In all, more than 100 internal memos and reports were released yesterday. The National Security Archive sought the release of these documents after they were referenced in footnotes from the 9/11 Commission’s official report, and though they applaud the CIA’s decision to release these documents, the group also notes that hundreds more remain unavailable for public consumption:

Although the collection is part of a laudable effort by the CIA to provide documents on events related to September 11, many of these materials are heavily redacted, and still only represent one-quarter of the CIA materials cited in the 9/11 Commission Report. Hundreds of cited reports and cables remain classified, including all interrogation materials such as the 47 reports from CIA interrogations of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from March 24, 2003 – June 15, 2004, which are referenced in detail in the 9/11 Report.

ThinkProgress has compiled a timeline on the hunt for bin Laden.

Older

Switch to Mobile
ThinkProgress Signup Overlay Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress

Sign Up