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First hour: Journalist-author Christopher Bollyn, one of America’s leading 9/11 researchers, discusses his new book The War on Terror: The Plot to Rule the Middle East. An excerpt:
“Arnon Milchan, a senior Mossad operative who was later involved in the smuggling of nuclear trigger devices, made a film in 1978 that depicted how such an attack (i.e. 9/11 -ed.) might occur. In Milchan’s first movie, The Medusa Touch, an airliner flies into the Pan Am Building in New York City, exploding in a ball of fire. In 2000, Rupert Murdoch, Milchan’s business partner, made The Lone Gunmen, a television film in which a remotely-controlled airliner was flown into the World Trade Center. To film the sequence of the plane flying toward the World Trade Center Murdoch’s crew actually used a helicopter to fly the approach to the Twin Towers in 2000. It would be very interesting to know who was involved in the filming of this scene which became real six months after the film aired in March 2001. I would suspect that this filming was actually part of the final planning for the 9/11 attacks.” (p.58)
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| On the set of Israeli nuclear spy and Hollywood godfather Arnon Milchan’s first film, The Medusa Touch |
Second hour: Graeme MacQueen’s new article “9/11: The Pentagon’s B Movie” bolsters Bollyn’s hypothesis that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were basically an Arnon Milchan & Associates sequel to The Medusa Touch. (Or, more accurately, that The Medusa Touch was a prequel to the long-planned blockbuster B movie, 9/11.) While Professor MacQueen doesn’t point the finger at any particular filmmaker, he does show how 9/11 was “filmic,” i.e. experienced as a film, and apparently designed to be experienced that way. We may therefore surmise that filmmaking professionals were involved.
But whereas Bollyn follows Joel Stein’s lead in “Who Runs Hollywood? C’mon” and suggests the 9/11 B movie was produced by a Tinseltown that is almost totally controlled by people with a passionate attachment to the state of Israel, Graeme MacQueen explores the American military and CIA presence in Hollywood and suggests that these folks were probably calling the shots.
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| Condi Rice asked: “Who could have imagined?” Arnon Milchan could have…and did – in his first film |
Great interview. Really thoughtful and edifying.
I had semi-forgotten Graeme's essay buried as it was by a daily avalanche of videos, news analysis, and emails.
Thank you so much, Kevin, for giving me the opportunity to remember how much I loved Graeme's essay. It is a true keeper for the memory banks both to share with more people and to spur creative thoughts about 911.
Similarly, Kevin, I had totally forgotten about Revusky's great Roger Rabbit cartoon analysis of the Matrix. Another original essay I want to always retain on my front burner.
Sometimes I wish I lived back in the 1800s where thought-provoking essays like these only come along maybe every quarter, such that one has the time and space to fully, deeply ponder their contents.
You're right, these great essays do have a way of falling down the memory hole. One way to fight that would be to publish a book collection. I wonder if there are enough really first-rate essays on "9/11 as cheesy movie" etc. to fill a book.
Superb idea, Kevin. I think if one broadened the category to "culture," there are definitely enough topics for an anthology of essays.
Here's a list of cultural references about 911 that could be tapped:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cultural_references_to_the_September_11_attacks
Another essay could cover 911 memorials, looking at the iconography of architecture, landscaping, mythic interpretations, etc.
Here's an interesting variation on memorials: The September 11th National Memorial Trail – https://www.911trail.org/trail-map/september-11th-national-memorial-trail/
Culture has so much more power to sway people. A book looking at 911 through a cultural critique lens would be fascinating. I'd love to work on such a project.