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Thursday, March 25, 2010

Thoughts on watching United 93 last night

The young hijackers [portrayed in the 9/11 film of 2006, United 93, directed by Paul Greengrass] are possibly as frightened as the passengers and crew; they continually mutter prayers to their god, just as some of the passengers begin to mutter to theirs as they realize they're about to die. The same god presumably; everyone who's praying seems to be an adherent of one of the Abrahamaic religions—the hijackers Islamic, the passengers Judaic or Christian. Isn't that ironic? What is really at issue here?
    None of the authorities has any effective means of dealing with the situation! The air controllers, suspicious of American Airlines 11 from Boston, at first think it must have been the first plane to fly into the first World Trade Tower (after they dismiss initial reports that it was a "light aircraft"), then learn that it's apparently still aloft, now presumably on its way to Washington. (It actually had crashed, into the North Tower.)
    At least one of the military commanders seems willing to shoot down a subsequent airliner presumed hijacked and on its way to Washington, but no one with the authority to approve it can be reached. Nor, apparently, can the military aircraft be "scrambled" into play. Confusion reigns, a sort of chaos.
    Chaotic on board too, emotions high and magical thinking rampant (understandably). One man is sure that everything will be all right if they just cooperate and "don't do anything." Never mind the dead pilots and the passengers lying bleeding or dead in the aisles, mostly from knife wounds to their necks. Finally, the passengers and flight attendants assemble a plan, attack the two hijackers in the cabin, and batter through the cockpit door to get at the other two, seconds before crashing into the Pennsylvania countryside.
    How might I have behaved if I had been a passenger on United 93?

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