Turning Point. Documentary series on 9/11 event and the war on terror

The series starts from the Afghanistan war when the Taliban took control of the country when the United States, US, abandoned Afghanistan after the Russian withdrawal. It highlighted the history which led to demographics where Al-Qaeda existed and could launch a terrorist attack that changed the course of history (Lahoud, 2021).

The series state how “9/11 brought the war Home” 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqgNFGkOjBE

The series highlights how the US felt obliged to retaliate in a decisive and violent manner, in a bid to restore people’s confidence and eliminate any future attacks (Sidebari, 2021). It also highlights how the “Sneak and Peak Act” which is legally referred to as USA Patriot Act 2001, has left citizens feeling powerless, hopeless, and violated by the law and unable to consider their homes sacred or a private space (Sidebari, 2021).

As someone who does not know much about Afghanistan or who were behind 9/11 or even the reasons behind the war in Iraq, I was overwhelmed by the amount of information tightly packed into this six-hour series, from a bias point of view. Yet I was still able to digest the information. It also made me consider how significant historical events can change the world.

As Egyptian, I felt ashamed when the film showed that one of the pilots of the attack was an Egyptian. On the other hand, I was also surprised by the torture that was done to war prisoners at Guantanamo Bay (Malinowski, 2008). I felt horrible for each side, and it got to the point where it did not matter who you are or where you are from, we do not have the right to kill or commit any kind of violent acts.

The film showed some US politicians admitting to horrific things that were done by the US army during the Iraq war and how they were instructed to do such acts illustrating a loss of humanity. This shows how hatred for the enemy can blind one’s mentality (Navarro, Marchena and Menacho, 2013). I think this documentary cannot be watched once; the viewer would benefit from watching it again.

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Bibliography

Lahoud, N. (2021) Bin Laden’s Catastrophic Success: Al Qaeda Changed the World - But Not in the Way It Expected. Foreign Affairs, [online] 100, p.10. Available at: https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/fora100&div=115&id=&page= [Accessed 2 Nov. 2021].

Malinowski, T. (2008) Restoring Moral Authority: Ending Torture, Secret Detention, and the Prison at Guantanamo Bay. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 618(1), pp.148–159.

Navarro, J., Marchena, E. and Menacho, I. (2013) Send Orders of Reprints at reprints@benthamscience.net The Psychology of Hatred. The Open Criminology Journal, [online] 6, pp.10–17. Available at: https://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOCRIJ/TOCRIJ-6-10.pdf.

Netflix (2021) Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror | Official Trailer | Netflix. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqgNFGkOjBE [Accessed 2 Nov. 2021].

Sidebari, L. (2021) CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress The USA PATRIOT Act at 20: Sneak and Peek Searches. [online] Available at: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB10652 [Accessed 1 Nov. 2021].

Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror, (2021) Season 1. Directed by Brian Knappenberger. Netflix Available at: https://www.netflix.com/title/81315804 [Accessed 24 Oct. 2021].