United 93 Comes at the Right Time

"Too soon !" some New York filmgoers recently yelled after seeing the trailer for United 93, the new movie about the Boeing 757 that crashed Sept. 11, 2001, in Shanks ville, Pa. When this heart-pounding, gut-twisting picture opens April 28, four years, seven months, and 17 days will have elapsed since 9/11. Is that too soon?

Islamofascists do not know the words "too soon."

Just 13 months after 9/11, al-Qaeda franchisees bombed nightclubs in BaIi on October 12, 2002, killing 202 people, including seven Americans.

Exactly two and a half years after 9/11, al-Qaeda attacked trains in Madrid, on March 11, 2004, killing 191 commuters

Nearly three years and 10 months after 9/11, al-Qaeda struck yet again, on July 7, 2005, killing 52 on the London Underground and a local bus.

Almost daily, al-Qaeda in Iraq blasts Iraqis, Americans and others through ceaseless acts of stunning viciousness.

United 93 arrives just in time. As we bicker over Donald Rumsfeld's job security and obsess over "American Idol," writer-director Paul Greengrass offers a harrowing reminder of what's in play on Earth today.

This is no PC film crafted by moral relativists in Malibu. Just as Universal Studios' logo fades to black, a man quietly prays in Arabic. He holds a small Koran in his palms while sitting atop a motel bed. "It's time," one hijacker announces, and their murderous journey begins.

United 93 should bury for good the absurd cliché that violent Muslim zealots are "cowards." Rather than watch their own knees knock together like castanets, the four alQaeda agents on the doomed flight are focused and ruthless. When a cockpit screen announces, "Two a/c [aircraft] hit World Trade Center," the al-Qaeda agents celebrate. "The brothers have hit the targets," says pilot Ziad Jarrah. "We're in control," replies hijacker Saeed al Ghamdi. "Thanks be to God."

Behind them, ordinary Americans quickly discern that their plane is a missile and mount a plan to retake it.

Haunting Images

Though their jet slammed upside down into a field at 580 MPH, United 93's 44 passengers surely spared many more lives on the ground than they sacrificed. They also likely saved the U.S. Capitol.

"That final image haunts me-a physical struggle for the controls of a gasoline-fueled 21st-century flying machine between a band of suicidal religious fanatics and a group of innocents drawn from amongst us all," Greengrass said. "It's really, in a way, the struggle for our world today."

This fine film's verisimilitude parallels recent, real-world developments.

"Shall we pull it down?" Jarrah asks another hijacker as passengers bang on the cockpit door.

"Yes, put it in it, and pull it down," the other replies. "Allah is the greatest."

Those words are on tapes played at the death-penalty trial of al-Qaeda agent Zacarias Moussaoui. His demeanor mirrors the ice-cold evil that inhabits the veins of those who declared war on America.

"We [Muslims] have to be above you," the so-called 20th hijacker testified April 13. "You [Americans] have to be subdued." He added, "No regrets. No remorse," expressing his hope that 9/11 "happened on the 12th, the 13th, the 14th, and the 15th ... every day until we get you."

Meanwhile, 456 bone slivers were discovered atop the condemned Deutsche Bank building across from Ground Zero. These fragments may identify some of the 1,151 individuals whose survivors have yet to bury their loved ones' Earthly remains.

Also, New Jersey coroner Dr. James Kay determined that NYPD detective James Zadroga, 34, died from "exposure to toxic fumes and dust" during his 470 hours of rescue and recovery service at Ground Zero, just after the attacks.

"Detective Zadroga was the 24th officer to die as a result of the World Trade Center attack," Detectives Endowment Association President Michael Paladino told the New York Post's. "The original 23 died that day, but he died years later."

Too soon? This story never stopped.

Mr. Murdock is a senior fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Fairfax, Va.

Copyright Human Events Publishing, Inc. Apr 24, 2006
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