[DVD] Aftermath: Unanswered Questions From 9/11 (2003)

Questions

Produced by the folks from Guerrilla News Network (GNN), this short documentary will find its place with the X-philes out there, who obviously will not take whatever "official" commission reports there are on the terrorist attacks on 9/11, and instead chose to ask questions as to whether the powers that be actually knew such an attack was impending, but let it happen anyway so as to further their respective political and military agenda.

It's almost akin to Why We Fight in the materials it presents and touches upon, and looks at the baseline conspiracy theories for the US to create a presence in the Mid-East, needing a huge tragedy to bolster public opinion for its drive and justification, which ultimately seeks to secure oil from where it is in abundance, and replenish the coffers of oil companies (well, we know who in the White House has ties to).

Director Stephen Marshall cuts to the chase and asks quite pointedly, 11 questions pertaining to the controversy with how the Bush Administration handled supposedly, the pre-attack information it had obtained, right up to its aftermath in the issues such as the surrendering of civil liberties in the name of the PATRIOT act, which to some, contravenes the foundations of the US Constitution. In other words, it's like the usual "internal security act" in these parts of the world which they frown upon, but have a variant of it in existence, except to call it by another name ("Patriot" does sound pretty positive, doesn't it?) The 11 interviewees, each an expert in their own field area/subject, lend some new insights into how things had gone wrong, but which could have been avoided if warning signs were heeded and standard operating procedures were adhered to, but were not, and in fact, resulting in totally opposite results.

In any case, after watching the recent barrage of films criticizing the US Foreign Policy like in Rendition, Lions for Lambs, The Kingdom and going further, Syriana and the Michael Moore documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, Aftermath is like a very brief addition (only approx 30 minutes in length) to the growing dissatisfaction felt by those unwilling to accept things at face value. In fact, what it encourages instead is not to take even their word at face value, but to question and look up the facts and figures yourself, and then to reach a conclusion of your own. Conspiracy or not, what do you think?

The region free DVD by the Disinformation Company (heh) comes in a letterbox format. The extras include only additional interview footage (34:17) which expands on the narrow focus in the documentary proper, and it's rather interesting to listen to the other co-related issues that the interviewees bring up. The other extra is a Live Panel discussion (48:34) with interviewees Michael Ruppert, Peter Dale Scott and Riva Enteen, after the movie was screened on 21 Apr 03 to a full house at Herbst Theatre in San Francisco. Missing from the disc, although the DVD touted it to be there, are 2 bonus news videos.