A Bush’s-Eye View on 9/11

A Bush's-Eye View

It’s 9/11 Week on the National Geographic Channel here in the Netherlands. None other than former president George W. Bush himself had the honours of doing the kick-off. Apparently, NGC had held an exclusive interview with the man, recounting that fateful day and some of the follow-up.

Now, I’m saying in advance that I’ve never been a big fan of Bush (and that’s an understatement) and his politics. So the things I see or hear are probably pretty subjective. That said, I really didn’t like this interview very much. Whenever I’m able to download it and see it again at my own pace, I’ll be sure to count the number of times he said the word ‘war’ in varying contexts: war zone, wartime, war-time president, act of war. It made me wonder why he kept repeating that word so much, and made it quite obvious he’d been rigorously coached for this interview.

Another thing that struck me was that he was reading with school children, then he took off on Air Force 1 to a bunker in Louisiana, next took off again in Air Force 1 to a bunker in Nebraska, said he wanted to go home, took off in Air Force 1 and flew home, had to evacuate the White House with his wife Laura and two dogs (Barney and Spot) because of an F-16 flying about, and then went back inside to sleep. During all of this, he managed to make one decision which was to give the order to take down any (commercial) flights that would stay up in the air after the command to land was given (regardless of the civilians that might be on those planes).

Ironically, he initially thought that Flight 93 hit the earth because of that exact order. Instead, it had crashed in Pennsylvania thanks to the heroic passengers on that flight. Well, after seeing The Tillman Story, I’m not sure what to believe any more.

Bush tells the viewer how someone in an army vehicle came to pick him up when he touched down in Louisiana. The guy was apparently driving like a madman, because Bush remembers telling him to relax, because Al Qaeda wasn’t there. However, some time later in the interview he says that it was only in Nebraska that someone from Homeland Security brought up Al Qaeda and that they could have been the ones behind the attacks. Well, what is it going to be, Mr. President?

After the interview with Mr. Bush there was a showing of the documentary Restrepo, but I’ve seen that already. Regardless of the fact that I didn’t like this interview, I’m planning to watch the rest of the 9/11 Week programmes on NGC. As I’m teaching both English and Social Studies, I was also thinking on covering 9/11 in some of my lessons. Unfortunately, it’s quite hard to find some objective material on it.