Having waited for flights on numerous occasions, I can only imagine what those who waited to board United Flight 93 were doing to occupy their time.

Imagine yourself sitting in an airport lounge waiting for your flight.  There are any number of things one can do to pass the time.  You could be reading a magazine or a book.  Perhaps today’s newspaper.  Maybe you’re talking to your mother on your cell or checking your e-mail on your new Blackberry.  There might also be an inclination to shut yourself off from the frequent announcements by listening to your iPod.  If you’re a little more Luddite in your tendencies you might use a CD walkman.    There could also be an urgent business meeting and you are simply going over your notes for the hundredth time, making sure you have it all right.  

Your concentration is broken for a moment as a man sits next to you.  He has a dark complexion.  You wonder if he is Middle Eastern or Indian but you are not sure and give it no further thought.  He is wearing a suit and tie with horn-rimmed glasses.  After he sits down he nods hello and you reciprocate.    No other words or gestures are exchanged.  You then quickly go back to whatever it was you were doing and block him out and the rest of your surroundings.

A little over an hour later while in the air your plane has been taken hostage by several passengers, including the man who sat down next to you.  Somewhere in the midst of the chaos and your confusion it dawns on you that the man who greeted you earlier in the morning has come to kill you and everyone of your fellow passengers.

What I will remember about United 93 more than anything else was a brief scene set in the Newark airport where the passengers were waiting alongside their killers for that ill-fated flight.  This more than the actual hijacking, throat slashing, the attempt to take back control of the flight or the eventual crash is what I will remember when I think of this movie.   

When most people board a plane their objective is to get from point A to B safely.  The objective of the 9/11 hijackers on United 93 was to get from A to B, ensuring that they and everyone on that plane would never arrive.  The same could be said for those who hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 out of Boston and American Airlines Flight 77 out of Washington, D.C.

Having waited for flights at Logan International Airport on several occasions, I can only imagine what those who waited to board Flights 11 and 175 were doing to occupy their time, not knowing that their time would soon run out.  I am certain that none of the people who waited inside Logan, Dulles or in Newark ever thought that they would be sitting beside or across from their killers.
 
After having viewed United 93 I have become even more impatient with the likes of Noam Chomsky.  The day after the attacks Chomsky was moved to write for Counterpunch, “It is likely to prove to be a crushing blow to Palestinians and other poor and oppressed people.”  I am overwhelmed at the concern Chomsky showed for those who lost their lives.  A crushing blow to the Palestinians?  Funny, last time that I checked Israel withdrew from Gaza and most of the West Bank.  But Chomsky had a chance to think about it and wrote in his book 9/11, “we can think of the U.S. as 'innocent victim' only if we adopt the convenient path of ignoring the record of its actions and those of its allies, which are, after all, hardly a secret.”

So navigating airplanes into skyscrapers and the Pentagon is a legitimate form of political expression, Noam?  It’s OK to murder U.S. civilians in the name of breaking so-called American hegemony.  What a hell of a guy.

I have become more impatient with the likes of organizations such as Not In Our Name. A Communist front organization, launched with the support of Hollywood celebrities such as Jane Fonda, Spike Lee, Susan Sarandon and Martin Sheen, it opposed U.S. and Coalition military intervention in Afghanistan.  In a letter written on March 7, 2002, Not In Our Name asserts:

The U.S. has commenced a series of wars, beginning with Afghanistan, where they killed thousands of innocent civilians, and they now openly threaten unilateral war on Iraq, Iran, North Korea or any place else on the planet they decide.

The United States did not commence a war with Afghanistan.  Military action was initiated in response to the 9/11 attacks as the then-Taliban government was harboring al Qaeda.  Unlike the 9/11 hijackers, the U.S. military did not deliberately execute civilians.  To suggest that they have done so desecrates the memory of those who died on 9/11. 

Besides, what ought the United States government have done instead?  Needlessly apologize?  Require all Americans to read Howard Zinn?  Blame the whole thing on Israel?  

It also makes me equally impatient with the likes of the Reverend Jerry Falwell and the Reverend Pat Robertson.  After 9/11, Falwell stated:

The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked.  And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad.  I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way – all of them who have tried to secularize America – I point the finger in their face and say “you helped this happen.”

Robertson agreed and said, “the problem is we have adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government.  And so we’re responsible as a free society for what the top people do.  And, the top people, of course, is the court system.”

The ACLU and People for the American Way can be criticized for many things.  Being responsible for 9/11 is not one of them.  Falwell later apologized for his remarks.  

Robertson, for his part, also distanced himself from Falwell’s remarks, although in May 2005 he claimed that judges were a greater threat to America than al Qaeda terrorists.  Again, there are judges who make incredibly reckless decisions.  But they don’t deliberately try to kill thousands of people in the name of Islam.  

I have become more impatient with the Palestinians.  Let us not forget that many Palestinians openly cheered the attacks on the day they occurred and for several days afterwards.  Earlier this year, the Palestinian people spoke and they elected a Hamas government which overtly embraces terrorism including the 9/11 attacks.  In an article written in the New York Sun,Steven Stalinsky writes, “Hamas praised the killing of thousands of Americans in the attacks of September 11, 2001, while saying Muslims could not have been involved – a similar response to those of other groups in the Middle East.”

So who did Hamas blame for the 9/11 attacks?  Why the Jews, of course.

Stalinsky cites an article written by Yussef Al Azam in a Hamas newspaper, Al-Sabil. Azam writes:

The Jews infiltrated the American Army, particularly the Air Force and they pressured pilots to take the planes, knowing that religion is not denoted in the identity cards of those joining the American military.  Accordingly the airplanes were (controlled) by the Jews…Don’t act like you don’t know who is behind the recent events.

The Palestinians knew exactly what they were doing when they elected Hamas and therefore they do not inspire my sympathy.

United 93 reminded me that the innocent passengers on board that flight were simply trying to get from point A to B.  The flight crew was there to ensure that happened.  The hijackers were on board that flight to commit mass murder.  Which they did.  The heroism of the passengers on that flight, however, ensured that more people were not killed.

United 93 should also serve as a reminder of how little we ought to tolerate those who believe the United States should not defend itself when attacked.  It should serve as a reminder of how little we ought to regard those who would blame anyone other than the perpetrators for this heinous act.  Finally, this film should serve as a reminder of how little we ought to suffer the foolishness of those who believe the innocent civilians who died on that flight deserved their fate.