''Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire'' is a 2004 documentary film narrated by

Julian Bond Horace Julian Bond (January 14, 1940 – August 15, 2015) was an American social activist, leader of the civil rights movement, politician, professor, and writer. While he was a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, during the e ...

and directed by Jeremy Earp and

Sut Jhally Sut Jhally (b. 1955) is a professor of communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, whose work focuses on cultural studies, advertising, media, and consumption. He is the producer of over 40 documentaries on media literacy topics a ...

. It examines the possibility that

neoconservatives Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and cou ...

used the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

to usher in a new

doctrine Doctrine (from la, doctrina, meaning "teaching, instruction") is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the essence of teachings in a given branch of knowledge or in a belief system ...

of expanding

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

power through military force under the guise of a "

war on terror The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international Counterterrorism, counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campa ...

" and that the doctrine, known as the

Project for the New American Century The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was a neoconservativeDick Cheney Richard Bruce Cheney ( ; born January 30, 1941) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He is currently the oldest living former U ...

Paul Wolfowitz Paul Dundes Wolfowitz (born December 22, 1943) is an American political scientist and diplomat who served as the 10th President of the World Bank, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia, and former dean of Johns Hopkins SA ...

Donald Rumsfeld Donald Henry Rumsfeld (July 9, 1932 – June 29, 2021) was an American politician, government official and businessman who served as Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under president Gerald Ford, and again from 2001 to 2006 under Presi ...

Jeb Bush John Ellis "Jeb" Bush (born February 11, 1953) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. Bush, who grew up in Houston, was the second son of former President George H. W. Bush a ...

, and

Dan Quayle James Danforth Quayle (; born February 4, 1947) is an American politician who served as the 44th vice president of the United States from 1989 to 1993 under President George H. W. Bush. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republic ...

Summary

The film maintains that fear of

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

was manipulated to support goals which are in step with the PNAC; namely the overthrow of

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...

. Not just for control of regional strategic resources (

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

and

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...

), but to reassert American dominance on the

world In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

stage as a warning to potential adversaries. Interviews were conducted with critics such as

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...

and

Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Chemi ...

laureate

Jody Williams Jody Williams (born October 9, 1950) is an American political activist known for her work in banning anti-personnel landmines, her defense of human rights (especially those of women), and her efforts to promote new understandings of security i ...

. It also interviews policy analysts, military brass,

journalists A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

, insider observations from Chief UN Weapons Inspector

Scott Ritter William Scott Ritter Jr. (born July 15, 1961) is an American author and pundit and a former United States Marine Corps intelligence officer and United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) weapons inspector. He served as a junior military analyst d ...

and

Pentagon In geometry, a pentagon (from the Greek πέντε ''pente'' meaning ''five'' and γωνία ''gonia'' meaning ''angle'') is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simpl ...

whistleblower A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...

Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski. The historical context of the "

Bush Doctrine The Bush Doctrine refers to multiple interrelated foreign policy principles of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush. These principles include unilateralism, preemptive war, and regime change. Charles Krauthammer first used ...

" is examined and compared to Wolfowitz's PNAC philosophy. The film goes on to look at the "selling of American empire" and the possible economical, social, cultural and political implications it will have in

America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, and on the world if implemented further during Bush's second term.

Cast

Tariq Ali Tariq Ali (; born 21 October 1943) is a Pakistani-British political activist, writer, journalist, historian, filmmaker, and public intellectual. He is a member of the editorial committee of the ''New Left Review'' and ''Sin Permiso'', and con ...

Benjamin Barber Benjamin R. Barber (August 2, 1939 – April 24, 2017) was an American political theorist and author, perhaps best known for his 1995 bestseller, '' Jihad vs. McWorld'', and for 2013's ''If Mayors Ruled the World''. His 1984 book of political ...

Medea Benjamin Medea Benjamin (born Susan Benjamin; September 10, 1952) is an American political activist who was the co-founder of Code Pink with Jodie Evans and others.

Kevin Danaher Kevin Danaher (Irish, ''Caoimhín Ó Danachair'') (30 January 1913 – 14 March 2002) was an Irish folklorist with a special interest in ethnography and military history. Danaher is the author of 10 books about Irish traditional customs a ...

Mark Danner Mark David Danner (born November 10, 1958) is an American writer, journalist, and educator. He is a former staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' and frequent contributor to ''The New York Review of Books''. Danner specializes in U.S. foreign affa ...

Shadia Drury Shadia B. Drury (born 1950) is a Canadian academic and political commentator. She is a professor emerita at the University of Regina. In 2005, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Early life and education Drury was born in Egy ...

* Michael Dyson *

Daniel Ellsberg Daniel Ellsberg (born April 7, 1931) is an American political activist, and former United States military analyst. While employed by the RAND Corporation, Ellsberg precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the ''Pent ...

Michael Franti Michael Franti (born April 21, 1966) is an American rapper, musician, poet, activist, documentarian, and singer-songwriter, known for his participation in many musical projects, most with a political and social emphasis, including the Beatnigs ...

Stan Goff Stan Goff (born November 12, 1951, in San Diego, California) is an American anti-war activist, writer, and blogger. Prior to his activism Goff had a long career in the U.S. armed forces, serving in the United States Army from 1970 to 1996 with two ...

* William Hartung * Robert Jensen *

Chalmers Johnson Chalmers Ashby Johnson (August 6, 1931 – November 20, 2010) was an American political scientist specializing in comparative politics, and professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego. He served in the Korean War, was a consult ...

Jackson Katz Jackson T. Katz (born May 7, 1960) is an American educator, filmmaker, and author. He has created a gender violence prevention and education program entitled 'Mentors in Violence Prevention', which is used by U.S. military and various sporting or ...

* Michael T. Klare * Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski (Ret.) *

Norman Mailer Nachem Malech Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007), known by his pen name Norman Kingsley Mailer, was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, activist, filmmaker and actor. In a career spanning over six decades, Mailer ...

Zia Mian Zia Mian (Urdu: ضياء میاں ) is a Pakistani-American physicist, Nuclear engineering, nuclear expert, nuclear policy maker and research scientist at Princeton University. Currently, he is the director of the Project on Peace and Securit ...

Mark Crispin Miller Mark Crispin Miller (born 1949) is a professor of media studies at New York University. He has promoted conspiracy theories about U.S. presidential elections, the September 11 attacks and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting as well as misinf ...

Vandana Shiva Vandana Shiva (born 5 November 1952) is an Indian scholar, environmental activist, food sovereignty advocate, ecofeminist and anti-globalisation author. Based in Delhi, Shiva has written more than 20 books. She is often referred to as "Gandhi ...

Norman Solomon Norman Solomon (born July 7, 1951) is an American journalist, media critic, activist, and former U.S. congressional candidate. Solomon is a longtime associate of the media watch group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR). In 1997 he founde ...

* Greg Speeter * Fernando Suarez del Solar *

Immanuel Wallerstein Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein (; September 28, 1930 – August 31, 2019) was an American sociologist and economic historian. He is perhaps best known for his development of the general approach in sociology which led to the emergence of his worl ...

* Max WolffUniversity of Missour
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & Selling of American Empire
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References

External links

''Hijacking Catastrophe'' - Official Website

Media Education Foundation
* * {{Rotten Tomatoes, hijacking_catastrophe_9_11_fear_the_selling_of_american_empire, Hijacking Catastrophe 2004 films 2004 documentary films American documentary films Documentary films about politics Documentary films about the September 11 attacks 2000s American films

Summary

Cast

See also

References

External links