I highly recommend this impressive piece of journalism
I watched it last night and came away reminded of the days when journalists actually told us what was really going on with our government and the world. It was quite comprehensive of what's happened in the last 10 years since 9/11. Over the last ten years Richard Engel has interviewed the CIA agent who headed the 400 man operation into Afghanistan just after 9/11 as well as leaders and members of terrorist sects in different parts of the world and a terrorist who worked with Bin Laden and who was sent to Guantanamo and released and now lives in Saudi Arabia. His interviews showed how Al Qaeda under Bin Laden was devastated very early by that initial CIA incursion into Afghanistan. There was no need to go to war there. The Northern Alliance was already defeating the Taliban with the help of those 400 CIA agents who took suitcases full of money to pay them to kill the Taliban. It was a very effective operation.
They showed the rise of security in the US and how it's become huge with the creation of the TSA. They talked about all the attacks since then - the shoe bomber, the underpants bomber, the shootings in Fort Hood, as well as all the attacks in other countries, even the group of Floridians and others who were entrapped by the CIA. And they showed and talked about how the NYPD has changed to be one of the most prepared terrorist fighting organizations in the world. The Police Commissioner, Raymond Kelly said that after Katrina he realized that because NYC is such an international target he realized the City was on it's own when it came to taking care of themselves. Richard Engel interviewed policemen from different sub-organizations within the department, such as divers who go down into the East River every single day for hours looking for explosives. He went with them and they all wore diving suits that covered everything including their ears and had complete face masks because the water is so polluted and dark and muddy that they can't expose any skin in it. When they come out of the water they have to be hosed down thoroughly. He went up on rooftops to talk to police snipers and he took a ride in a helicopter that has cameras that can take detailed videos of things as far away as a mile and a half. They also showed him the cameras have infrared and can pick up the glow of a cigarette that far away. He went to their 'war room' in Brooklyn that has all the latest technology and was shown the huge array of outdoor cameras that most people don't even know are there. There are so many that one person walking around can be tracked all the time he or she is outdoors. And I'm very sure Richard Engel wasn't shown most of the stuff.
Richard Engel also interviewed American soldiers he spent time with in Afghanistan in a remote outpost who were attacked by the Taliban while he was there.
There's more as they talked about torture and rendition and Guantanamo and Abu Grahib and how going to war in Iraq created more terrorists and about the run up to the wars and how difficult it is to end these wars because they're against a strategy of terrorism which will never go away.
It was like a blast from the past when journalists covered stories in depth. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Rachel and Richard don't get some journalism prize for this. Of course this is stuff most here on DU have known about, but most Americans don't know these things. Day of Destruction is the kind of documentary style journalistic masterpiece that will bring even the most ignorant person up to speed on our history of the last ten years.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/31/rachel-maddow-day-destruction-_n_943901.htmledited to add link
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