Against a barren central Asian landscape, an American special action team moves in for a "snatch" operation on Osama bin Laden. But back in Washington, DC, Clinton's National Security Advisor cannot bring himself to make the final call. Clip & Synopsis via Redstate
The Americans and their local allies are stunned to find themselves countermanded by the Clinton Administration at the moment of decision. Frustrated and alone in a hostile land, they contemplate a needless failure as their Afghan allies reproach them. Back in Washington, DC, Bill Clinton becomes less preoccupied with American security, and more preoccupied with his impending impeachment. Out in east Africa, al Qaeda plots its next move. Clip & Synopsis via Redstate
In Nairobi, Kenya, horrific slaughter ensues as al Qaeda attacks the American embassy. Clinton's DCI receives a teary remonstrance from the only sane person in the entire American intelligence hierarchy in those days. Clip & Synopsis via Redstate
A team of Americans and Kenyans tracks a reluctant jihadi through a Nairobi slum. A chase ensues, and the fugitive is caught. "American devil!" he yells in Arabic, but one assumes real devils wouldn't take prisoners. A threatening crowd of slum-dwellers gathers, toting machetes, but the Americans escape. Back in DC, bureaucrats and the NSA discuss how the Lewinsky investigation is hampering the President's efforts. Madeleine Albright argues against taking on the Taliban on purely legalistic grounds. William Cohen opines that going to war is an "overreaction." The clown carnival plans its infamously ineffectual cruise-missile strikes on Afghanistan and the Sudan. The Sudanese are predictably irate. Clip & Synopsis via Redstate
The Sudanese express their anger at America by trashing their own neighborhoods. Ayman al-Zawahiri calls ABC News for a friendly chat. Massoud's Northern Alliance suffers a Taliban offensive in response to the American strikes. Massoud himself is piqued: why did the Americans ever trust the perfidious Pakistanis whose forewarning saved bin Laden? Thank God we've learned that lesson. George Tenet, Sandy Berger and Madeleine Albright exchange harsh words. Clip & Synopsis via Redstate
Khalid Sheikh Muhammed: champion offroader! And hideous villain, too -- the man has it all. We see an al Qaeda training camp in operation. It's like the Boy Scouts, but with automatic weapons, none of the Christian overtones, and twice the recreational sodomy. KSM reveals he has a secret plan in mind. He calls it "The Planes Operation." It involves....planes. As dusk falls, the jihadis machine-gun a projection screen upon which Clinton's visage is speaking, thereby eliminating the sole source of entertainment in Waziristan, and disrespecting their own MVP. KSM and al-Zawahiri exchange tender words. Much desert scenery and ululating ensues. Clip & Synopsis via Redstate
September 11, 2001. Teams of terrorist hijackers board four American airliners and take control of the cockpits. Passengers and flight controllers quickly learn something is terribly wrong....
February 1993. On a similarly ordinary day, New York is stunned by a deadly bombing at the World Trade Center. The discovery of a traceable van part at the site leads to the arrest of one of the conspirators, and he is linked to a mosque led by the Blind Sheikh, a radical cleric. A valuable FBI informant helps bring down the cleric and his cell. A manhunt for elusive WTC bomber Ramzi Yousef ensues, and he narrowly escapes capture in Pakistan, where he is linked to the attempted assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Yousef travels to the Philippines, where he tests an innovative small bomb that kills a flight passenger and comes close to bringing down the plane as well. He's almost captured again when a fire at his bomb-making lab exposes to Manila police his plot involving the simultaneous bombings of a dozen airliners.
Yousef is finally brought down when an informant in Pakistan tips off a team of agents working in coordination with FBI counterterrorism expert John O'Neill. Yousef's trail leads them to a rebel named Usama bin Laden.
In 1998, journalist John Miller's interview with bin Laden is broadcast, and O'Neill and others in Washington are alarmed by the al Qaeda leader's fatwa against the U.S. CIA field agent "Kirk" contacts bin Laden's primary opposition, General Massoud of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, and they concoct a plan to capture bin Laden and bring him to the U.S. to face justice. The plan is never approved for action, but the simultaneous bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa push the Administration to respond with an ineffective missile strike that some think merely elevates bin Laden's stature in the Muslim world. Arrests of al Qaeda operatives at the Canadian-U.S. border and in New York on the eve of the millennium provide further evidence that Muslim extremists are bringing their holy war to America.
NIGHT TWO
The October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole sends O'Neill and his team to Yemen, where he runs afoul of the U.S. Ambassador, who tries to have O'Neill recalled to the States. The investigation in Yemen stalls, but the White House, confident bin Laden is behind the attack, continues to debate how to stop him.
In 2001, counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke's warnings about bin Laden are downplayed, as is an FBI agent's warning to his superiors that some suspicious individuals are learning to fly jet aircraft. O'Neill butts heads with the CIA over their lack of shared information, and while intelligence agencies squabble, al Qaeda terrorists, under the radar, continue with their hijacking plot.
O'Neill, his career stalled by an incident wherein he lost his laptop, and tired of the bureaucracy, retires from the FBI in August and takes over security at the WTC. Shortly thereafter, the Northern Alliance's Massoud, who had pressed the U.S. for assistance against the Taliban and warned that bin Laden might strike, is assassinated by al Qaeda agents. Two days later comes September 11, and O'Neill dies bravely, along with thousands of others, in an attack by the enemy he had devoted his career to thwarting.
In the aftermath, the 9/11 Commission is formed to study the events leading up to that fateful day and to form recommendations to confront the threat of terrorism.
