Siege (1998)

The Siege is a 1998 terrorist film made before 9/11.

10 out of 10 stars.  The screenplay for this film was written by Lawrence Wright, a journalist who spent a great deal of time in the Middle East.  Although this shows up on Prime and Netflix every year around 9/11, it was written three years BEFORE 9/11.  That’s right.  We knew about al-Quaeda and independent cells three years before 9/11 and the CIA never revealed this information to the FBI.  :0

Background

When this film came out, no one believed that this was possible.  The CIA couldn’t possibly be this stupid.  Neither could the president.  Then three years later, terrorists flew planes into the twin towers and the Pentagon.  It was the complete failure of the CIA to share vital intel with the FBI.

Plot

This film begins with the kidnapping of a terrorist leader who is a popular imam (Muslim priest).  The CIA kidnaps him then lies about having him which causes a series of bombings in New York City, including the FBI Counterterrorism building.  Eventually the President declares martial law and it gets much, much worse.  The CIA is still not sharing info with the FBI and the FBI is made a target, resulting in only a handful of FBI agents left to fight the terrorist cells.  Every Muslim male in the United States, even the ones born here, are immediately detained and put in internment camps.  Meanwhile, the bomber is working for the CIA as a paid informant.  Which happens quite often actually.

What’s interesting to know is that three years before 9/11 happened, we knew that terrorists had evolved the way they worked and that one cell would be in charge of one terrorist act and once that act was completed, the next cell would take over and commit their terrorist act, then the next and so on.  After 9/11, the news widely spread disinformation that this was a new method.  It was not.

10 out of 10 stars.  This is an excellent film on terrorism and what dangers martial law and the CIA operating inside U.S. borders pose.  All of it is true.  The Report was a 2019 film that exposed the facts about 9/11 and the CIA’s failure to tell the truth.  Torture of terrorist suspects produced no useful information.  It also revealed that the FBI caught Osama bin Laden in spite of the CIA’s incompetence (led by then Director of CIA John Brennan), contrary to the lies in the film Zero Dark Thirty.

CIA Director John Brennan should have been tried as a mass murderer.  He was not.  He should have been tried as a traitor for repeatedly violating the constitution and detainees constitutional rights.  He wasn’t.  Neither were Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld who repeatedly lied about their involvement.

CIA vs. FBI

If you weren’t born in this country, or you didn’t pay attention during history or government classes, here’s  short primer on the duties and limitations of the CIA and FBI.  The CIA is the Central Intelligence Agency and is in charge of keeping the United States safe from foreign enemies.  The FBI is the Federal Bureau of Intelligence and is in charge of keeping the United States safe from domestic enemies (people inside our country).  The CIA is not permitted to operate in the U.S.  The FBI is not permitted to operated outside of the U.S.  And yet those laws are broken on a regular basis.