Sept. 11th ABC Movie - Historically Accurate

Sometimes Hollywood does get it right. The landings at the beaches of Normandy in the Steven Spielberg movie, Saving Private Ryan is a vivid, stunning, blood and gore portrayal of the horror that young American troops freeing the world of Adolph Hitler faced. No book could portray this experience as accurately as the movie.

The disney company through its ABC subsidiary, has put together a $40 million dollar 5 hour experience of the events leading up to the September 11th tragedy at the world Trade Centers. Being a student of national security I was deeply surprised at how accurate the movie is. Even some of the actors physically looked like some of the actual participants in the events.

The senior Democratic leadership in the Congress pleaded with the network not to air the movie. They felt that the Democrats were being shown in a bad light, which they were. If you want to lead a country, you must take the hit politically when you are caught on the wrong side of an issue.

Beginning with Jimmy Carter, this country has treated acts of terrorism as a judicial process, a law and order issue, and not an ACT OF war. This policy was continued by every President, Republican or Democratic for over a quarter of a century, only President Bush to his credit, decided to call it what it is, war. Its the desire on the part of Islamic extremists to make the world unsafe for democracy.

The Democrats have much to lose because Senator Hillary Clinton would like to be President in the next 24 months, and former President Clinton is taking a hit on this movie as well. Bill Clinton personally called Robert Iger, the CEO of disney, and ABCs parent company to ask him to cancel the 5 hour drama. Clinton was told that the show was still being edited, and this was just 4 days before it would appear on television. Nobody edits that close to airtime. Whos kidding who? Nevertheless, it looks like 15 to 20 minutes were cut from the first nights portrayal.

one of the scenes that were altered at the former Presidents request showed Sandy Berger, former national security advisor to President Clinton in a telephone conversation with leaders of the CIA. The agency had a real time, live ground operation in progress to capture Osama Bin Laden going on while Berger on the phone simultaneously, couldnt make up his mind whether to proceed. Mens lives were at risk, and Berger cant make a decision. Finally, Berger hangs up the telephone rather than be pinned down. The scene showing Berger hanging up the phone was deleted.

Berger certainly doesnt come up in a good light. Neither does former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright for that matter. When it came to giving the approval to go after Bin Laden, Albright makes it very clear that regional considerations must come first, and then theres President Clinton himself. The movie does some job portraying the former President as out of touch, and even weak towards terrorism. To a very great extent this was simply the former President following in the same footsteps as every President before him during the preceding 25 years.

Former Presidents have all played the same tune. They treated terrorism as a legal issue. These people must be arrested, and brought to justice. Terrorists were waging war against the United States, and we in turn were waving arrest warrants, and grand jury indictments at them. This was just as true of Republican Presidents as well as Democratic Presidents. Nobody in a leadership position in Washington wanted to take on the terrorism issue.

It was far easier and face saving, to call it a legal issue. The current President George Bush changed all that. Whatever you think of the current President, he is the first American President in a quarter of a century to deal with terrorism for what it is, terrorism. It is a war pure and simple.

Now there are a lot of people in the world that hate us, thats the bad part. The good part is that 99% of these people dont have the money, energy, knowledge, or guts to follow through on their hatred. They cant execute, they cant get it done. Bin Laden had the wherewithal, and the organization to follow through, and thats just what he did. Ask anyone in the CIA, and they will tell you that the 9/11 plot was in no way the work of amateurs.

If you asked an intelligence agent his objective opinion, he would probably tell you the operation was well thought out, well run, well financed, and well executed. The cell even used our own technology (GPS tracking), and openness of our society against us. It was kept a small operation by the terrorists, and the goal was something that in an open society was unthinkable.

The ABC movie showed the continuing power of visual media over books. You can write a thousand books, but one movie can be seen by a hundred times people than those who read books.

Bin Laden knew the power of visuals. This is why he wanted the full force of the media to be involved in this tragedy, and thats just what he got. The man is evil, and hes a terrorist. We must also realize that with his money and organization he represents a threat that we have not seen before or since. He should have been dealt with by now. The scale of the danger he represents is too great, for this menace to be left alive in the mountains of Pakistan where he lurks.

Goodbye and Good Luck

Richard Stoyeck

Richard Stoyecks background includes being a limited partner at Bear Stearns, Senior VP at Lehman Brothers, Kuhn Loeb, Arthur Andersen, and KPMG. Educated at Pace University, NYU, and Harvard University, today he runs Rockefeller Capital Partners and StocksAtBottom.com.

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Playing Golf Shots Over Water

If I gave you a million dollars do you think you may have one or two thoughts about the money? Of course you would. If we were driving very fast along a road perhaps you would have some thoughts about the speed we were travelling? Quite probably. And if you were standing on the tee of a 170 yard par 3 hole with a small lake in front of the green do you think you may have some thoughts about the water? Absolutely!

But what very often happens is that the instant those thoughts appear we become lost in a drama. We act as if there is something wrong with the thought. Perhaps we focus on what we dont want to happen - OK, just keep it out of the water, the voice in our head tells us, so we swing not really sure if we are laying up, going for the green, or focussing on the water. A top, a fat shot or a splash is the likely result.

Or perhaps faced with this shot we try and convince ourselves that the water isnt there, we visualise it as grass or use some other mental trick to try and block out what we see. There is no water we may tell ourselves on one level, but at a deeper level we know it is there, weve seen it, and we are not fully integrated as we swing.

Surely it would be better just to acknowledge reality. See the water, decide what shot you can confidently play (there is no shame in laying up if that is what you know you can comfortably do), fully commit to that shot, and play it.

I used to get a bit anxious when faced with a shot over water. But then I realised I was making this much more significant than it really was. It wasnt so much a water trap, more of a mind trap.

The nervous system sees water and produces a thought about it - thats absolutely normal. What begins to drag us down is when we react to that perfectly normal thought and begin to make a story about it - Oh, oh, maybe Ill use a cheap ball on this hole, just in case I drop it in, or Oh heck, the last time I was here I knocked two balls into the lake. You dont need that kind of pressure. We jump forward into what if? scenarios, or drag up all of our past mistakes. We are certainly not fresh and in this moment with this shot.

One of the things that makes the GolfInTheMoment approach so unique is that we are not trying to control our thoughts. That is virtually impossible and uses us a horrific amount of mental and physical energy. Its much easier to simply let them be, but not get involved with them. Life is experienced with much more peace and fluidity in this way.

These past few weeks I have been working with the head professional of a leading course in scotland. Last week we played the Torrance course at St. Andrews Bay resort, a beautiful links course which I highly recommend. As we were playing he shared that he often experienced fear at times during competitive matches, and he had tried many methods to manage or reduce this. When we looked a bit closer at this it became obvious that the biggest fear he faced was the fear that fear may strike. This induces timidity into our play, where we focus on trying to hold it together during a competitive round rather than relaxing and exploring just how good we can be on that particular day.

But he was now beginning to have a different experience as he was able to use these new techniques to let go of trying to control his thoughts and emotions. He felt freer, able to see that he had a choice, and that if he simply didnt get involved with the thoughts and emotions they would move on their own anyway.

And very often our interpretation of them is wrong. For example, those first-tee nerves that you have convinced yourself you always have - well, maybe thats just excitement. They both have a similar physical sensation.

So, your homework from this article is very simple - let everything be as it is, just accept it. Thoughts are normal and natural, and having energy moving through your body is absolutely OK.

And if you really want to go for broke, take a ball and deliberately play it into the water, then take a look around. Is there any blood on the ground? Have your arms fallen off? Have you gone bankrupt as a result of it? Has anything in your world suddenly fallen apart? No, so lets get some perspective on this thing, eh? Even the best players find water now and then, and they accept that it is part of the game. So if that attitude serves them it surely will serve you too. Until next time, have fun.

Mahadeva Ishaya is a monk of the Ishaya Order, and also an avid golfer. He is the publisher of http://www.golfinthemoment.com which is committed to helping golfers of all abilities realise that mastery of the "inner game" of golf is not only vital, but simple and enjoyable.

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