United 93 Website Gets an F in History
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The purpose of Universal Pictures’ United 93 is to commemorate “one of the most heroic legacies of the incomprehensible tragedies that unfolded on that autumn morning.” David Beamer, whose son Todd was one of those heroes on September 11th, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that United 93 is “a dose of reality about this war and the real enemy we face,” and that the filmmakers “got it right.”
United 93 has an official website, which purports to educate its visitors by answering the question, “Why Do They Hate America?” Unfortunately, the short article giving the answer, entitled “Conflicts Past and Present,” is replete with historical errors and does more to mislead than inform the reader.
First, the website promulgates the fashionable but unfounded myth that the conflict between Islam and the West began with the Crusades. The author ignores the four centuries of Muslim expansion that preceded those European invasions. This rapid expansion was accomplished at the expense of the Christian Middle East, North Africa, Mediterranean islands, and Iberia. Jerusalem fell into Arab hands in 638, and Muslims invaded Spain in 711 and France in 732. The First Crusade was launched centuries later in 1096.
Second, the article alleges that the Ottoman Empire eventually “won back Constantinople (which changed hands several times before the modern day name change of Istanbul).” While it is true that the Byzantine capital changed hands when Christian Crusaders sacked it in 1204, Islam never conquered it until 1453.
Third, the site states that the Ottomans captured Vienna in 1683, and argues that from that point on “[t]here were now two equally powerful sides and a widening gulf between what would later be called the East and West.” Vienna was never conquered by the Turks, who failed to capture it twice. In fact, 1683 is considered the beginning of the decline of the Ottoman Empire, not its golden age. Far from a widening gulf between East and West, the following centuries of Turkish decline were precisely when the West began to strengthen.
The final problem is that the article does not explain why Islamic terrorists (or insurgents, or whatever term you would like to use) have chosen to wage jihad against us. Bin Laden once succinctly explained his worldview the following way: “Either Islam or atheism.” He has declared a defensive jihad and lists among his grievances American support for Israel, European support for America, and Western military deployments in the Muslim world. We are under attack because the global jihadist movement seeks to recreate the Islamic caliphate that once stretched from Spain to Asia. As President Bush said so eloquently on September 20, 2001, “They stand against us, because we stand in their way.”
United 93 is an important opportunity to remind Americans why we fight. The causal explanation the producers have provided for the events they dramatize, however, fails even the most rudimentary fact-check. This is a gross disservice to those the film commemorates, and to those serving on the frontlines in a global war we did not instigate.
Note: The full text of “Conflicts Past and Present” is available here: http://www.u93.org/why_do_they_hate_america/conflicts_past_and_present. Readers are also encouraged to read a historical backgrounder provided by the Associates of Military History (amh.freehosting.net), of which the authors are members.
