Banned in the Arab World, Everyone Should See This Film

On Friday, the day "United 93" opened in New York, I watched the movie at an Upper West Side theater. As the credits rolled, no one in the audience of about 300 moved. The ushers did not attempt to start sweeping the aisles. We stared silently at the screen, together. Someone quietly cleared his throat.

Afterward, I walked home in a daze, oblivious to the sunny weather and anxious to call friends to talk about the experience. Most of them assured me that they could not sit through it, or expressed their disapproval.

"I cannot see it, it is too early," my cousin Sandra said. "It's bad enough these families suffered. Why put them through it again?"

In fact, the families of Flight 93's passengers, whose last words were repeated by the film's actors - words like "I love you, honey," spoken to children, spouses, or parents - overwhelmingly approved of the project.

Other Americans might well consider their wisdom: Never forget and certainly never forgive.

I myself was initially ambivalent about the movie. But as I stepped out of the theater and onto Broadway, I began to think Americans have a duty to make "United 93" accessible, not just at movie houses around New York and the rest of the country, but at schools and universities. It should be available free on the Internet, and dubbed into Arabic.

Arab governments will ban "United 93." In turn, the undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, Karen Hughes, should spring into action to ensure the film bypasses such restrictions and is seen widely.

"United 93" and other films in production about the attacks of September 11, 2001, must fortify a resolve to take revenge - yes, I said revenge - on behalf of the Americans who lived through the assault and Western societies in general. Revenge, rather than forgiveness, will stop such an act of violence from recurring.

The Islamic fundamentalists, Arabs, Muslims, and Europeans who approved of the attacks, whether overtly or quietly,must experience a reckoning.

The movie facilitates that voyage. The anonymous casting and stark cinematography give it the air of a documentary - spare and unsweetened. Such a stripping away of Hollywood gimmicks allows viewers to focus on what happened to America on September 11, 2001.

Audience response may move from anxiety to fear to outrage as director Paul Greengrass captures innocent passengers drinking their morning coffee, scores of air traffic controllers in New York,Newark, Baltimore, Washington, Boston, and the North American Aerospace Defense Command watching America's skies be taken over.

Many of the air traffic controllers played themselves in the film. The normally calm professionals relive the moments during which a new reality dawned upon them, when they came unhinged.

Meanwhile, four killers exchanged furtive looks from their seats, as sweat beaded at their temples, their crazy eyes darted about the cabin, their lips muttered Koranic verses, and their hands fondled box cutters intended to slit the throats of the pilot, co-pilot, flight attendants, and any passengers that got in the way.

The hijacking pilot, Ziad Jarrah, was once a nice boy, sent by his wealthy secular Muslim parents to a Beirut Catholic school. Now he was an assassin trained in Afghanistan by bearded Islamist instructors, who had him slitting throats of sheep in practice for efficiently finding the jugular of a human being.

Unlike other victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks, Flight 93 passengers knew what was to become of them. By 8:30 a.m. that day, it was clear that at least one passenger plane had been hijacked. At 8:42 a.m., Flight 93 took off from Newark only to learn about the others. The passengers were getting cell phone calls and learning what was happening. They knew what might occur thousands of feet above the earth as they ascended.

That is the pure evil we are up against.