Lessons from 'Looming Tower' on 9/11
Most people I know were too young to comprehend what happened on 9/11. Yet the broader truth is that even Americans who were old enough to grasp the horror—including those in our own government—were unable to grasp why a little-known terror cell composed of men whose names all but eight Arabic speaking FBI agents could not pronounce hated the United States so much as to kill almost 3,000 civilians and first responders.
Looming Tower, streaming on Hulu, provides historically based insight into how a rivalry and subsequent lack of communication and preparedness in the FBI and CIA led to 9/11, making a convincing argument that given what Alec Station at the CIA knew, and given what FBI agents in the field had hunches on, could have prevented the attacks entirely. Starring Jeff Daniels playing FBI agent John O’Neill, the show follows a dedicated patriot who suffers the ultimate irony: losing his life in the twin towers after being forced out of the bureau to end up taking a job as head of security for the World Trade Center.
The show also features a breakout performance from Tahar Rahim, who plays agent Ali Soufan, another historically accurate character who was one of only eight Arabic speaking agents in the FBI at the time. His gift for empathetic interrogation techniques, particularly with Abu Jandel, led to groundbreaking intelligence in the aftermath of the attacks that revealed where the majority of Al-Qaeda was operating in Afghanistan.
Yet Soufan and O’Neill’s dogged work was constantly impeded by Alec Station at the CIA, led by the amalgamated characters (whose real identities are concealed due to undercover operations after 9/11) of Martin Schmidt (Peter Sarsgaard) and his protégé Diane Marsh (Wrenn Schmidt). Schmidt and Sarsgaard deliver immaculate performances as sticklers and elitists within the CIA who obstruct any formidable coordination between the agencies. While they are portrayed as having their own genuine convictions about the protection of the country, their condescending treatment of the FBI blinds them to the imminent threat of Osama Bin Laden and his recruits.
Looming Tower also boasts performances by 2017 ringer Michael Stuhlbarg (the dad from Call Me By Your Name) and Eyad Nassar, who play National Security Coordinator Richard Clarke and Yemen Captain Amin, respectively. Nassar in particular stands out as a figure emblematic of the bind officials in Arab countries face in dealing with the legitimate grievances of their constituents while trying to combat extremism.
More than anything, Looming Tower is a warning of the arrogance and misplaced retaliation that permeates the War on Terror. It’s a show where one can learn far more in a binge-watch than most, and its weekly installments, which ended this week, left the viewer with an indeed looming sense of unease about our preparedness and very understanding of the extreme fundamentalism that threatens civilians the world over.
A lingering scene that should live on from the show is when Soufan interrogates Abu Jandel, guilting him for not properly knowing the Quran. He concludes with a maxim that has stuck with me ever since I read the book as a junior in college for the College of Letters medieval colloquium: “Whoever kills a soul [unjustly], it is as though he has killed all mankind. And whoever saves a life, it is as if he had saved all of mankind.”