Who has seen the movie "The Siege"?

[HughMoran]

I watched it on Spike tonight - I was shocked to see that it was made in 1998. Is this movie where Bushco got many of it's paranoid ideas of Arabs and Iraq from? It sure seems like it :crazy:

I'm not good at summarizing what I've seen, but here is analysis written by someone (Wiki)

Analysis
Controversially, the film depicted mass internment of people of Arab appearance, regarded as an unlikely scenario at the time of the film's pre-9/11 release.

Although released nearly three years before the September 11th attacks, some elements of the film can be seen as prescient, such as the depiction of attacks on New York City by Islamist terrorists, including attacks on US government buildings. It also seemed to predict the anti-arabism in the USA that occured to a limited extent following 9/11.<1>

"Blowback" is a key theme of the film. "Blowback" is a CIA term used to describe the unintended consequences of their covert operations abroad.<2> In the film, U.S. foreign policy in Iraq plays a clear role in the terrorists' motives. The CIA supported Sheik Ahmed bin Talal and his followers' efforts to overthrow Saddam Hussein. To this end, the CIA taught his followers tradecraft, subversion and how to make bombs. Following a "policy shift", America stopped helping them, and Hussein slaughtered many of Talal's followers. Some of them, however, escaped to the United States and turned their frustration and resentment against the United States government.

Other ways in which The Siege presages 9/11 is the way that a major terrorist attack results in loss of civil liberties, and the lack of cooperation between American government agencies, in particular the FBI and CIA.

Interestingly, the script for The Siege was written by Lawrence Wright, who later, several years after 9/11, wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Looming Tower about Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 attack. This book highlights how the failure of the FBI and CIA to cooperate prevented them from uncovering the 9/11 terrorists and their plot until it was too late.

There was even the torture and killing of one terror suspect and the round-up and internement of anybody who looked Arab in New York.

Yikes, how very prescient indeed! :nuke:

[Midlodemocrat]

1. Is that the one with Annette Bening? If so, yes, I've seen it more than once.

[HughMoran]

2. Yep, Denzel Washington, Annete Bening, Tony Shalhoub & Bruce Willis (bad guy)

I think I have seen it before too, but I don't recall the creepy feeling that this actually is happening in many ways now.

[TheWraith]

3. Yup. Also Denzel Washington, Tony Shaloub, and Bruce Willis. Good movie. NT

[Rick Myers]

4. Good movie, Bruce Willis' performance was lame!

[Alexander]

5. I remember the majority of pre-9/11 IMDb comments said the film was "unrealistic"

As late as August 2001.

My, how times change.

[WCGreen]

6. The book was better.....

It was about Black Nationalists taking over New York...

[Bright Eyes]

7. Yes, i actually liked it very much.

Good movie.