With the opening of the September 11 Memorial Museum, this form requests commentary from scholars on the script of a film in its permanent exhibition. On April 24, The New York Times reported that for months the museum had rejected the advice of its Interfaith Advisory Group to make changes to "The Rise of Al-Qaeda" -- to add further definition and context for certain terminology related to Islam. The museum has refused to list the academic advisors who vetted the film, and it seems very few scholars, if any, approved the final script. Until the museum's opening, the museum refused the requests of Arab-American, Muslim, Sikh, and South Asian civil rights organizations to view the film.

This form requests substantive commentary on the film's script and its central topics. Responses will be used to provide scholar reaction to national and international media, and the reactions may be synthesized into a letter/report sent to the museum that will be circulated after the initial reactions are processed. The responses will also be available for researchers into the future. Please do not feel obligated to respond to all questions: in fact, please only respond to questions, and the parts of the questions, where you possess significant expertise and desire to comment. Read the script in full, and then consider the questions below. Feel free to respond as briefly or as fully as needed.

THE RISE OF AL-QAEDA, NARRATED BY NBC NEWS ANCHOR BRIAN WILLIAMS

[WRITTEN STATEMENT AT START: This program describes the emergence of the terrorist organization that carried out the 9/11 attacks. It concentrates on a period of roughly 15 years, beginning with al-Qaeda’s founding during the Soviet-Afghan War and concluding with its rationale and planning for the attacks of 2001.

The program tracks al-Qaeda’s embrace of violence and the decision of its leadership to commit mass murder at the dawn of the 21st century.]

[THROUGHOUT PROGRAM WHEN A STATE, LIKE PAKISTAN, IS MENTIONED, A FLOATING MAP OF THE COUNTRY APPEARS IN GREEN ON THE BLACK SCREEN, NOT CONNECTED TO ANY OTHER TOPOGRAPHY]

[Images of people leaving the WTC in 1993, of the WTC burning on 9/11]

The World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and the 9/11 attacks both emerged out of a period of radicalization in the Middle East among some followers of Islam, which is among the world’s major religions.

[Image of Headline from newspaper, "Extremist Moslem Brotherhood Is Stirring Again" -- NYT piece from November 28, 1970 -- then highlights the phrases “rid the Islamic world of foreign domination” and “Islam as social policy” with the rest of the context of the sentence blurred out]

During the second half of the 20th century, political groups known as Islamists began to oppose governments they believed were not ruling in accordance with Islamic law, or were being manipulated by foreign ideologies and powers. Their objective was to replace those governments with religious states organized according to their own strict interpretation of Islamic law.

[Images of people in the streets during the Iranian revolution and of the Grand Mosque attack in Saudi Arabia]

By the late 1970s, several independent historic events showed these movements becoming increasingly militant, the most violent among them typically represented fringe elements within the greater community of Islam.

[Images of Afghan fighters and Soviet military]

When indigenous Muslim groups rose up against the communist government of Afghanistan, the Soviet Union sent in armed forces to support the government. The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan inspired militants from around the Muslim world to fight alongside Afghan opposition groups known as mujahideen to defeat the Soviets.

[Images of Bin Laden with beard and turban, and fighters marching and firing weapons]

Among those inspired to defend Afghanistan was Osama bin Laden, the wealthy son of a Saudi Arabian construction magnate. He travelled to Pakistan to support this new effort which was seen as a jihad, a struggle to defend Islam. Bin Laden raised funds and used some of his own personal wealth to support Arab fighters who would cross the border into Afghanistan. He eventually organized his own force of Arab mujahideen to fight the Soviets. The United States government also supported the Afghan rebellion against its Cold War rival the Soviet Union. The CIA funneled money and arms through Pakistan’s intelligence agency. This funding was directed to native Afghans. Arab fighters had their own resources.

[Images of Soviet fighters leaving (or moving at least); images of fighters celebrating and raising AK-47s]

After almost a decade of war, the Soviets started to withdraw from Afghanistan having lost more than 13,000 troops having failed to defeat the mujahideen. While Arab fighters had little to do with defeating the Soviets, Bin Laden viewed the victory as evidence that a group of true believers could topple a superpower. He formed a new organization Al-Qaeda which in Arabic means “the base.” Al-Qaeda would be a mobile army of fighters serving as the base from which armed jihad would be waged.

[Video of King Fahd smiling]

When Iraq invaded Kuwait, Bin Laden offered Saudi King Fahd the use of his al-Qaeda fighting force to defend the neighboring kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden’s proposal was rejected. King Fahd invited U.S. troops to provide that military presence. This infuriated Bin Laden who believed that Saudi Arabia, as home to Islam’s two holiest sites in Mecca and Medina, should be free of nonbelievers.

[Image of apartment building in Khartoum, apparently tied to Bin Laden; images of training in Afghanistan(?)]

Bin Laden’s anger now focused on the United States and the Saudi royal family. Going forward al-Qaeda was dedicated to removing all Western influence from Muslim lands. In 1994, the Saudi government revoked Bin Laden’s citizenship. He established a base for al-Qaeda’s operation in Sudan, but was expelled from that country in May of 96 and returned to Afghanistan. Just three months after returning to Afghanistan, Bin Laden openly issued a declaration of war against the United States, demanding that American forces leave Saudi Arabia. Al-Qaeda also hoped to end U.S. support for the state of Israel.

In 1998, Bin Laden was joined by Ayman Al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian militant he met in Pakistan during the Soviet-Afghan War. Earlier Zawahiri had helped plan terrorist attacks aimed at overthrowing the government in Egypt with the goal of establishing a fundamentalist state governed by Islamic law. He would now play a vital role in determining al-Qaeda’s strategy.

[Video of young Zawahiri speaking, with heavy accent, from a jail cell with glasses and beard]

Zawahiri: We believed in our religion, both as an ideology and practice. And hence, we tried our best to establish an Islamic state and Islamic society.

Bin Laden and Zawahiri expanded their pronouncements in 1998 to call for and justify the indiscriminate killing of Americans and their allies. This position marked a turning point for al-Qaeda and moved into an even farther fringe of radical Islam. Bin Laden’s threats of violence against the U.S. were broadcast nationally to American audiences.

Bin Laden: All Americans are our enemy, not just the ones who fight us, but also the ones who pay their taxes.

Al-Qaeda would follow through on its threats by first attacking American targets abroad. In 1998, Al-Qaeda bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people including 12 Americans. In response, the FBI placed Bin Laden on its Most Wanted List.

[Images of people raising Qurans and AK-47s, and marching with flags with Islamic writings]

Two years later, Al-Qaeda organized an attack on the USS Cole in Yemen that killed 17 American sailors. By 2000, al-Qaeda’s plans to take the fight to the American homeland were already underway. The objective was to attack symbols of American military, political, and economic power, killing 1000s of innocent civilians. Al-Qaeda believed that such a spectacular attack would lead to the withdrawal of U.S. troops and diminish American influence in Muslim lands, paving the way for the rule of Islamic law in those nations.