Category: 9/11

Communication and media: articles review

The nature of US news media coverage of the political responsibility for the September 11, 2001 terror attack is the point of concern that is highlighted in both articles. The big question across many journalists and political minds are whether the attacks could have been a defining event for the journalism fraternity in the United States? This could be attributed to the common saying that the incidence changed so many things about our world today (Hutcheson, et al., 2004).

In my response, it is not wrong to argue that the coverage of the political response by the US press following the event of the September 11 attacks was an exact indication of what many would expect from looking at the historical dilemma. However, concerning journalism, the attack merely highlighted the already existing anti-democratic tendencies. In their public communications, most US military and government leaders have distinctly articulated their pro-American themes which are widely covered by the media following the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. on September 11, 2001.

Further arguments claim that such national identity discourse was at the heart of the U.S. government’s attempt to mobilize support for the ensuing tough war on terrorism and to unite the American public at large (Hutcheson, et al., 2004). Findings of the analysis of two main news magazines, i.e. Newsweek and Times in this respect found out that journalists closely paralleled the common nationalist themes in their languages to identify potential communication strategies, secondly, they suggested that both government and military officials were in the constant emphasis of the American core themes and values of the United States power and strength as they simultaneously demonized the terrorist, being the enemy in this case (Zelizer, & Allan, 2002).

It can also be noted from the articles that studying government leaders’ mode of communication strategies through analysis of news content simply means studying the elites’ communications filtered by news media. However, it is the same media that has the potential of overemphasizing others or masking certain strategies. Since government leaders are aware of this, they simply craft public statements with the main objective of creating, distributing, controlling, and mediating messages as a political resource. Besides, political leaders with wishes to widely inculcating, affirming, and disseminating certain views widely among the citizenry are fully aware of this, and therefore in modern nation-states, they do so by use of the mass media (Zelizer, & Allan, 2002). Non-government opinion leaders have also been successful in getting their points of view and voices into the media.

To get experts’ viewpoints, journalists have become increasingly sensitive to their too-great reliance upon government sources, for this, they have sought non-government particularly those with a flair for public communication are in most cases approached by news media. Among the news source populations contrastingly, citizens seem to be the least strategic, therefore, the most likely to be at the “mercy” of journalist discretion.

A strong picture that affirms the US, national identity has been offered by the significant findings of Newsweek. In other words, the differences have been emphasized between news organizations and their distraction from the clear role of both of these news organizations concerning the discourses of post–September 11 national identity (Zelizer, & Allan, 2002). Lastly, in a similar manner, previous research has found relatively minor differences in news coverage between major U.S. news organizations, i.e. whether network television newscasts, newspapers, or newsmagazines.

References

Hutcheson,J., Domke,D., Billeaudeaux,A., & Garland., P.(2004).U.S. National Identity, Political Elites, and a Patriotic Press Following September 11, Political Communication, 21:27–50. Taylor & Francis Inc.

Zelizer, B., & Allan, S. (2002). Journalism after September 11, London and New York, Routledge.

Introduction

The research article under consideration for analysis is by Bacharach and Bamberger (2007) titled “9/11 and New York City firefighters’ post hoc unit support and control climates: A context theory of the consequences of involvement in traumatic work-related events.” The focus of this paper is on scales’ validity, measurements, anonymity, ambiguity and response sets. The paper will also characterize the DASS survey items and will analyze the sampling used to evaluate the sample strengths and weaknesses and offer recommendations.

Scales Analysis

The dependent variables depression, anxiety and stress were based on the DASS scale for measuring stress and psychological attributes. The scales ranged from 0 to 3 where 0 implied “did not apply to me at all,” 1 was interpreted as “applied to some degree or some of the time; 2 implied “applied to a considerable degree or a good part of the time,” while 3 implied “applied to the participant very much or most of the time” (Bacharach & Bamberger, 2007, p. 851).

The independent variables of intensity of critical incident involvement were based on a measurement scale of 0 or 1 for affirmative to the 15 modes of involvement while for the four involving self injury a scale of 2 to 5 was used where 2 represented a minor injury with no requirement of treatment and 5 representing severe injury requiring medical attention and being placed on light duty or leave.

The range for post traumatic distress was based on Weiss & Marmar (1997) Impact of Event Scale Revised (IES-R) which entailed a scale of 0 to 4 where 0 implied “not at all,” 1 meant “a little bit,” 2 implied “moderately,” 3 for “quite a bit” and 4 represented “frequently” (p. 56). The current unit control climate was measured on an input scale of 1 to 7 with 1 representing “little or no input” and 7 implying “a great deal of input” (Bacharach & Bamberger, 2007, p. 853).

The current supervisory support climate was to gauge the frequency of support within a scale of 1 representing not at all, to 4 representing very often. The social desirability bias was controlled and measured using the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR) scale.

Other critical incidents involvements were controlled and assessed using the measurement scale used for critical incident involvement with inclusion of the scale indicating the number of times a participant was involved in a critical incident ranging from 0 (implying zero or no times) to 7 (implying seven or even more times).

Face Validity and Measurement analysis

The measurement of psychological states such as depression, anxiety and stress has proven to be reliable especially with the use of the DASS 21 scale. The use of the scale to measure depression, anxiety, and stress is face valid (Miller, Cardinal & Glick, 1997). The critical incident involvement measure used to test the involvement in a critical incident using the 15 modes scale on the affirmative basis is valid.

The Impact of Event Scale-Revised used to measure the post traumatic distress is limited in validity due to the bias in the scales described as “a little bit”, “moderately” and “quite a bit.” The measure for current unit control climate used to test the level of input of the work is valid although it is limited by the use of survey method with the close correlation of the scale from 2 to 6 levels.

The measurement of supervisory climate to test for the frequency of support is valid with the responses clearly outlined. The use of Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding scale to assess and control for social desirability bias is valid although the scale dates back more than ten years from the research year (Johns, 2006).

Anonymity Analysis

The current unit control climate requires the input level of the participants in six major decision areas of their employer company while the current supervisory support climate requires information on the frequency of the support of the company to the participants.

On a personal level, I would not answer them truthfully since any negative response would create a bad image for the company and may affect my employment with the company.

Ambiguity and Response Sets Analysis

The current unit control climate measurement scale of the input level of the participants to the six major decisions of the company is ambiguous because input level is dependent on the organizational structure while the six decisions may not be of high significance for some companies.

The four modes scale for measuring the critical incident involvement in terms of the level of physical injury is also ambiguous since only physical injury is relied on while emotional, psychological and other injuries are not assessed.

The current unit control climate that makes use of input scale items is open to multiple responses due to the differences in the companies, current position of the participant of the participant in the company, expectations of the participant on how much they are supposed to be involved and the image this item poses for the company.

The current supervisory control climate is also open to several interpretations of support from one participant to another since the interpretation of support may be in terms of counseling services, monetary benefits, leaves and so on with the frequency subject to influences of the expectations of the participants and company policy (Johns, 2006).

Classification of DASS Survey Items

Sampling analysis

The sample used in the analysis included those participants who specified the company they worked for as well as their gender narrowing down the sample to include those 101 companies that had at least five respondents. The final sample was of n= 1,110 with age ranging between 21 and 60 years and a mean age of 33 years.

The sample was not conclusive based on gender differences, while the issue of company specification limited the scope (Johns, 2006). The researchers used probabilistic sampling techniques namely random sampling and stratified random sampling which ensured the generalizability of the findings to similar companies.

Conclusion

The research article under consideration provides relevant scales for the variables under consideration but is faced with the limitations of response ambiguity due to the length of duration between the occurrence of the critical incident and the research which also limits the validity. Anonymity of the respondents was limited while the sample though limited to fit the research relevance does not conclusively cover gender aspects.

Reference List

Bacharach, S., & Bamberger, P. (2007). 9/11 and New York City firefighters’ post hoc unit support and control climates: A context theory of the consequences of involvement in traumatic work-related events. The Academy of Management Journal, 50(4), 849-868.

Johns, G. (2006). The essential impact of context on organizational behavior. Academy of Management Review, 31, 396–408.

Miller, C., Cardinal, B., & Glick, H. (1997). Retrospective reports in organizational research: A reexamination of recent evidence. Academy of Management Journal, 40, 189–204.

Weiss, D., & Marmar, C. (1997). The Impact of Event Scale-Revised. New York: Guildford.

Introduction

The biggest news event in my life still remains to be the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack. The Al Qaeda network orchestrated the bombing of the world trade center and the pentagon. This, according to me, is the biggest news event to date. This event was reported as described in this essay.

Analysis

Exposing the Plight

The American media placed more emphasis on the emergency response and the plight of the people who were exposed to the tragedy; this was aimed at exposing to the world that America had been hit hard.

In analyzing the events of 9/11, it is imperative to first acknowledge that the American and the western media despised terrorism and depicted it as a global enemy (The official story 1). The US media was in particular latent with patriotic mood.

A deep analysis indicated that the word terror and terrorism was overriding in all the newspapers and it appeared 48 times, the word that America was attacked appeared 37 times the third most appearing word was thousands dead which was mentioned 34 times, these words also appeared in the common headlines, the headlines also appeared bigger in font than normal headlines.

The media was also heavily latent with quotes the most prevalent one being ‘Our nation Saw evil” (Rodrigue 2).

The photographs of the world trade centre and the pentagon appeared in magnified form alongside the headlines. The headlines and photographs exemplified the top priorities of the America nation and also sought to magnify the attack to justify any potential course.

The type of reporting signified agenda setting and nature of media propaganda. Most of the quotes used were from President Bush and the photographs appearing on the newspapers were similar; these two facts are an indication that newspapers rely on similar source and may also share contents (Rodrigue 2).

The Headlines

New York Times

The New York Times carried the following headlines a day after the September 11 attack; “hijacked jets destroy twin towers and hit pentagon in a day of terror’’ (Schmemann 1) the first sentences of the headline stated as follows “hijackers rammed jetliners into each of the New York’s world trade centre towers yesterday toppling both in a hellish storm of ash, glass and leaping victims” (Schmemann 1).

One of the images that were captured by the New York Times was as indicated below. The New York Times’ news was heavily latent with quotes from the American citizens who compared the attack to the one of Pearl Harbor.

Washington Post

The Washington post ran the story in their late edition and in the September 12 production. The main headline of the late edition on the fateful day was “terror hits pentagon, world trade centre” (Washington Post 1) other headlines were; “N.Y. Skyscrapers Collapse after Hijacked Planes Hit; is this the scale of Pearl Harbor and nightmare shatters Manhattan morning” (Washington Post 1).

The Washington post on September carried the story through its main headline as “Terrorists Hijack 4 Airliners; 2 Destroy World Trade Center, 1 Hits pentagon, 4^th Crashes” (Washington Post 1). The images captured by the Washington post in its late edition were as indicated below.

CNN and Al Jazeera

Media coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the US was carried out effectively. At first the media houses covered the news and all fingers were pointing at the Al Qaeda for causing the attack. However, later many theories came up arguing that the whole attack was one big conspiracy meant to achieve some personal interests of some top politicians.

These theories have been continuously strengthened by scientific arguments which have denied the possibility of a collision of plane on a tower causing a fire of the magnitude that was witnessed. It has also been argued that the turn of events and the way some top officials behaved pointed to some conspiracy (Aleshinloye 1). However, these theories have been fiercely confronted (America 1).

Conclusion

The news of the September left me a stressed and distressed individual; the effects were so immense especially watching and listening to the news on television capture live pictures of the attack. The new elicited powerful emotions from me and the actual trauma still persists in my heart. Generally, the attack left permanent scar on my body and my mind.

Works Cited

Aleshinloye, Samuel. The 11 Most Compelling 9/11 Conspiracy Theories. News One, 2011. Web.

America. The Top September 11 Conspiracy Theories. America Government, 2009. Web.

Rodrigue, Christine. Media coverage of the events of 9/11. Annual Hazards Research and Applications Workshop, 2002. Web.

Schmemann, Serge. “Hijacked Jets Destroy Twin Towers and Hit Pentagon.” New York Times, 2011. Web.

The official story. The attack according to the New York Times. Research, 2011. Web.

Washington Post. “Nation Attacked.” Washington Post, 2011. Web.

Introduction

The article under review, “David Foster Wallace on 9/11, as Seen from the Midwest,” is a reprinted publication by the Rolling Stone as a tribute to the late David Foster. Rolling Stone published Wallace’s “The View from Mrs. Thompson’s” article to commemorate his death. According to Wallace, after 9/11, almost all houses in his neighborhood had the US national flag in the front yard. This was a symbol of patriotism. This paper is an analysis of the original article. It can be argued that “David Foster Wallace on 9/11, as Seen from the Midwest” is an exceptional article that brings out the passion and the spirit of nationalism. It is important to mention that the revised version of the work had a few changes to protect the privacy of the involved.

Overview

“The View from Mrs. Thompson’s” first appeared in Rolling Stone in October 2001. The article explains Wallace’s experience during the 9/11 terrorist attack. According to the article, the paradigm shift was evident as even the basic way of life changed after the said attacks. For example, the number of flags in the town increased as a show of patriotism and oneness. Wallace was indecisive about whether to buy an American flag or not. Failure to put up a flag would mean he was not patriotic, while buying it would be a mock of the national spirit he embraced. He did not want to be discriminatory to the “foreigners” as well. The paper proves that America has a sophisticated culture that can at times prove void and that the 9/11 attacks brought out the said issue.

Discussion and Article Critique

The theme of patriotism comes out very strongly in the article. The author states that he was initially shocked to see so many flags in his neighborhood. Whereas Wallace does not claim his neighbors were not patriotic before, he was shocked that one event would entirely change a neighborhood. Maxwell (2014) explains that after the 9/11 attacks, the reaction of the government affected the general reaction of the citizens.

Max (2013) agrees with this, explaining that the then government called for unity and oneness. The president and other politicians asked the public to embrace patriotism and to use the feeling of being American to pull through the tragedy. Indeed, there are numerous other towns that experienced the same thing as Wallace’s town (Parrillo, 2015). It can be argued that this was shaped by the political angle taken in response to the attack.

It is important to note that even the citizens that had not fully embraced the fact that they were American showed some patriotism after the attack. Wallace explains that his citizenship was a non-issue before the attacks. In fact, he had heavily criticized being American up to that point. Thus, failing to buy a flag and raising it in his yard would have been seen as an act of defiance. However, he still had reservations about the government. He later resorted to making a flag himself and puts it in his front yard. The statement brings out the theme of irony. Whereas he considers other people dishonest for putting up the flag despite not agreeing with the government, he goes ahead and does the same thing, albeit to protect his image (Wallace, 2014).

According to Sykes (2018), the article also brings out the role of the media in ensuring patriotism. Wallace lived in Bloomington, Illinois, where a majority of the population could access a television. It can be assumed that many of the residents of Bloomington became aware of what was happening on television. Watching other people in pain and also seeing how people in different parts of the country reacted to the tragedy brought on a feeling of togetherness that led to the development of the patriotic phase explained.

A lot can be said in regards to critiquing the article. Through the article, one can note that some Americans found themselves in a dilemma in regards to loyalty and patriotism (Comey, 2018). Those that criticized the government blamed it for the attacks but still felt the need to show some form of patriotism. Such individuals felt the need to remain true to themselves but were swayed by the innocence of Americans. Overall, a reader can conclude that America has conflicting and at times void cultural elements that were brought out after the 9/11 attacks.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the 9/11 attacks brought the American people together. Before the attack, the country was divided on political ideologies. These were set aside to fight a common enemy (after the attack). However, in so doing, it also brought out other cultural complexities that would have otherwise not been noted. For example, through the works of David Foster Wallace, it was clear that some Americans had conflicting feelings on how to deal with the 9/11 attacks. Where some citizens put up flags to show their patriotism, others did not feel the need. Again, some citizens had heavily criticized the government before the attacks. Thus, to Wallace, it would be hypocritical to show support for the government after the attack.

References

Comey, J. (2018). A higher loyalty. New York, NY: Oxford University Publishers.

Max, D. T. (2013). Every love story is a ghost story. New York, NY: Oxford University Publishers.

Maxwell. A. (2014). Murder at breakers. New York, NY: Kensington Publishers.

Parrillo, N. V. (2009). Diversity in America (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Sykes, R. (2018). The quiet contemporary American novel. New York, NY: Oxford University Press Publishers.

Wallace, F. D. (2014). Consider the lobster: And other essays. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company.

Introduction

Following the adverse effects of the September eleventh terrorist attack in the US, the security of citizens and businesses has become the main concern in both the public and the private sectors of the economy.

Security regulation has become an integral part of logistics at the global level in order to prevent acts of terror by ensuring that contraband goods and unauthorized weapons are not being transported illegally. The security protocols contribute to economic growth by preventing the losses attributed to terrorism, theft and negligence. This paper will focus on analyzing the security situation in the supply chain industry.

Analysis

Security Oriented Culture

A security oriented culture exists in the supply chain industry. The firms in the industry no longer concentrate only on the security of their goods. They have also focused on the protection of their personal who handle the supply chain activities. This has been done through training on security matters.

A lot of emphasis is currently being placed on document protection by restricting access to sensitive documents (Zalud, 2010). In order to achieve the desired security standards, the culture of collaboration is being promoted by firms in the industry. They are working together by sharing knowledge on security issues that affect all stakeholders in the supply chain. The development of trust has also become an integral part of the corporate culture in the supply chain industry (Closs, Speier, Whipple, & Voss, 2002).

This is based on the fact that the firms can not monitor all the actions of their partners in order to ensure security over their products. Thus they focus on building trust by sharing the responsibility of ensuring the security of their goods. Besides, promoting the culture of learning through sharing security related knowledge has become a priority in the industry.

Benefits of Viewing Security Issues beyond the Individual Firm

Viewing security issues beyond the individual firm has three advantages which are as follows. First, a supply chain is characterized by interdependence among firms (Closs, Speier, Whipple, & Voss, 2002). This means that a security problem in one firm, can spillover to the entire chain and cause a much bigger loss. Thus articulating the security issues at the industry level enables firms to avoid the losses and the damages that can result from security lapses in other organizations.

Second, articulating the security issues beyond individual organizations promotes cooperation and collaboration. This helps in forming partnerships that bring together the investors, regulators, clients and the government representatives to address security concerns. Such partnerships help in generating knowledge that can not be realized by a single firm. Finally, the cost of addressing security concerns reduces as firms work together to achieve a common goal in protecting their goods.

Importance of RFID Technology

The importance of RFID technology in supply chain management includes the following. To begin with it enhances visibility by providing real-time access to information about goods (Zalud, 2010). Such information helps in tracking the products or goods throughout the supply chain in order to ensure their security.

The technology facilitates efficient inventory management in the supply chain. This is because it gives accurate and up to-date information about the stock of goods. The RFID system improves the overall efficiency in the supply chain by automating the data verification process (Mentzer, 2001). This translates into a reduction in fixed costs as the RFID system assumes the responsibilities of data verification clerks.

Security Competencies that can be Difficult to Implement

First, implementing the process technology is likely to be difficult. This is because it involves acquisition and application of sophisticated technology such as a RFID system to track goods (Closs, Speier, Whipple, & Voss, 2002). Implementing the use of such technology requires talent and a lot of financial resources.

However, most organizations lack the needed talent and financial capital. Second, identifying the metrics for managing security can be very difficult (Closs, Speier, Whipple, & Voss, 2002). This is based on the fact that the success of a supply chain depends on the cooperation among firms. Thus synchronizing the supply chain activities will be very difficult if the firms develop varying security metrics.

Besides, the metrics are usually developed by the government and they become difficult to implement if their benefits to a firm are minimal. Finally relationship management is also likely to be difficult to implement. This is because most firms in a supply chain will always prioritize their interests at the expense of their partners. This undermines the efforts to establish positive relationships among the firms involved in a supply chain.

Conclusion

The above discussion indicates that security management is an integral part of a supply chain system. This is because inadequate security can lead to unforeseen losses or damages (Mentzer, 2001).

Due to the interdependence of firms in a supply chain, the firms have embarked on collective responsibility in addressing security concerns. This has been achieved by promoting a security oriented culture that facilitates collaboration and sharing of information. Besides, modern technologies such as RFID systems are being adopted in supply chain management in order to improve efficiency.

References

Closs, D., Speier, C., Whipple, J., & Voss, D. (2002). A framework for protecting your supply chain. Security, vol. 47 (9), 45.

Mentzer, J. (2001). Supply chain mangement. Ney York: SAGE.

Zalud, B. (2010). Every link in the chain. Security, vol. 47 (5), 28-33.

Effect of 9/11 on Risk Management in Organizations

One of the most important lessons learned by organizations after the World Trade Center attacks were the need to ensure that the workforce should be resilient through technological means. The concept of “workforce resilience” consists of the need to give people access to the Internet, electricity, VPNs, and services that provide mass notifications. Lack of communication after an emergency may lead to negative outcomes for both the company and its employees.

This initiative and expenditure meet the objective of making the workforce more capable of continuing its work as soon as possible. Organizations also began storing emergency supplies for disaster situations. Risk management became more reliant on technological solutions and how they may be used during emergencies. Recovery of data and work processes is currently a priority for the majority of affected organizations (Rees, Breen, Cusack, & Hegney, 2015).

The Use of Social Media in Emergency Situations

Social media is a powerful tool for almost instantaneous communication over long distances and to large groups of people. Whenever an emergency situation occurs, people need to be informed of it as fast as possible and kept continuously in touch with the newest development. For organizations, this form of communication is important not only because it can be used to help people in need but also to provide accurate information about the state of the company. Rumors can be controlled through social media, and various offices of the company may be informed of how to behave in case the key office becomes disabled during a disaster (Alexander, 2014).

The Use of Distanced Geographic Location for Backup Storage

Recovery point objectives and recovery time objectives determine how much information may be stored at a distanced geographic location by an organization. By keeping critical information in a remote location on a different power grid than the one used by the company, an organization is able to recover from a disaster faster. This type of backup solution can have a large impact on the recovery process of an organization. While it does not provide a complete recovery after the backup is used, this procedure should be able to ensure that the company is capable of functioning even if the majority of data is lost. If a company is able to have a recent backup of all the information critical to its operation, it should be able to minimize losses and recovery time (Kokkinos, Kalogeras, Levin, & Varvarigos, 2016).

Cloud Services

Cloud services allow companies to have a non-centralized backup location that is available from any computer that has access to the company account. By using a service that is not tied to a single location, the company avoids situations where the backup center is unavailable due to internal issues. These services are available to firms of any size, and even smaller organizations should be able to use them because lower amounts of data are often sold for lower prices (Hua, Liu, & Feng, 2016). The solution is not perfect despite its effectiveness. Such services rely on Internet access being available and may be expensive for companies with a lot of critical data (Chang, 2015).

Conclusion

The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center changed a lot of aspects of American life. The almost instantaneous destruction of infrastructure made many organizations reconsider their approaches to risk management. With the power of social networking, distant location backups, and cloud services, companies attempt to prevent the same issues that were present in the aftermath of the attacks. Whether they may be effective or not is hard to tell because it is possible that a physical attack may coincide with a virtual one.

References

Alexander, D. E. (2014). Social media in disaster risk reduction and crisis management. Science and Engineering Ethics, 20(3), 717–733.

Chang, V. (2015). Towards a Big Data system disaster recovery in a Private Cloud. Ad Hoc Networks, 35, 65–82.

Hua, Y., Liu, X., & Feng, D. (2016). Cost-efficient remote backup services for enterprise clouds. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, 12(5), 1650–1657.

Kokkinos, P., Kalogeras, D., Levin, A., & Varvarigos, E. (2016). Survey: Live migration and disaster recovery over long-distance networks. ACM Computing Surveys, 49(2), 1–36.

Rees, C. S., Breen, L. J., Cusack, L., & Hegney, D. (2015). Understanding individual resilience in the workplace: The international collaboration of workforce resilience model. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1–7.

Based on The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis, docudrama Thirteen Days provides a brilliant screening of the two-week Cuban missile crisis of the United States and the Soviet Union in October of 1962 presented from the perspective of the White House, in particular the former US Attorney General Robert. F. Kennedy. The movie stars Kevin Costner as Kenneth P. O’Donnell, Bruce Greenwood as John. F. Kennedy and Steven Culp as Kennedy’s brothers.

The plot is based on the findings of the U.S. spy of the Russian nuclear missile installations on Cuba, which posed a major threat to the USA and could serve as a trigger of nuclear war. The political team with President Kennedy in the forefront composes a plan to solve the problem without violent involvement since the U.S. military attacks could cause military strikes on the part of the Soviet Union despite the Pentagon’s advice to take immediate actions on the invasion of Cuba and destruction of the missiles.

However, President rejects the war establishing quarantine, i.e. the U.S. Naval Forces establish a blockade of the Cuban waters to make sure no missiles are sent to Cuba. Moreover, a series of attempts is made to reach a beneficial agreement with the Soviet Union. The thirteen days long crisis involves the correspondence between the US and the Politburo that results in Kennedy’s clandestine decision to remove the U.S. missiles from Italy and Turkey following the Soviet Union’s claim in exchange for their removing nuclear missiles from Cuba.

The movie is highly dramatic, profound and thought-provoking leaving no viewer indifferent praising accurate and rational foreign policy decisions of President Kennedy, and examining the underlying factors of the political decision-making process that presupposes maintaining rationality in crises often being pressed by other forces.

As far as The Hunt for Red October is concerned, the movie is directed by John McTiernan and based on the novel with the same name starring Sean Connery as Marko Ramius, Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan, Scott Glenn, and Sam Neil. The film tells the story of the pursuit of the Soviet nuclear submarine Red October with Captain Marko Ramius on board who is trying to defect heading to the coast of the U.S. by American naval commanders led by misconceptions of Ramius’ intentions. Alongside this, Russian Naval Forces try to find the submarine to punish the escapee. The only person who understands the real motives of Ramius is CIA analyst Jack Ryan considers that it is his to reveal the defection.

At that time, Ramius kills the official onboard the submarine who tried to reveal the submarine orders. As soon as the U.S. officials find out about the USSR’s plans to sink Red October, Ryan is sent to the North Atlantic to prove that Ramius intends defection. Eventually, Ramius gets to know that he is exposed and teams with Ryan to seek asylum in the U.S. Furthermore, the stratagem continues supported by several attempts to sink the submarine. However, Red October survives leaving everybody under the erroneous assumption of its destruction.

The movie deals with the themes of the arms race of two superpowers, the USA and the USSR, the counteraction of their political systems and ideologies, methods of government, the jeopardy of this opposition taking into account the rise of nuclear weapons and the Cold War. Moreover, The Hunt for Red October concentrates on the character of Jack Ryan the one who sees the real nature of things, emphasizing how wrong assumptions may entail drastic consequences as in the case of the U.S. Naval Forces that believed in the allegedly claimed threat of Red October for New York. All things considered, the film is a successful and skillful representation of the book.

The last but not the least movie I would like to focus on is Fahrenheit 9/11, a very controversial, debatable, and highly acclaimed documentary film directed by Michael Moore. The film dwells on the presidency of George Bush, his policy of the government, and media coverage of the War on Terror making a strong emphasis on the incompetency and dishonesty of the President concentrating on the events of September, 11.

Moore refers to outrage and censure of Bush’s war against Iraq that was directed not at the peaceful settlement of the conflict but served as coverage of vast waste of public funds. Moreover, it is stated that the war was launched under the assumption of the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and Afghanistan that allegedly threatened the world. Additionally, Moore points out that through extensive media coverage of the War on Terror that was aimed at drawing attention from more vital problems and the real culprits, Bush’s administration tried to inspire the feelings of terror among the U.S. population.

On top of that, the director claims that the fact of the clandestine evacuation of bin Laden’s family after the 11^th of September was suppressed. Moore also examines the military and national safety records finding evidence that casts doubts on Bush’s honesty and concern about the nation.

On the whole, the film presents a major denunciation of Bush’s presidential policy examining the questions of war, terrorists’ attacks, and Bush’s unhealthy connection with Saudis. Since terrorism is regarded to be a weapon of mass intimidation, a premeditated act whose main purpose is to achieve the psychological impact of violence or the threat of violence to effect political change, Moore’s viewpoints over presidential reaction on the events of September 11 is seen as condemnatory.