Covering their tracks

Digby pointed out the other day the fundamentalist organizations who appear to be behind the bogus ABC "docudrama" The Path to 9/11 -- most notably, the cultlike Youth With A Mission, whose founder, Loren Cunningham, is the father of the film's director.

Since then, a number of others, notably EarlG at Democratic Underground and SheWhoMustBeObeyed at DU, have done even more digging on this aspect of the film's origins. Mark in NC at DKos rounds it up:

The film was tentatively titled "Untitled History Project" and from this came the name of the Production Company, UHP Productions. (you can confirm this via IMDB..)

Obviously even the tentative name given to this film during it's 2+ years of production illustrates that this film was intended to re-write the history of 9/11.

... One of the goals of this Film Institute is to "help filmmakers, actors, technicians, etc. realize their God given potential and purpose in perhaps the most influential sphere of modern culture - film and television."

In a brochure for The Film Institute found on a YWAM members live journal, the organization describes itself as "An Auxiliary organization of University of the Nations, a non-profit entity designed to facilitate and launch University of Nations students into the film and television industry. The Film Institute provides internships, apprenticeships, scholarships, and the production of culturally relevant films that will cause awareness and resources for current issues."

Rick Ross reported awhile back that the Cunninghams had become involved with Christian Reconstructionism, the fundamentalist movement to install a theocratic state in America:

As of 1988, Loren Cunningham (according to Gary North) "began studying Reconstructionist writings…with the intent of incorporating 'dominion' or 'kingdom' [a belief that the Christian Biblical principles] theology into the ideological training given to YWAM missionaries. (page 206)."

But what's especially interesting is the way these supposedly forthright Christians are now busy covering the tracks connecting them to The Path to 9/11. All this snooping is obviously making them nervous.

For instance, there are the two since-removed posts from the now-defunct Web site by a YWAM couple named Mark and Krista Harris. Fortunately, the posts are still available via the Google cache:

As we have looked around, we've noticed a lot of big-mouthed giants running around, but not many young warriors brave enough to stake everything on God.

So that's what we've decided to do. Starting in July, along with our 'normal' discipleship efforts in YWAM, we will officially join The Film Institute - a new auxiliary branch of Youth With A Mission focused on tranforming film and television from the inside out. TFI's first project is a doozy: simply being referred to as: The Untitled History Project, it is already being called the television event of the decade and not one second has been put to film yet. Talk about great expectations!

Our goal is to help filmmakers, actors, technicians, etc. realize their God given potential and purpose in perhaps the most influential sphere of modern culture - film and television.

Then there's the now-scrubbed report on the YWAM Website:

Mark Harris spoke following Braulia and showed a DVD clip by film director David L. Cunningham, who together with others has formed a YWAM auxiliary called The Film Institute (TFI). One goal of TFI is to fast-track UofN School of Digital Film interns, placing them within the film industry, not to give them jobs, but so that they can begin to impact and transform Hollywood from the inside out.

As Digby originally observed, it's becoming manifestly clear that ABC is being used as a propaganda organ for would-be fundamentalist theocrats. It's also clear that not only are these theocrats rather baldfaced liars, they're sneaking liars who creep away back under their rocks rather than face up to their operations.

UPDATE: TPM Muckraker has more.

MAJOR UPDATE: Wow. Max Blumenthal has more, lots more. Seems the YWAM operation is part of David Horowitz's Hollywood cabal:

In fact, "The Path to 9/11" is produced and promoted by a well-honed propaganda operation consisting of a network of little-known right-wingers working from within Hollywood to counter its supposedly liberal bias. This is the network within the ABC network. Its godfather is far right activist David Horowitz, who has worked for more than a decade to establish a right-wing presence in Hollywood and to discredit mainstream film and TV production. On this project, he is working with a secretive evangelical religious right group founded by The Path to 9/11's director David Cunningham that proclaims its goal to "transform Hollywood" in line with its messianic vision.

... Nowrasteh's conservatism was on display when he appeared as a featured speaker at the Liberty Film Festival (LFF), an annual event founded in 2004 to premier and promote conservative-themed films supposedly too "politically incorrect" to gain acceptance at mainstream film festivals. This June, while The Path to 9/11 was being filmed, LFF founders Govindini Murty and Jason Apuzzo -- both friends of Nowrasteh -- announced they were "partnering" with right-wing activist David Horowitz. Indeed, the 2006 LFF is listed as "A Program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center."

Since the inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1992, Horowitz has labored to create a network of politically active conservatives in Hollywood. His Hollywood nest centers around his Wednesday Morning Club, a weekly meet-and-greet session for Left Coast conservatives that has been graced with speeches by the likes of Newt Gingrich, Victor Davis Hanson and Christopher Hitchens. The group's headquarters are at the offices of Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture, a "think tank" bankrolled for years with millions by right-wing sugardaddies like eccentric far right billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. (Scaife financed the Arkansas Project, a $2.3 million dirty tricks operation that included paying sources for negative stories about Bill Clinton that turned out to be false.)

With the LFF now under Horowitz's control, his political machine began drumming up support for Cunningham and Nowrasteh's "Untitled" project, which finally was revealed in late summer as "The Path to 9/11." Horowitz's PR blitz began with an August 16 interview with Nowrasteh on his FrontPageMag webzine. In the interview, Nowrasteh foreshadowed the film's assault on Clinton's record on fighting terror. "The 9/11 report details the Clinton's administration's response -- or lack of response -- to Al Qaeda and how this emboldened Bin Laden to keep attacking American interests," Nowrasteh told FrontPageMag's Jamie Glazov. "There simply was no response. Nothing."

Go read it all. Nice job, Max.