Re: Fifty-nine Decits in Fahrenheit 9/11 - large
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Fifty-nine Deceits in Fahrenheit 9/11
By Dave Kopel
This is a preliminary version of an article that will be published on
National Review Online. This report was first posted on the web on the
morning of July 1. Since then, I've revised several sections in
response to reader requests for clarifications, and have added
additional deceits which have been pointed out by readers or
journalists. As result, the number of listed deceits has been raised
from 56 to 59. On July 8, I updated the listed deceits, to account for
some new ones based on leads supplied by readers, and to remove the
"deceit" label from some items which I thought were deceitful, but
which a significant number of readers did not.
Thanks to the readers who have written to point out additional deceits
or to point out items which need clarification. Also thanks to the
readers who have written in defense of Moore. Many such readers have
been rational and civil. Moore's reasonable defenders have made two
main points:
First, notwithstanding the specific falsehoods, isn't the film as a
whole filled with many important truths?
Not really. We can divide the film into three major parts. The first
part (Bush, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan) is so permeated with lies that
most of the scenes amount to lies. The second, shorter part involves
domestic issues and the USA PATRIOT Act. So far, I've identified only
one clear falsehood in this segment (Rep. Porter Goss's toll-free
number). So this part, at least arguably, presents useful information.
The third part, on Iraq has several outright falsehoods--such as the
Saddam regime's murder of Americans, and the regime's connection with
al Qaeda. Other scenes in the third part--such as Iraqi casualties,
interviews with American soldiers, and the material on bereaved mother
Lila Lipscomb--are not blatant lies; but the information presented is
so extremely one-sided (the only Iraqi casualties are innocents,
nobody in Iraq is grateful for liberation, all the American soldiers
are disillusioned, except for the sadists) that the overall picture of
the Iraq War is false.
Second, say the Moore supporters, what about the Bush lies?
Well there are lies from the Bush administration which should concern
everyone. For example, the Bush administration suppressed data from
its own Department of Health and Human Services which showed that the
cost of the new Prescription Drug Benefit would be much larger than
the administration claimed. This lie was critical to passage of the
Bush drug benefit bill. Similarly, Bush's characterization of his
immigration proposal as not granting "amnesty" to illegal aliens is
quite misleading; although the Bush proposal does not formally grant
amnesty, the net result is the same as widespread amnesty. As one
immigration reform group put it, "Any program that allows millions of
illegal aliens to receive legal status in this country is an amnesty."
But two wrongs don't make a right, and the right response to
Presidential lies is not more lies from his political opponents.
Moreover, regarding the issues presented in Fahrenheit 9/11, the
evidence of Bush lies is extremely thin. Moore shows Bush claiming
that a particular day at the ranch in Crawford, Texas, was a working
vacation, but Bush appears to be dissembling. Later, after Osama bin
Laden was driven into hiding but was not captured, Bush unconvincingly
claims not to spend much time thinking about bin Laden. Within
Fahrenheit 9/11, most of rest of alleged Bush administration lies
actually involve Moore's fabrications to create the appearance of a
lie--such as when Moore chops a Condoleezza Rice quote to make her say
something when she actually said the opposite.
The one significant Bush administration lie exposed in the film
involves the so-called USA PATRIOT Act; as Fahrenheit accurately
claims, at least some of the material in the USA PATRIOT Act had
nothing to do with 9/11, and instead involved long-sought items on the
FBI agenda which had previously been unable to pass Congress, but
which were enacted by Congress under Bush administration assurances
that they were essential to fighting terrorism.
If you look up the noun "deceit" in the dictionary, you will find that
the definitions point you to the verb "deceive." According to
Webster's 9th New Collegiate Dictionary, the main (non-archaic or
obsolete) definition of "deceive" is "to cause to accept as true or
valid what is false or invalid." Although the evidence in this report
demonstrates dozens of plain deceits by Moore, there are some
"deceits" in this report regarding which reasonable people may
disagree. So if you find me unpersuasive on, for example, three
alleged deceits, consider this article to have identified "Fifty-six
Deceits" rather than fifty-nine. Whether or not you agree with me on
every single item, I think you will agree that the evidence is
undeniable that Fahrenheit 9/11 is filled with deceit.
Quite obviously, there are many patriotic Americans who oppose George
Bush and who think the Iraq War was a mistake. But Moore's deceitful
movie offers nothing constructive to help people form their opinions.
To use lies and frauds to manipulate people is contrary to the very
essence of democracy, which requires people to make rational decisions
based on truthful information. It's wrong when a President lies. It's
wrong when a talk radio host lies. And it's wrong when a film-maker
lies.
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July 11 update: Moore's response.
Moore's "War Room" has published a lengthy point-by-point defense of
the movie. Some of the points relate to issues I've raised; others do
not. For each item below, I'll provide a link to Moore's response,
when there is one. On two issues (Afghanistan's President Karzai; John
Ashcroft's pre-9/11 attitude towards terrorism) Moore's response makes
some valid points; not necessarily that Fahrenheit right on these
facts, but at least the facts are disputable. On one issue (the
unemployment rate in Flint), Moore is clearly right. On the rest of
the items I've identified, Moore's responses are extremely
unconvincing, mainly because they so often evade the evidence.
The key to Moore's response, and to the movie itself, is summarized by
Boston University Law Professor Randy Barnett:
...I was struck by the sheer cunningness of Moore's film. When you
read Kopel, try to detach yourself from any revulsion you may feel at
a work of literal propaganda receiving such wide-spread accolades from
mainstream politicos, as well as attendance by your friends and
neighbors.
Instead, notice the film's meticulousness in saying only (or mostly)
"true" or defensible things in support of a completely misleading
impression. In this way, Kopel's care in describing Moore's "deceits"
is much more interesting than other critiques I have read, including
that of Christopher Hitchens. Kopel's lawyerly description of Moore's
claims shows the film to be a genuinely impressive accomplishment in a
perverse sort of way (the way an ingenious crime is impressive)--a
case study in how to convert elements that are mainly true into an
impression that is entirely false--and this leads in turn to another
thought.
If this much cleverness was required to create the inchoate
"conspiracy" (whatever it may be, as it is never really specified by
Moore), it suggests there was no such conspiracy. With this much care
and effort invested in uncovering and massaging the data, if there
really was a conspiracy of the kind Moore suggests, the evidence would
line up more neatly behind it, rather than being made to do cartwheels
so as to be "true" but oh-so-misleading. If the facts don't fit,
shouldn't we acquit?
(By the way, a reader responding to Barnett's July 4 post criticized
some aspects of my report. In subsequent drafts, I've revised the
article in response to some of those criticisms.)
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There are many articles which have pointed out the distortions,
falsehoods, and lies in the film Fahrenheit 9/11. This report
compiles the Fahrenheit 9/11 deceits which have been identified by a
wide variety of reviewers. In addition, I identify some inaccuracies
which have not been addressed by other writers.
The report follows the approximate order in which the movie covers
particular topics: the Bush family, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and
Iraq. This report focuses solely on factual issues, and not on
aesthetic criticism of the film.
To understand the deceptions, it helps to understand Moore’s
ideological position. So let us start with Moore’s belief that the
September 11 attacks on the United States were insignificant.
Edward Koch, the former Democratic Mayor of New York City, writes:
A year after 9/11, I was part of a panel discussion on BBC-TV’s
“Question Time” show which aired live in the United Kingdom. A portion
of my commentary at that time follows:
“One of the panelists was Michael Moore…During the warm-up before the
studio audience, Moore said something along the lines of “I don’t know
why we are making so much of an act of terror. It is three times more
likely that you will be struck by lightning than die from an act of
terror.”…I mention this exchange because it was not televised,
occurring as it did before the show went live. It shows where he was
coming from long before he produced “Fahrenheit 9/11.”
Edward Koch, “Moore’s propaganda film cheapens debate, polarizes
nation,” World Tribune, June 28, 2004. [Moore response: none.]
By the way, I don't disagree with the point that it is reasonable to
consider the number of deaths from any particular problem, including
terrorism, in assessing how serious the problem is. Moore's point,
however, was willfully oblivious to the fact that al Qaeda did not
intend 9/11 to be the last word; the organization was working on
additional attacks, and if the organization obtained the right
weapons, millions of people might be killed. More fundamentally, even
if Moore's argument in London is conceded to be legitimate, it
contradicts Fahrenheit 9/11's presentation of Moore as intensely
concerned about the September 11 attacks.
As we go through the long list of lies and tricks in Fahrenheit 9/11,
keep in mind that Michael Moore has assembled a “war room” of
political operatives and lawyers in order to respond to criticism of
Fahrenheit 9/11 and to file defamation suits. (Jack Shafer, “Libel
Suit 9/11. Michael Moore’s hysterical, empty threats,” Slate.com, June
12, 2004.) One of Moore's "war room" officials is Chris Lehane;
Lehane, as an employee of Democratic presidential candidate Wesley
Clark (who was also supported by Moore), is alleged to have spread
rumors to the press about John Kerry's alleged extra-marital affair,
although Lehane denies doing so.
Of course if there are any genuine errors in this report, the errors
will be promptly corrected. On July 5, I removed a complaint about a
Presidential approval poll number, which I had wrongly thought was not
supported by data.
In this report, I number Moore’s deceits. Some of them are outright
lies; some are omissions which create a false impression. Others
involve different forms of deception. A few are false statements Moore
has made when defending the film. Judge for yourself the credibility
of Michael Moore's promise, "Every single fact I state in 'Fahrenheit
9/11' is the absolute and irrefutable truth...Do not let anyone say
this or that isn't true. If they say that, they are lying."
2000 Election Night
Deceits 1-2
Fahrenheit 9/11 begins on election night 2000. We are first shown the
Al Gore rocking on stage with famous musicians and a high-spirited
crowd. The conspicuous sign on stage reads “Florida Victory.” Moore
creates the impression that Gore was celebrating his victory in
Florida.
Actually, the rally took place in the early hours of election day,
before polls had even opened. Gore did campaign in Florida on election
day, but went home to Tennessee to await the results. The “Florida
Victory” sign reflected Gore’s hopes, not any actual election results.
(“Gore Campaigns Into Election Day,” Associated Press, Nov. 7, 2000.)
The film shows CBS and CNN calling Florida for Al Gore. According to
the narrator, “Then something called the Fox News Channel called the
election in favor of the other guy….All of a sudden the other networks
said, ‘Hey, if Fox said it, it must be true.’”
We then see NBC anchor Tom Brokaw stating, “All of us networks made a
mistake and projected Florida in the Al Gore column. It was our
mistake.”
Moore thus creates the false impression that the networks withdrew
their claim about Gore winning Florida when they heard that Fox said
that Bush won Florida.
In fact, the networks which called Florida for Gore did so early in
the evening—before polls had even closed in the Florida panhandle,
which is part of the Central Time Zone. NBC called Florida for Gore at
7:49:40 p.m., Eastern Time. This was 10 minutes before polls closed in
the Florida panhandle. Thirty seconds later, CBS called Florida for
Gore. And at 7:52 p.m., Fox called Florida for Gore. Moore never lets
the audience know that Fox was among the networks which made the error
of calling Florida for Gore prematurely. Then at 8:02 p.m., ABC called
Florida for Gore. Only ABC had waited until the Florida polls were
closed.
About an hour before the polls closed in panhandle Florida, the
networks called the U.S. Senate race in favor of the Democratic
candidate. The networks seriously compounded the problem because from
6-7 Central Time, they repeatedly announced that polls had closed in
Florida--even though polls were open in the panhandle. (See also Joan
Konner, James Risser & Ben Wattenberg, Television's Performance on
Election Night 2000: A Report for CNN, Jan. 29, 2001.)
The false announcements that the polls were closed, as well as the
premature calls (the Presidential race ten minutes early; the Senate
race an hour early), may have cost Bush thousands of votes from the
conservative panhandle, as discouraged last-minute voters heard that
their state had already been decided; some last-minute voters on their
way to the polling place turned around and went home. Other voters who
were waiting in line left the polling place. In Florida, as elsewhere,
voters who have arrived at the polling place before closing time often
end up voting after closing time, because of long lines. The
conventional wisdom of politics is that supporters of the losing
candidate are most likely to give up on voting when they hear that
their side has already lost. Thus, on election night 1980, when
incumbent President Jimmy Carter gave a concession speech while polls
were still open on the west coast, the early concession was blamed for
costing the Democrats several Congressional seats in the West, such as
that of 20-year incumbent James Corman. The fact that all the networks
had declared Reagan a landslide winner while west coast voting was
still in progress was also blamed for Democratic losses in the West;
Congress even held hearings about prohibiting the disclosure of exit
polls before voting had ended in the any of the 48 contiguous states.
Even if the premature television calls affected all potential voters
equally, the effect was to reduce Republican votes significantly,
because the Florida panhandle is a Republican stronghold. Most of
Central Time Zone Florida is in the 1st Congressional District, which
is known as the "Redneck Riviera." In that district, Bob Dole beat
Bill Clinton by 69,000 votes in 1996, even though Clinton won the
state by 300,000 votes. So depress overall turnout in the panhandle,
and you will necessarily depress more Republican than Democratic
votes. A 2001 study by John Lott suggested that the early calls cost
Bush at least 7,500 votes, and perhaps many more. Another study
reported that the networks reduced panhandle turn-out by about 19,000
votes, costing Bush about 12,000 votes and Gore about 7,000 votes.
At 10:00 p.m., which networks took the lead in retracting the
premature Florida win for Gore? The first retracting networks were CNN
and CBS, not Fox. (Two networks were using a shared Decision Team.)
In fact, Fox didn't retract its claim that Gore had won Florida until
2 a.m.--four hours after other networks had withdrawn the call.
Over four hours later, at 2:16 a.m., Fox projected Bush as the Florida
winner, as did all the other networks by 2:20 a.m.
At 3:59 a.m., CBS took the lead in retracting the Florida call for
Bush. All the other networks, including Fox, followed the CBS lead
within eight minutes. That the networks arrived at similar conclusions
within a short period of time is not surprising, since they were all
using the same data from the Voter News Service. (Linda Mason,
Kathleen Francovic & Kathleen Hall Jamieson, “CBS News Coverage of
Election Night 2000: Investigation, Analysis, Recommendations” (CBS
News, Jan. 2001), pp. 12-25.) As the CBS timeline details, throughout
the evening all networks called states used VNS data to call states,
even though VNS had not called the state; sometimes the network calls
were made hours ahead of the VNS call.
Moore’s editing technique of the election night segment is typical of
his style: all the video clips are real clips, and nothing he says is,
narrowly speaking, false. But notice how he says, “Then something
called the Fox News Channel called the election in favor of the other
guy…” The impression created is that the Fox call of Florida for Bush
came soon after the CBS/CNN calls of Florida for Gore, and that Fox
caused the other networks to change (“All of a sudden the other
networks said, ‘Hey, if Fox said it, it must be true.’”)
This is the essence of the Moore technique: cleverly blending
half-truths to deceive the viewer.
[Moore response: On the Florida victory celebration, none. On the
networks calls: provides citations for the early and incorrect Florida
calls for Gore, around 8 p.m. Eastern Time, and for the late-evening
network calls of Florida for Bush around 2:20 a.m. Doesn't mention the
retraction of the Florida calls at 10 p.m., or that CBS led the
retraction.]
2000 Election Recount
Deceit 3
How did Bush win Florida? "Second, make sure the chairman of your
campaign is also the vote count woman." Actually Florida Secretary of
State Katherine Harris (who was Bush's Florida co-chair, not the
chairman," was not the "vote count woman." Vote counting in Florida is
performed by the election commissioners in each of Florida's counties.
The Florida Secretary of State merely certifies the reported vote. The
office does not count votes.
A little while later:
…Michael Moore shows a clip of CNN analyst Jeffrey Toobin saying that
if ballots had been recounted in Florida after the 2000 presidential
vote, “under every scenario Gore won the election.”
What Moore doesn’t show is that a six-month study in 2001 by news
organizations including The New York Times, the Washington Post and
CNN found just the opposite. Even if the Supreme Court had not stopped
a statewide recount, or if a more limited recount of four heavily
Democratic counties had taken place, Bush still would have won Florida
and the election.
Thomas Frank, “Film offers limited view,” Newsday, June 27, 2004.
Throughout the Florida election controversy, the focus was on
"undervotes"--ballots which were disqualified because the voter had
not properly indicated a candidate, such as by punching out a small
piece of paper on the paper ballot. The recounts attempted to discern
voter intentions from improperly-marked ballots. Thus, if a ballot had
a "hanging chad," a recount official might decide that the voter
intended to vote for the candidate, but failed to properly punch out
the chad; so the recounter would award the candidate a vote from the
"spoiled" ballot. Gore was seeking additional recounts only of
undervotes. The only scenario by which Gore would have won Florida
would have involved recounts of "overvotes"--ballots which were
spoiled because the voter voted for more than one candidate (such as
by marking two names, or by punching out two chads). Most of the
overvotes which were recoverable were those on which the voter had
punched out a chad (or made a check mark) and had also written the
candidate's name on the write-in line. Gore's lawsuits never sought a
recount of overvotes, so even if the Supreme Court had allowed a
Florida recount to continue past the legal deadline, Bush still would
have won the additional recount which Gore sought.
As USA Today summarized, on May 11, 2001:
Who would have won if Al Gore had gotten manual counts he requested in
four counties? Answer: George W. Bush."
"Who would have won if the U.S. Supreme Court had not stopped the hand
recount of undervotes, which are ballots that registered no
machine-readable vote for president? Answer: Bush, under three of four
standards."
"Who would have won if all disputed ballots — including those rejected
by machines because they had more than one vote for president — had
been recounted by hand? Answer: Bush, under the two most widely used
standards; Gore, under the two least used."
Fahrenheitonly a snippet of Toobin's remarks on CNN. What Fahrenheit
does not show is that Toobin admitted on CNN that the only scenarios
for a Gore victory involved a type of recount which Gore had never
requested in his lawsuits, and which would have been in violation of
Florida law. Toobin's theory likewise depends on re-assigning votes
which are plainly marked for one candidate (Pat Buchanan) to Gore,
although there are no provisions in Florida law to guess at who a
voter "really" meant to vote for and to re-assign the vote.
[Moore response: Cites articles consistent with my explanation. Fails
to acknowledge that the only scenarios for a Gore victory involved
recounting methods which Gore never requested in his lawsuits. To tell
viewers that Gore would have won "under every scenario" is absurd.]
Florida Purge of Convicted Felons from Voter Rolls
Deceit 4
According to Fahrenheit, Bush cronies hired Data Base Technologies to
purge Florida voters who might vote for Gore, and these potential
voters were purged from the voting rolls on the basis of race.
("Second, make sure the chairman of your campaign is also the vote
count woman. And that her state has hired a company that's gonna knock
voters off the rolls who aren't likely to vote for you. You can
usually tell 'em by the color of their skin.") As explained by the
Palm Beach Post, Moore's suggestion is extremely incomplete, and on at
least one fact, plainly false.
The 1998 mayoral election in Miami was a fiasco which was declared
void by Florida courts, because--in violation of Florida
law--convicted felons had been allowed to vote. The Florida
legislature ordered the executive branch to purge felons from the
voting rolls before the next election. Following instructions from
Florida officials, Data Base Technologies (DBT) aggressively attempted
to identify all convicted felons who were illegally registered to vote
in Florida.
There were two major problems with the purge. First, several states
allow felons to vote once they have completed their sentences. Some of
these ex-felons moved to Florida and were, according to a court
decision, eligible to vote. Florida improperly purged these immigrant
felons.
Second, the comprehensive effort to identify all convicted felons led
to large number of false positives, in which persons with, for
example, the same name as a convicted felon, were improperly purged.
Purged voters were, in most cases, notified months before the election
and given an opportunity to appeal, but the necessity to file an
appeal was in itself a barrier which probably discouraged some
legitimate, non-felon citizens from voting. According to the Palm
Beach Post, at least 1,100 people were improperly purged.
The overbreadth of the purge was well-known in Florida before the
election. As a result, election officials in 20 of Florida's counties
ignored the purge list entirely. In these counties, convicted felons
were allowed to vote. Also according to the Post, thousands of felons
were improperly allowed to vote in the 20 non-purging counties.
Analysis by Abigail Thernstrom and Russell G. Redenbaugh, dissenting
from a report by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, suggests that about
5,600 felons voted illegally in Florida. (The Thernstrom/Redenbaugh
dissent explains why little credit should be given to the majority
report, which was produced by flagrantly ignoring data.)
When allowed to vote, felons vote approximately 69 percent Democratic,
according to a study in the American Sociological Review. Therefore,
if the thousands of felons in the non-purging 20 counties had not been
illegally allowed to vote, it is likely that Bush's statewide margin
would have been substantially larger.
Regardless, Moore's suggestion that the purge was conducted on the
basis of race was indisputably false. As the Palm Beach Post details,
all the evidence shows that Data Base Technologies did not use race as
a basis for the purge. Indeed, DBT's refusal to take note of a
registered voter's race was one of the reasons for the many cases of
mistaken identity.
DBT's computers had matched these people with felons, though in dozens
of cases they did not share the same name, birthdate, gender or
race...[A] review of state records, internal e-mails of DBT employees
and testimony before the civil rights commission and an elections task
force showed no evidence that minorities were specifically targeted.
Records show that DBT told the state it would not use race as a
criterion to identify felons. The list itself bears that out: More
than 1,000 voters were matched with felons though they were of
different races.
The appeals record supports the Palm Beach Post's findings. Based on
the numbers of successful appeals, blacks were less likely to have
been improperly placed on the purge list: of the blacks who were
purged, 5.1 percent successfully appealed. Of Hispanics purged, 8.7
percent successfully appealed. Of whites purged, 9.9 percent
successfully appealed. John R. Lott, Jr., "Nonvoted Ballots and
Discrimination in Florida," Journal of Legal Studies, vol. 32 (Jan.
2003), p. 209. Of course it is theoretically possible that the appeals
officials discriminated against blacks, or that improperly purged
blacks were not as likely to appeal as were people of other races. But
no one has offered any evidence to support such possibilities.
[Moore response: Cites various articles about the felon purge. Offers
no evidence to support the claim that voters were targeted on the
basis of race.]
Bush Presidency before September 11
Deceit 5
The movie lauds an anti-Bush riot that took place in Washington, D.C.,
on the day of Bush’s inauguration. He claims that protestors "pelted
Bush's limo with eggs." Actually, it was just one egg, according to
the BBC. According to Moore, "No President had ever witnessed such a
thing on his inauguration day. " According to CNN, Richard Nixon faced
comparable protests in 1969 and 1973. (Abraham Lincoln had to be snuck
into Washington in order to avoid a huge riot against in Baltimore,
but the riot was before his inauguration, not on the day of.)
Moore continues: “No President had ever witnessed such a thing on his
inauguration day. And for the next eight months it didn’t get any
better for George W. Bush. He couldn’t get his judges appointed; he
had trouble getting his legislation passed; and he lost Republican
control of the Senate. His approval ratings in the polls began to
sink.”
Part of this is true. Once Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords left the
Republican party, Democrats controlled the Senate, and stalled the
confirmation of some of the judges whom Bush had nominated for the
federal courts.
Congress did enact the top item on Bush’s agenda: a large tax cut.
During the summer, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives
easily passed many of Bush’s other agenda items, including the bill
whose numbering reflected the President’s top priority: H.R. 1, the
Bush “No Child Left Behind” education bill. The fate of the Bush bills
in the Democratic-controlled Senate, as of August 2001, was uncertain.
The Senate later did pass No Child Left Behind, but some other Bush
proposals did not pass.
Moore says that Bush's "approval ratings in the polls began to sink."
This is not entirely accurate, although I haven't counted this issue
as a "deceit." From January 2001 to September 2001, Bush's approval
ratings in almost all polls fluctuated pretty narrowly in a 50-59%
range. Moore accurately cites a Christian Science Monitor poll with 45
percent approval for Bush on September 5, 2001, but the low result
here is an outlier compared to the overall poll trend. What really
changed for Bush, pollwise, was not that his approval ratings were
sinking, but that his disapproval ratings had risen. The national
polls showed that the approve/disapprove gap for Bush was much larger
in January 2001 than in the late summer of 2001. So Moore is correct
that Bush's polls numbers had deteriorated, although Moore's phrasing
is not correct.
"He was already beginning to look like a lame duck President." Maybe
in Moore's imagination. No serious political commentator made such a
claim in 2001.
Bush is quoted as saying, "A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot
easier, there's no question about it." What Moore fails to note,
though, is that the quote, from July 26, 2001, is a facetious joke,
like Moore's claim in Dude, Where's my Country? that he did not have
sex until age 32.
Another Bush joke is presented as an obvious joke, although important
context is missing. Near the end of the movie, Bush speaks to a
tuxedoed audience. He says, “I call you the haves and the have-mores.
Some call you the elite; I call you my base.” The joke follows several
segments in which Bush is accused of having started the Iraq war in
order to enrich business. As far the movie audience can tell, Bush is
speaking to some unknown group of rich people. The speech actually
comes from the October 19, 2000, Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation
Dinner. The 2000 event was the 55th annual dinner, which raises money
for Catholic hospital charities in New York City. Candidates Bush and
Gore were the co-guests of honor at the event, where speakers
traditionally make fun of themselves.
Gore joked, "The Al Smith Dinner represents a hallowed and important
tradition, which I actually did invent." Lampooning his promise to put
Social Security in a "lock box," Gore promised that he would put
"Medicare in a walk-in closet," put NASA funding in a "hermetically
sealed Ziploc bag" and would "always keep lettuce in the crisper."
Mary Ann Poust, "Presidential hopefuls Gore and Bush mix humor and
politics at Al Smith Dinner," Catholic New York, Oct. 26, 2000. So
although Fahrenheit presents the joke as epitomizing Bush's
selfishness, the joke really was part of Bush helping to raise $1.6
million for medical care for the poor. Although many a truth is said
in jest, Bush's joke was no more revealing than was Gore's claim to
have founded the dinner in 1946, two years before he was born.
[Moore response: Cites articles predicting that Bush would having
trouble with Congress on Arctic drilling, campaign finance, and
faith-based charity. Cites a California poll in which Bush's
disapproval rating equaled his approval rating. Cites a couple
additional polls, selecting Bush's worst results. No response on the
distortion of the Alfred E. Smith Dinner.]
Bush Vacations
Deceits 6-7
Fahrenheit 9/11 states, “In his first eight months in office before
September 11th, George W. Bush was on vacation, according to the
Washington Post, forty-two percent of the time.”
Shortly before 9/11, the Post calculated that Bush had spent 42
percent of his presidency at vacation spots or en route, including all
or part of 54 days at his ranch. That calculation, however, includes
weekends, which Moore failed to mention.
Tom McNamee, “Just the facts on ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ Chicago Sun-Times,
June 28, 2004. See also: Mike Allen, “White House On the Range. Bush
Retreats to Ranch for ‘Working Vacation’,” Washington Post, August 7,
2001 (Many of those days are weekends, and the Camp David stays have
included working visits with foreign leaders.)
[T]he shot of him “relaxing at Camp David” shows him side by side with
Tony Blair. I say “shows,” even though this photograph is on-screen so
briefly that if you sneeze or blink, you won’t recognize the other
figure. A meeting with the prime minister of the United Kingdom, or at
least with this prime minister, is not a goof-off.
The president is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, on a golf
course, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and
then asking the reporters to watch his drive. Well, that’s what you
get if you catch the president on a golf course.
Christopher Hitchens, “Unfairenheit 9/11: The lies of Michael Moore,”
Slate.com, June 21, 2004. (Some of Moore's defenders have denounced
Hitchens as a member of the vast-right wing conspiracy. Hitchens,
however, used the death of Ronald Reagan as an occasions to write a
June 7 obituary calling Reagan "a cruel and stupid lizard." Hitchens
also wrote a book and produced a movie, The Trials of Henry Kissinger,
urging that Kissinger be tried for war crimes.)
By the way, the clip of Bush making a comment about terrorism, and
then hitting a golf ball, is also taken out of context, at least
partially:
Tuesday night on FNC’s Special Report with Brit Hume, Brian Wilson
noted how “the viewer is left with the misleading impression Mr. Bush
is talking about al-Qaeda terrorists.” But Wilson disclosed that “a
check of the raw tape reveals the President is talking about an attack
against Israel, carried out by a Palestinian suicide bomber.”
"Cyberalert," Media Research Center, July 1, 2004, item. 3.
Moore wraps up the vacation segment: "It was a summer to remember. And
when it was over, he left Texas for his second favorite place." The
movie then shows Bush in Florida. Actually, we went back to
Washington, where he gave a speech on August 31.
[Moore response: Accurately quotes the Washington Post: "if you add up
all his weekends at Camp David, layovers at Kennebunkport and assorted
to-ing and fro-ing, W. will have spent 42 percent of his presidency
'at vacation spots or en route.'" Does not attempt to defend
Fahrenheit's mischaracterization of the Post's meaning. Does not
explain why the Israeli context was removed from the Bush quote. Does
not defend the claim that Bush went from Florida to Texas.
September 11
Moore's changing positions
Fahrenheit presents a powerful segment on the September 11 attacks.
There is no narration, and the music is dramatic yet tasteful. The
visuals are reaction shots from pedestrians, as they gasp with
horrified astonishment.
Moore has been criticized for using the reaction shots as a clever way
to avoid showing the planes hitting the buildings, and some of the
victims falling to their deaths. Even if this is true, the segment
still effectively evokes the horror and outrage that every decent
human being still feels about September 11.
But remember, Moore does not necessarily feel the same way. As New
York’s former Mayor Edward Koch reported, Moore later said, “I don’t
know why we are making so much of an act of terror. It is three times
more likely that you will be struck by lightning than die from an act
of terror.” If there is some additional context which would explain
Moore's remarks, he has not supplied such context on his website. It
seems unlikely that Moore's "war room" is unaware of the highly
critical review written by former NYC Mayor Koch.
Moore's first public comment about the September 11 attacks was to
complain that too many Democrats rather than Republicans had been
killed: "If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by
killing thousands of people who did not vote for him! Boston, New
York, DC, and the planes' destination of California--these were places
that voted against Bush!" (The quote was originally posted as a
"Mike's Message" on Moore's website on September 12, but was removed
not long after. Among the many places where Moore's quote has been
repeated is The New Statesman, a leftist British political magazine.)
Like several of the other deceits identified in this report, the
September 11 deceit is not part of the film itself. Several of the
deceits involve claims that Moore has made when discussing the film.
Like some deceits which are identified near the end of this report,
the September 11 deceit involves the contradiction between Moore's
purported feelings about a topic in the movie and what appear to be
his actual feelings about that topic. If a Klansman made a film which
feigned admiration for Rosa Parks, that too would be a form of deceit,
even if the film were accurate in its portrayal of Parks as a great
American hero.
On the other hand, a person might feel great personal sympathy for the
victim of a lightning strike, but the same person might feel that,
overall, the "lightning problem" is not worth making a big fuss over.
Fahrenheit presents September 11 as a terrible tragedy (in which Moore
lost one of his friends and many other people lost loved ones), and as
something worth making a big fuss. On this latter point, Fahrenheit's
purported view does not appear to be the same as Moore's actual view.
Although I consider the disjunction to be deceitful, other people may
not.
[Moore response: none.]
Bush on September 11
Cheap Shot
Fahrenheit mocks President Bush for continuing to read a story to a
classroom of elementary school children after he was told about the
September 11 attacks.
What Moore did not tell you:
Gwendolyn Tose’-Rigell, the principal of Emma E. Booker Elementary
School, praised Bush’s action: “I don’t think anyone could have
handled it better.” “What would it have served if he had jumped out of
his chair and ran out of the room?”…
She said the video doesn’t convey all that was going on in the
classroom, but Bush’s presence had a calming effect and “helped us get
through a very difficult day.”
“Sarasota principal defends Bush from ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ portrayal,”
Associated Press, June 24, 2004. Also, since the President knew he was
on camera, it was reasonable to expect that if he had suddenly sped
out of the room, his hasty movement would have been replayed
incessantly on television; leaving the room quickly might have
exacerbated the national mood of panic, even if Bush had excused
himself calmly.
Moore does not offer any suggestion about what the President should
have done during those seven minutes, rather than staying calm for the
sake of the classroom and of the public. Nor does Moore point to any
way that the September 11 events might have turned out better in even
the slightest way if the President had acted differently. I agree with
Lee Hamilton, the Vice-Chair of the September11 Commission and a
former Democratic Representative from Indiana: "Bush made the right
decision in remaining calm, in not rushing out of the classroom."
[Moore response: Defends the factual accuracy of the segment, which no
one has ever disputed.]
The Wolfowitz Comb
Another cheap shot
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz is shown surreptitiously
licking his comb in preparation for Congressional testimony under the
cameras. I know: Eeeuuww! Moore's point is that this proves Wolfowitz
is a low life, a sleazy guy whose policy opinions should be devalued
accordingly. And, of course, it's funny to see the famous and powerful
embarrass themselves. Yet not one among us hasn't had dozens of
questionable hygiene moments that we would be mortified to have
witnessed by anyone, not to mention see featured in a nationally
released documentary. Moore knows that Wolfowitz's desperate act in
attempting to tame unruly hair for a public appearance will look much
worse on movie screen than it really is, and he must know that
periodic hygiene failings are not any kind of proof of depravity:
after all, we're talking about a director here who habitually appears
in public unshaven and sloppily dressed. To Moore's likely retort that
Wolfowitz deserves to be gratuitously ridiculed for doing nothing
worse than any member of his audience could easily recall doing
himself, the answer is that nobody deserves to be treated this way. It
is cruel and hypocritical, and violates basic ethical reciprocity.
Doing so is wrong, and far more wrong, and infinitely more harmful to
others, than licking one's own comb.
Jack Marshall, "Fahrenheit 911," Ethics Scoreboard, June 30, 2004.
Pre-9/11 Briefing
Deceits 8-10
Castigating the allegedly lazy President, Moore says, “Or perhaps he
just should have read the security briefing that was given to him on
August 6, 2001 that said that Osama bin Laden was planning to attack
America by hijacking airplanes.”
Moore supplies no evidence for his assertion that President Bush did
not read the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief. Moore’s
assertion appears to be a complete fabrication.
Moore smirks that perhaps President Bush did not read the Briefing
because its title was so vague. Moore then cuts to Condoleezza Rice
announcing the title of the Briefing: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike
in U.S.” Here, Moore seems to be playing off Condoleezza Rice's
testimony of the September 11 Commission that the contents of the memo
were vague.
However, no-one (except Moore) has ever claimed that Bush did not read
the Briefing, or that he did not read it because the title was vague.
Rather, Condoleezza Rice had told the press conference that the
information in the Briefing was “very vague.” National Security
Advisor Holds Press Briefing, The White House, May 16, 2002.
The content of the Briefing supports Rice’s characterization, and
refutes Moore’s assertion that the Briefing “said that Osama bin Laden
was planning to attack America by hijacking airplanes.” The actual
Briefing was highly equivocal:
We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational
threat reporting, such as that from a [deleted text] service in 1998
saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the
release of “Blind Shaykh” ‘Umar’ Abd aI-Rahman and other U.S.-held
extremists.
Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of
suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for
hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of
federal buildings in New York.
(Some readers have wondered how this short segment qualifies as three
deceits: 1. that Bush did not read the memo, 2. that the memo's title
was offered as an excuse for not reading the memo, 3. omitting that
the memo was equivocal, and that the hijacking warning was something
that the FBI said it was "unable to corroborate.")
[Moore response: Tacitly acknowledges that Bush had read the August 6
PDB: "he (unlike the rest of America) was already aware that Osama bin
Laden was planning to attack America by hijacking airplanes, per the
August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief (PDB)." Does not directly
address Fahrenheit's lie that Bush hadn't read the PDB, or the lie
that Bush had used the "vague" PDB title as an excuse for not reading
it. Accurately quotes the PDB, without acknowledging that the PDB was
much more equivocal than Fahrenheit claims.]
Saudi Departures from United States
Deceits 11-15
Moore is guilty of a classic game of saying one thing and implying
another when he describes how members of the Saudi elite were flown
out of the United States shortly after 9/11.
If you listen only to what Moore says during this segment of the
movie—and take careful notes in the dark—you’ll find he’s got his
facts right. He and others in the film state that 142 Saudis,
including 24 members of the bin Laden family, were allowed to leave
the country after Sept. 13.
The date—Sept. 13—is crucial because that is when a national ban
on air traffic, for security purposes, was eased
But nonetheless, many viewers will leave the movie theater with
the impression that the Saudis, thanks to special treatment from the
White House, were permitted to fly away when all other planes were
still grounded. This false impression is created by Moore’s failure,
when mentioning Sept. 13, to emphasize that the ban on flights had
been eased by then. The false impression is further pushed when Moore
shows the singer Ricky Martin walking around an airport and says, “Not
even Ricky Martin would fly. But really, who wanted to fly? No one.
Except the bin Ladens.”
But the movie fails to mention that the FBI interviewed about 30
of the Saudis before they left. And the independent 9/11 commission
has reported that “each of the flights we have studied was
investigated by the FBI and dealt with in a professional manner prior
to its departure.”
McNamee, Chicago Sun-Times. (Note: The Sun-Times article was correct
in its characterization of the Ricky Martin segment, but not precisely
accurate in the exact words used in the film. I have substituted the
exact quote. On September 13, U.S. airspace was re-opened for a small
number of flights; charter flights were allowed, and the airlines were
allowed to move their planes to new airports to start carrying
passengers on September 14. Although there is still conflict on the
issue, there appears to have been a charter flight from Tampa,
Florida, which took three Saudis to Lexington, Kentucky.)
Tapper: [Y]our film showcases former counter-terrorism czar Richard
Clarke, using him as a critic of the Bush administration. Yet in
another part of the film, one that appears in your previews, you
criticize members of the Bush administration for permitting members of
the bin Laden family to fly out of the country almost immediately
after 9/11. What the film does not mention is that Richard Clarke says
that he OK’d those flights. Is it fair to not mention that?
Moore: Actually I do, I put up The New York Times article and it’s
blown up 40 foot on the screen, you can see Richard Clarke’s name
right there saying that he approved the flights based on the
information the FBI gave him. It’s right there, right up on the
screen. I don’t agree with Clarke on this point. Just because I think
he’s good on a lot of things doesn’t mean I agree with him on
everything.
Jake Tapper interview with Michael Moore, ABC News, June 25, 2004. In
an Associated Press interview, Clarke said that he agreed with much of
what Moore had to say, but that the Saudi flight material was a
mistake. (Clarke testified to the September 11 Commission, on
September 3, 2003, that letting the Saudis go "was a conscious
decision with complete review at the highest levels of the State
Department and the FBI and the White House." It's possible to read
Clarke's 2003 statement as consistent with his 2004 statements; if you
believe that what Clarke is saying now contradicts what he said in
2003, then Clarke is a liar, and all other claims he makes in
Fahrenheit are discredited.)
Again, Moore is misleading. His film includes a brief shot of a Sept.
4, 2003, New York Times article headlined “White House Approved
Departures of Saudis after Sept. 11, Ex-Aide Says.” The camera pans
over the article far too quickly for any ordinary viewer to spot and
read the words in which Clarke states that he approved the flights.
Some Saudis left the U.S. by charter flight on September 14, a day
when commercial flights had resumed, but when ordinary charter planes
were still grounded. When did the bin Ladens actually leave? Not until
the next week, as the the 9/11 Commission staff report explains:
Fearing reprisals against Saudi nationals, the Saudi government asked
for help in getting some of its citizens out of the country….we have
found that the request came to the attention of Richard Clarke and
that each of the flights we have studied was investigated by the FBI
and dealt with in a professional manner prior to its departure.
No commercial planes, including chartered flights, were
permitted to fly into, out of, or within the United States until
September 13, 2001. After the airspace reopened, six chartered flights
with 142 people, mostly Saudi Arabian nationals, departed from the
United States between September 14 and 24. One flight, the so-called
Bin Ladin flight, departed the United States on September 20 with 26
passengers, most of them relatives of Usama Bin Ladin. We have found
no credible evidence that any chartered flights of Saudi Arabian
nationals departed the United States before the reopening of national
airspace.
The Saudi flights were screened by law enforcement
officials, primarily the FBI, to ensure that people on these flights
did not pose a threat to national security, and that nobody of
interest to the FBI with regard to the 9/11 investigation was allowed
to leave the country. Thirty of the 142 people on these flights were
interviewed by the FBI, including 22 of the 26 people (23 passengers
and 3 private security guards) on the Bin Ladin flight. Many were
asked detailed questions. None of the passengers stated that they had
any recent contact with Usama Bin Ladin or knew anything about
terrorist activity.
The FBI checked a variety of databases for information on
the Bin Ladin flight passengers and searched the aircraft. It is
unclear whether the TIPOFF terrorist watchlist was checked. At our
request, the Terrorist Screening Center has rechecked the names of
individuals on the flight manifests of these six Saudi flights against
the current TIPOFF watchlist. There are no matches.
The FBI has concluded that nobody was allowed to depart on
these six flights who the FBI wanted to interview in connection with
the 9/11 attacks, or who the FBI later concluded had any involvement
in those attacks. To date, we have uncovered no evidence to contradict
this conclusion.
Finally, Moore's line, "But really, who wanted to fly? No one. Except
the bin Ladens,” happens to be a personal lie. Stranded in California
on September 11, Michael Moore ended up driving home to New York City.
On September 14, he wrote to his fans "Our daughter is fine, mostly
frightened by my desire to fly home to her rather than drive." Moore
acceded to the wishes of his wife and daughter, and drove back to New
York. It is pretty hypocritical for Moore to slam the Saudis (who had
very legitimate fears of being attacked by angry people) just because
they wanted to fly home, at the same time when Moore himself wanted to
fly home.
(Deceits: 1. Departure dates for Saudis, 2. Omission of Richard
Clarke's approval for departures, 3. Lying to Jake Tapper about
whether Clarke's role was presented in the movie, 4. Omission of
Commission staff finding that many Saudis were asked "detailed
questions" before being allowed to leave, 5. Moore himself wanted to
fly when he says only the bin Ladens did.)
[Moore response: Provides citations showing that "the White House"
approved the Saudi departures; does not cite or acknowledge Clarke's
statement that he was the guy in the White House who approved the
departures. Does not respond to Clarke's statement that the Saudi
departures segment in Fahrenheit is "a mistake." Provides accurate
citations for the dates of Saudi departures; does not address how the
film misled viewers about when the departures took place. Cites the
September 11 Commission (which says that the pre-departure interviews
were "detailed" and other sources, including National Review, which
say they were not.]
Bush and James Bath
Deceits 16-17
Moore mentions that Bush’s old National Guard buddy and personal
friend James Bath had become the money manager for the bin Laden
family, saying, [that after the bin Ladens invested in James Bath,]
“James Bath himself in turn invested in George W. Bush.” The
implication is that Bath invested the bin Laden family’s money in
Bush’s failed energy company, Arbusto. He doesn’t mention that Bath
has said that he had invested his own money, not the bin Ladens’, in
Bush’s company.
Matt Labash, “Un-Moored from Reality,” Weekly Standard, July 5, 2004.
See also: Frank, Newsday; Michael Isikoff & Mark Hosenball, "More
Distortions From Michael Moore. Some of the main points in ‘Fahrenheit
9/11’ really aren’t very fair at all," MSNBC.com, June 30, 2004.
Moore makes a big point about the name of James Bath being blacked out
from Bush National Guard records which were released by the White
House. The blackout might appear less sinister if Moore revealed that
federal law required the Alabama National Guard to black out the names
any Guardsmen whose medical information was on the same pages as the
records which the Alabama Guard released regarding George Bush's
health records. So what Moore presents as a sinister effort to conceal
the identity of James Bath was in fact the legally-required compliance
with federal law.
Moore gloats: "What Bush didn't know was that I already had a copy of
his military records--uncensored--obtained in the year 2000." Moore
creates the impression that is an investigative sleuth. Actually, the
records had been released in 2000. In the 2000 release, Bath's name
was not blacked out; the document custodian had failed to comply with
the new federal law about medical privacy.
[Moore response: Shows that Bath and Bush were friends, a fact which
was never disputed. Does not address the fact that the black-out of
Bath's name was required by new federal law. Does not defend the
insinuation that Bath used bin Laden money to invest in Bush. Does not
address the fact that Craig Unger's book House of Bush, House of Saud
reports that there is no evidence that Bath used bin Laden money for
the Arbusto investment.]
Bush and Prince Bandar
Deceit 18
Moore points out the distressingly close relationship between Saudi
Arabia’s ambassador, Prince Bandar, and the Bush family. But Moore
does not explain that Bandar has been a bipartisan Washington power
broker for decades, and that Bill Clinton repeatedly relied on Bandar
to advance Clinton’s own Middle East agenda. (Elsa Walsh, “The Prince.
How the Saudi Ambassador became Washington’s indispensable operator,”
The New Yorker, Mar. 24, 2003.)
President Clinton’s former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Wyche Fowler,
has been earning a lucrative living as a Saudi apologist and serving
as Chairman of the Middle East Institute—a research organization
heavily funded by Saudi Arabia. (Joel Mowbray, “Feeding at the Saudi
Trough,” Townhall.com, Oct. 1, 2003.) Former President Clinton
received $750,000 forgiving a speech in Saudi Arabia, and the Saudis
have donated a secret sum (estimated between $1 million and $20
million to the Clinton Library.)
I am not suggesting that Mr. Fowler is in any way corrupt; I’m sure
that he is sincere (although, in my view, mistaken) in his strongly
pro-Saudi viewpoint. Nor is there anything illegal about former
President Clinton's receipt of huge Saudi largesse. What is misleading
is for Moore to look at the web of Saudi influence in Washington only
in regard to the Republican Bushes, and to ignore the fact that Saudi
influence and money are widespread in both parties.
Harken Energy
Deceits 19-20
Bush once served on the Board of Directors of the Harken Energy
Company. According to Fahrenheit:
Moore: Yes, it helps to be the President’s son. Especially when you’re
being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
TV reporter: In 1990 when M. Bush was a director of Harken Energy he
received this memo from company lawyers warning directors not to sell
stock if they had unfavorable information about the company. One week
later he sold $848,000 worth of Harken stock. Two months later, Harken
announced losses of more than $23 million dollars.
Moore:…Bush beat the rap from the SEC…
What Moore left out: Bush sold the stock long after he checked with
those same “company lawyers” who had provided the cautionary memo, and
they told him that the sale was all right. Almost all of the
information that caused Harken’s large quarterly loss developed only
after Bush had sold the stock.
Despite Moore’s pejorative that Bush “beat the rap,” no-one has ever
found any evidence suggesting that he engaged in illegal insider
trading. He did fail to file a particular SEC disclosure form on time.
(Byron York, “The Facts About Bush and Harken. The president’s story
holds up under scrutiny,” National Review Online, July 10, 2002.) For
detailed factual timeline, see James Dunbar, "A Brief History of Bush,
Harken and the SEC," Center for Public Integrity, Oct. 16, 2002.
Carlyle Group
Deceits 21-23
Moore’s film suggests that Bush has close family ties to the bin Laden
family—principally through Bush’s father’s relationship with the
Carlyle Group, a private investment firm. The president’s father,
George H.W. Bush, was a senior adviser to the Carlyle Group’s Asian
affiliate until recently; members of the bin Laden family—who own one
of Saudi Arabia’s biggest construction firms—had invested $2 million
in a Carlyle Group fund. Bush Sr. and the bin Ladens have since
severed ties with the Carlyle Group, which in any case has a
bipartisan roster of partners, including Bill Clinton’s former SEC
chairman Arthur Levitt. The movie quotes author Dan Briody claiming
that the Carlyle Group “gained” from September 11 because it owned
United Defense, a military contractor. Carlyle Group spokesman Chris
Ullman notes that United Defense holds a special distinction among
U.S. defense contractors that is not mentioned in Moore’s movie: the
firm’s $11 billion Crusader artillery rocket system developed for the
U.S. Army is one of the only weapons systems canceled by the Bush
administration.
Michael Isikoff, “Under the Hot Lights. Moore’s movie will make waves.
But it’s a fine line between fact and fanaticism. Deconstructing
‘Fahrenheit 9/11.” Newsweek, June 28, 2004. (Isikoff appears to be
wrong on one fact; the Crusader uses a self-propelled gun, and does
not fire rockets.)
Moore claims that refusing to mention the Crusader cancellation was
alright because the cancellation came after the United Defense initial
public offering (stock sale to the public). But the cancellation had a
serious negative financial impact on Carlyle, since Carlyle still owns
47% of United Defense.
Moore tells us that when Carlyle took United Defense public, they made
a one-day profit of $237 million, but under all the public scrutiny,
the bin Laden family eventually had to withdraw (Moore doesn’t tell us
that they withdrew before the public offering, not after it).
Labash, Weekly Standard.
There is another famous investor in Carlyle whom Moore does not
reveal: George Soros. (Oliver Burkeman & Julian Borger, “The
Ex-Presidents’ Club,” The Guardian (London), Oct. 31, 2000.) But the
fact that the anti-Bush billionaire has invested in Carlyle would
detract from Moore’s simplistic conspiracy theory.
Moore alleges that the Saudis have given 1.4 billion dollars to the
Bushes and their associates.
Moore derives the $1.4 billion figure from journalist Craig Unger’s
book, “House of Bush, House of Saud.” Nearly 90 percent of that
amount, $1.18 billion, comes from just one source: contracts in the
early to mid-1990’s that the Saudi Arabian government awarded to a
U.S. defense contractor, BDM, for training the country’s military and
National Guard. What’s the significance of BDM? The firm at the time
was owned by the Carlyle Group, the powerhouse private-equity firm
whose Asian-affiliate advisory board has included the president’s
father, George H.W. Bush.
...The main problem with this figure, according to Carlyle
spokesman Chris Ullman, is that former president Bush didn’t join the
Carlyle advisory board until April, 1998—five months after Carlyle had
already sold BDM to another defense firm.
Isikoff & Hosenball, MSNBC.com. (The full text of the article contains
the counter-argument by Moore's "war room" and the replies by Isikoff
and Hosenball. Moore's staff points out that at the time of the bin
Laden 1.18 bin Laden investment, Carlyle included some Bush
associates).
Craig Unger points out that George H.W. Bush still receives daily
C.I.A. briefings. As Unger points out, Bush has the right to do, but
he is the only former President who does. The suggestion is made that
Bush uses the C.I.A. information for personal business purposes. We
have no way of knowing, and it is possible the Bush does so. On the
other hand, this segment Fahrenheit omits a very relevant fact which
would supply an alternative explanation: Bush served as C.I.A.
Director in 1976. It would not be surprising for him to want to follow
C.I.A. activities in retirement. Earlier in the film, however, Moore
does state, in passing, that "Bush’s dad was head of the CIA."
[Moore response: Provides extensive citations for facts about Carlyle
which were never disputed. Does not address the fact that Democrats
and George Soros are also involved in Carlyle. Does not address how
Bush administration severely harmed Carlyle by cancelling the
Crusader. Reiterates the points made in response to Isikoff &
Hosenball, that Bush friends were involved in Carlyle before the
George H.W. Bush was.]
Saudi Investments in the United States
Deceit 24
Moore asks Craig Unger: “How much money do the Saudis have invested in
America, roughly?"
Unger replies “Uh, I've heard figures as high as $860 billion
dollars.”
What is the basis of Unger's claim? The $860 billion figure appears on
page 28 of Unger's House of Bush, House of Saud. He cites two sources:
The Saudi Ambassador's 1996 speech to the U.S.-Saudi Arabian Business
Council. In that speech, Prince Bandar discussed the Saudi economy,
but said nothing about the size of Saudi investment in the U.S.
Unger's other cited source is a February 11, 2002, Washington Post
story, titled "Enormous Wealth Spilled Into American Coffers." The
$860 billion figure does not appear there, either. The article states:
After nearly three decades of accumulating this wealth, the group
referred to by bankers as "high net worth Saudi individuals" holds
between $500 billion and $1 trillion abroad, most of it in European
and American investments. Brad Bourland, chief economist of the Saudi
American Bank (one-quarter owned by Citibank), said in a speech in
London last June that his bank's best estimate of the total is about
$700 billion, with the possibility that it is as much as $1 trillion.
Raymond Seitz, vice chairman of Lehman Brothers in London and a former
U.S. ambassador to Britain, gave a similar estimate. Seitz said Saudis
typically put about three-quarters of their money into the United
States, the rest in Europe and Asia. That would mean that Saudi
nationals have invested perhaps $500 billion to $700 billion in the
American economy.
In short, Unger's cited sources do not support his $860 billion
figure.
According to the Institute for Research Middle Eastern Policy (a
pro-Saudi think tank which tries to emphasize the importance of Saudi
money to the United States), in February 2003 total worldwide Saudi
investment was at least $700 billion, conservatively estimated. Sixty
percent of the Saudi investments were in the United States, so the
Saudis had about 420 billion dollars invested in the U.S. (Tanya C.
Hsu , “The United States Must Not Neglect Saudi Arabian Investment”
Sept. 23, 2003.)
Unger is asked "what percentage of our economy is that?" (Meaning the
supposed $860 billion.)
He replies, "Well, in terms of investments on Wall Street, American
equities, it's roughly six or seven percent of America. They own a
fairly good slice of America." A little bit later, Moore states that
"Saudi Prince Bandar is perhaps the best protected ambassador in the
US...Considering how he and his family, and the Saudi elite own seven
percent of America, it's probably not a bad idea."
According the Census Bureau, the top countries which own U.S. stocks
and bonds are the United Kingdom and Japan. Foreign investors owned
$1,690 billion in corporate bonds in 2002. The Census Bureau lists the
major national holders, and then groups all the minor
holders--including Saudi Arabia--into "Other Countries." All of these
other countries combined (including Saudi Arabia) account for only 6
percent of total foreign ownership of U.S. corporate bonds. Likewise,
all "Other Countries" combined account for only 7 percent of total
foreign ownership of corporate stocks. (And of course the large
majority of U.S. corporate stocks and bonds are owned by Americans.)
Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, table
1203.
According to the Bureau of Economic Statistics, total foreign
investment in the United States in 2003 was $10,515 billion dollars.
This means that even if the figure that Unger "heard" about Saudis
having $860 billion is correct, then the Saudis would only have about
8 percent of total foreign investment in the United States. Unless
you believe that almost all American assets are owned by foreigners,
then it cannot possibly be true that Saudis "own seven percent of
America."
[Moore response: Cites Unger's book, and a lawyer who filed an
anti-Saudi lawsuit and repeated the Unger figure. Does not address the
fact that Unger's sources do not support his claim. Points out that
the capitalization of the New York Stock Exchange composite is $12
trillion and that $860 billion amounts to approximately 7 percent of
that. But even if the Saudi's owned 7% of the stocks on the New York
Stock Exchange, the NYSE does not include all of America's
wealth--which includes real estate, businesses which are not traded on
the NYSE because they are privately owned, and so on. The data show
that the Saudis own between 4% (420 billion) and 7% (700 billion) of
total foreign investment in the U.S. Moore's assertion that Saudis
"own seven percent of America" is completely false.]
Special Protection for Saudi Embassy
Deceit 25
Moore shows himself filming the movie near the Saudi embassy in
Washington, D.C.:
Moore as narrator: Even though we were nowhere near the White House,
for some reason the Secret Service had shown up to ask us what we were
doing standing across the street from the Saudi embassy….
Officer: That’s fine. Just wanted to get some information on what was
going on.
Moore on camera: Yeah yeah yeah, I didn’t realize the Secret Service
guards foreign embassies.
Officer: Uh, not usually, no sir.
But in fact:
Any tourist to Washington, DC, will see plenty of Secret Service
Police guarding all of the other foreign embassies which request such
protection. Other than guarding the White House and some federal
buildings, it’s the largest use of personnel by the Secret Service’s
Uniformed Division.
Debbie Schlussel, “FAKEN-heit 9-11: Michael Moore’s Latest Fiction,”
June 25, 2004.
According to the Secret Service website:
Uniformed Division officers provide protection for the White House
Complex, the Vice-President's residence, the Main Treasury Building
and Annex, and foreign diplomatic missions and embassies in the
Washington, DC area.
So there is nothing strange about the Secret Service protecting the
Saudi embassy in Washington—especially since al Qaeda attacks have
taken place against Saudi Arabia.
[Moore response: None.]
Alleged Bush-Saudi Conspiracy
Deceit 26
Moore asks, “Is it rude to suggest that when the Bush family wakes up
in the morning they might be thinking about what's best for the Saudis
instead of what's best for you?” But his Bush/Saudi conspiracy theory
is contradicted by very obvious facts:
…why did Moore’s evil Saudis not join “the Coalition of the
Willing”? Why instead did they force the United States to switch its
regional military headquarters to Qatar? If the Bush family and the
al-Saud dynasty live in each other’s pockets…then how come the most
reactionary regime in the region has been powerless to stop Bush from
demolishing its clone in Kabul and its buffer regime in Baghdad? The
Saudis hate, as they did in 1991, the idea that Iraq’s recuperated oil
industry might challenge their[s]....They fear the liberation of the
Shiite Muslims they so despise. To make these elementary points is to
collapse the whole pathetic edifice of the film’s “theory.”
Hitchens, Slate. This isn't to say that concerns about the wishes and
interests of the Saudi rulers play too large a role in American
foreign policy--especially in the U.S. State Department, which has
been notoriously supportive of pro-U.S. Arab dictatorships for many
decades. I would much prefer that the State Department and other
American foreign policymakers spent less time worrying about friendly
relations with the governments of Saudi Arabia, China, and other
dictatorships, and more time supporting the aspirations of people who
want to free themselves from dictatorship. But complaining about the
historic pro-Saudi tilt in U.S. foreign policy, a tilt which is partly
the result of extensive business relations between the two countries,
is not the same as propounding a tin-hat conspiracy theory that George
Bush is a servile tool of the bin Laden family.
Interestingly, Fahrenheit omits one of the leading evildoers in
Moore's grand conspiracy theory. As he told an audience in Liverpool,
England, “It’s all part of the same ball of wax, right? The oil
companies, Israel, Halliburton.” The oil companies and Halliburton are
prominent villains in Fahrenheit, but there is no mention at all of
Israel. Indeed, a Bush quote about terrorism in Israel is chopped to
remove the Israel reference. That Moore ignores Israel in Fahrenheit
makes sense, given Moore's stated intention of using the movie to
defeat George Bush in November. Most American Jews are Democrats; if
they found out what Moore believes about Israel (such as calling for
the U.S. to cut of all aid to Israel, and use the money to buy weapons
to give to the Palestinians), they might be considerably more
skeptical about Moore's claims regarding other alleged global
conspirators.
[Moore response: None]
Proposed Unocal Pipeline in Afghanistan
Deceits 27-31
This segment is introduced with the question, "Or was the war in
Afghanistan really about something else?" The "something else" is
shown to be a Unocal pipeline.
Moore mentions that the Taliban visited Texas while Bush was governor,
over a possible pipeline deal with Unocal. But Moore doesn’t say that
they never actually met with Bush or that the deal went bust in 1998
and had been supported by the Clinton administration.
Labash, Weekly Standard.
Moore asserts that the Afghan war was fought only to enable the Unocal
company to build a pipeline. In fact, Unocal dropped that idea back in
August 1998.
Jonathan Foreman, “Moore’s The Pity,” New York Post, June 23, 2004.
In December 1997, a delegation from Afghanistan’s ruling and ruthless
Taliban visited the United States to meet with an oil and gas company
that had extensive dealings in Texas. The company, Unocal, was
interested in building a natural gas line through Afghanistan. Moore
implies that Bush, who was then governor of Texas, met with the
delegation.
But, as Gannett News Service points out, Bush did not meet with
the Taliban representatives. What’s more, Clinton administration
officials did sit down with Taliban officials, and the delegation’s
visit was made with the Clinton administration’s permission.
McNamee, Chicago Sun-Times.
Whatever the motive, the Unocal pipeline project was entirely a
Clinton-era proposal: By 1998, as the Taliban hardened its positions,
the U.S. oil company pulled out of the deal. By the time George W.
Bush took office, it was a dead issue—and no longer the subject of any
lobbying in Washington.
Isikoff & Hosenball, MSNBC.com.
On December 9, 2003, the new Afghanistan government did sign a
protocol with Turkmenistan and Pakistan to facilitate a pipeline.
Indeed, any Afghani government (Taliban or otherwise) would rationally
seek the revenue that could be gained from a pipeline. But the new
pipeline (which has not yet been built) has nothing to do with Unocal.
Nor does the new proposed pipeline even resemble Unocal's failed
proposal; the new pipeline would the bring oil and gas from the
Caspian Sea basin, whereas Unocal's proposal involved deposits five
hundred miles away, in eastern Turkmenistan.
Fahrenheit showed images of pipeline construction, but images have
nothing to do with the Caspian Sea pipeline, for which construction
has never begun. Nor do they have anything to do with the Unocal
pipeline, which never existed except on paper.
According to Fahrenheit, Afghanistan's new President, Hamid Karzai,
was a Unocal consultant. This is false. Sumana Chatterjee and David
Goldstein, "A lowdown on the facts behind the allegations in
'Fahrenheit 9/11'," Knight-Ridder newspapers, July 2, 2004. The origin
of the claim appears to be a December 6, 2001 story in the leftist
French newspaper Le Monde. The story does not cite any source for its
claim. (The story is available on-line from Le Monde's website;
registration and payment are required.) Unocal has denied that Karzai
was ever a consultant.
[Moore response: Regading Karzai, cites the article in Le Monde, and
two later articles which appear to use Le Monde's information. Moore's
translation is: "He was a consultant for the American oil company
Unocal, while they studied the construction of a pipeline in
Afghanistan." The actual sentence was "Après Kaboul et l'Inde ou il a
étudié le droit, il a parfait sa formation aux Etats-Unis ou il fut un
moment consultant de l'enterprise pétrolière américaine Unocal, quand
celle-ci étudiant la construction d'un oléduc en Afghanistan."
Translated: After Kabul and India where he had studied law, he
completed his training in the United States where he was briefly
(literally: "for a moment") a consultant for the American petroleum
business Unocal, when it was studying the construction of a pipeline
in Afghanistan." Neither Le Monde nor Moore has provided any evidence
to substantiate the claim about Unocal and Karzai.
[Moore does not attempt to defend the other falsities which are
detailed in this section: that Unocal had abandoned the project in
1998, that the 2003 Protocol involves an entirely different pipeline,
and that the pipeline footage in the movie has nothing to do with
either the 1998 or 2003 proposals.]
Bush Administration Relationship with the Taliban
Deceit 32
Moore also tries to paint Bush as sympathetic to the Taliban, which
ruled Afghanistan until its overthrow by U.S.-led forces shortly after
Sept. 11. Moore shows a March 2001 visit to the United States by a
Taliban envoy, saying the Bush administration “welcomed” the official,
Sayed Hashemi, “to tour the United States to help improve the image of
the Taliban.”
Yet Hashemi’s reception at the State Department was hardly
welcoming. The administration rejected his claim that the Taliban had
complied with U.S. requests to isolate Osama bin Laden and affirmed
its nonrecognition of the Taliban.
“We don’t recognize any government in Afghanistan,” State
Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on the day of the visit.
Frank, Newsday.
[Moore response. Quotes some articles showing that the Taliban visited
the U.S. in 2001 to appeal for the lifting of sanctions on their
government. Shows no evidence that the Taliban were "welcomed" by the
Bush administration. Does not explain why Fahrenheit omits the fact
that the Bush administration rebuffed all the Taliban's requests.]
Moore Claimed that Osama bin Laden Might be Innocent and Opposed the
Afghanistan War
Deceit 33
Fahrenheit 9/11 attempts in every way possible to link Osama bin
Laden to George Bush. Moore even claims that Bush deliberately gave
bin Laden “a two month head start” by not putting sufficient forces
into Afghanistan soon enough. (On HBO, Moore explicitly claimed that
the U.S. is protecting bin Laden in order to please the Saudis.)
However, Moore has not always been so fierce demanding that the
Afghanistan War be prosecuted with maximal power in order to get bin
Laden:
In late 2002, almost a year after the al-Qaida assault on American
society, I had an onstage debate with Michael Moore at the Telluride
Film Festival. In the course of this exchange, he stated his view that
Osama Bin Laden should be considered innocent until proven guilty.
This was, he said, the American way. The intervention in Afghanistan,
he maintained, had been at least to that extent unjustified.
Something—I cannot guess what, since we knew as much then as we do
now—has since apparently persuaded Moore that Osama Bin Laden is as
guilty as hell. Indeed, Osama is suddenly so guilty and so
all-powerful that any other discussion of any other topic is a
dangerous “distraction” from the fight against him. I believe that I
understand the convenience of this late conversion.
Hitchens, Slate. That Osama, if captured and tried in an American
court, would be entitled to a presumption of innocence (in the sense
that the prosecution would have to prove guilt) does not mean that the
U.S. should be morally foreclosed from destroying Osama's base in
Afghanistan and attempting to capture or kill Osama based on facts
demonstrating his guilt.
Three days after September 11, Moore demanded that no military action
be taken against Afghanistan:
"Declare war?" War against whom? One guy in the desert whom we can
never seem to find? Are our leaders telling us that the most powerful
country on earth cannot dispose of one sick evil f---wad of a guy?
Because if that is what you are telling us, then we are truly screwed.
If you are unable to take out this lone ZZ Top wannabe, what on earth
would you do for us if we were attacked by a nation of millions? For
chrissakes, call the Israelis and have them do that thing they do when
they want to get their man! We pay them enough billions each year, I
am SURE they would be happy to accommodate your request....
But do not declare war and massacre more innocents. After bin Laden's
previous act of terror, our last elected president went and bombed
what he said was "bin Laden's camp" in Afghanistan -- but instead just
killed civilians.
Michael Moore, "War on Whom?" AlterNet, Sept. 14, 2001.
The next day he wrote:
Trust me, they are talking politics night and day, and those
discussions involve sending our kids off to fight some invisible enemy
and to indiscriminately bomb Afghans or whoever they think will make
us Americans feel good.
...I fear we will soon be in a war that will do NOTHING to protect us
from the next terrorist attack.
"Mike's Message," Sept. 15, 2001. Although Moore vehemently opposed
the Afghanistan War, Fahrenheit criticizes Bush for not putting more
troops into Afghanistan sooner.
Are we any safer because the U.S. military eliminated the al Qaeda
training camps in Afghanistan, removed a government which did whatever
al Qaeda wanted, and killed or captured two-thirds of the al Qaeda
leadership? Fahrenheit's thesis that the Afghanistan War was solely
for the pipeline and to distract attention from Saudi Arabia is
inconsistent with the well-known results of the war. A sincere patriot
could have opposed the Afghanistan War for a variety of reasons, such
as fear that the invasion might stir up even more anti-American
sentiment. But the only reason which Fahrenheit offers for opposing
the war is the claim that not enough force was used in the early
stages (a criticism contrary to Moore's 2001 opposition to the use of
any force), and the factually indefensible claim that the results of
the war did not help American security or harm terrorists.
[Moore response: none.]
Afghanistan after Liberation
Deceit 34
[When] we turn to the facts that are deliberately left out, we
discover that there is an emerging Afghan army, that the country is
now a joint NATO responsibility and thus under the protection of the
broadest military alliance in history, that it has a new constitution
and is preparing against hellish odds to hold a general election, and
that at least a million and a half of its former refugees have opted
to return….[A] highway from Kabul to Kandahar—an insurance against
warlordism and a condition of nation-building—is nearing completion
with infinite labor and risk. We also discover that the parties of the
Afghan secular left—like the parties of the Iraqi secular left—are
strongly in favor of the regime change. But this is not the sort of
irony in which Moore chooses to deal.
Hitchens, Slate.
[Moore response: none]
Cooperation with 9/11 Commission
Deceit 35
Moore: But when Congress did complete its own investigation, the Bush
White House censored twenty-eight pages of the report.
Reporter: The President is being pressed by all sides to declassify
the report. US officials tell NBC news most of the secret sources
involve Saudi Arabia.
President Bush: We have given extraordinary cooperation with Chairmen
Kean and Hamilton.
Commission Chairman Thomas H. Kean: We haven't gotten the materials we
needed, and we certainly haven't gotten them in a timely fashion. The
deadlines we set have passed.
Bravo to Moore for raising the point about censorship of the 28 pages.
It's possible that all the censorship was necessary to protect
confidential sources, but it's also possible that at least some of the
censorship was unnecessary, and was the result of the White House
being overprotective of the Saudis. As I've said before, Moore is
right to call attention to excessive Saudi influence in the U.S.; he's
just wrong with many of his claims about particular issues, and is
ridiculous in his claim that the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq
were undertaken for the benefit of the Saudis.
The second part of the quoted dialogue, however, is deceptive. The
sequencing makes it appear that Kean was rebutting Bush's claim of
extraordinary cooperation. In fact, Kean complained on July 9, 2003,
that several "government agencies" (Justice and Defense) were not
being cooperative.
On February 8, 2004, Bush told MSNBC that his administration had given
extraordinary cooperation. So rather than rebutting Bush's claim,
Kean's complaint helped spur the administration to, belatedly, fulfill
the Committee's requests. Kean stated that the Commission had been
given "unprecedented" access to records. Frank, Newsday.
John Ashcroft
Deceits 36
Moore mocks Attorney General John Ashcroft by pointing out that
Ashcroft once lost a Senate race in Missouri to a man who had died
three weeks earlier. “Voters preferred the dead guy,” Moore says,
delivering one of the film’s biggest laugh lines.
It’s a cheap shot. When voters in Missouri cast their ballots for
the dead man, Mel Carnahan, they knew they were really voting for
Carnahan’s very much alive widow, Jean. The Democratic governor of
Missouri had vowed to appoint Jean to the job if Mel won.
McNamee, Chicago Sun-Times.
[Moore response: Provides a newspaper quote: "Sen. John Ashcroft on
Wednesdaygraciously conceded defeat in his re-election campaign
against the late Gov. Mel Carnahan and urged fellow Republicans to
call off any legal challenges." Does not address the fact that voters
knew that if they voted the late Mel Carnahan, his widow Mrs. Jean
Carnahan would become their Senator.]
FBI and Department of Justice
Deceits 37-38
Much worse than Moore's petty slam of Senate candidate Ashcroft is
Moore's false charge that Attorney General Ashcroft ignored warnings
about the September 11 attacks:
[A]fter suggesting that Ashcroft was unconcerned about terrorism
before September 11, Moore uses phrasing that exaggerates how
widespread knowledge of the Al Qaeda plot was before the attacks
inside the FBI and Justice Department:
[Ashcroft's] own FBI knew that summer that there were Al Qaeda members
in the US and that Bin Laden was sending his agents to flight schools
around the country. But Ashcroft's Justice Department turned a blind
eye and a deaf ear.
This implies far more prior knowledge about flight school activity
than actually existed. As the 9/11 Commission found in a staff
statement (72K Adobe PDF), the so-called "Phoenix memo" from an FBI
agent in Arizona suggesting a possible effort by Bin Laden to send
agents to flight schools was not widely circulated within the FBI and
did not reach Ashcroft's desk:
His memo was forwarded to one field office. Managers of the Osama Bin
Laden unit and the Radical Fundamentalist unit at FBI headquarters
were addressees, but did not even see the memo until after September
11. No managers at headquarters saw the memo before September 11. The
New York field office took no action. It was not shared outside the
FBI.
Before Sept. 11, the Minneapolis FBI also investigated Zacarias
Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, who was enrolled in a flight
school there, but no Al Qaeda connections were discovered until after
the attacks. Again, saying the FBI "knew" of a plot to send agents to
flight schools is overstated.
Brendan Nyhan, "Fahrenheit 9/11: The temperature at which Michael
Moore's pants burn," Spinsanity.org, July 2, 2004.
Moore claims that Bush "cut terrorism funding from the FBI." Not so.
In 2001, the Department of Justice was operating under the budget
established in the last year of the Clinton administration, so any
proposed change in future budgets obviously could not have prevented
September 11. For the 2002 budget, the Bush administration did not
propose cutting the FBI counter-terrorism budget. The relevant
documents are collected at the website for the Center for American
Progress, a self-declared "progressive" think tank which is scathing
in denouncing Ashcroft for not agreeing (before September 11) to
various FBI proposals for increasing FBI counter-terrorism funding.
Rejecting an increase is not the same as imposing a cut.
Fahrenheit shows a document highlighting the one significant cut which
Ashcroft proposed (in a Sept. 10 memo; see p. 25). Contrary to
Fahrenheit's claim, that cut was not for the FBI budget. The funding
was for grants to states to buy equipment; as the memo detailed, the
equipment fund already had more than two years worth of money which
had not been spent, because states had not yet complied with grant
requirements that the states produce state-wide preparedness plans in
order to receive funding.
There was also a cut in a special Attorney General fund which had been
set up to pay Department of Justice field offices for costs related to
the Oklahoma City Bombing. The Senate had voted to eliminate this
fund.
[Moore response: Cites the Phoenix Memo warning about al Qaeda
trainees in flight schools. Does not attempt to rebut the evidence
that the memo was not widely circulated within the FBI and did not
reach Ashcroft's desk." Cites a Chicago Tribune article summarizing
September 11 Commission hearings in which former acting FBI Director
Thomas Pickard claims that Ashcroft told Pickard he did not want to
hear any more about terrorism. Omits Ashcroft's denial of the
Pickard's claim--or the possibility that Pickard might have been
attempting to shift blame away from the FBI. Moore's response does not
attempt to defend the false claim about budget cuts.]
Rep. Porter Goss
Deceit 39
Defending the USA PATRIOT Act, Representative Porter Goss says that
he has an “800 number” for people to call to report problems with the
Act. Fahrenheit shoots back with a caption "He's lying." The ordinary
telephone number (area code 202) for Goss’s office is then flashed on
the screen.
You’d never know by watching Fahrenheit, but Rep. Goss does have a
toll-free number to which USA PATRIOT Act complaints can be reported.
The number belongs to the Committee which Goss chairs, the House
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The number is (877)
858-9040.
Although the Committee’s number is toll-free, the prefix is not “800,”
and Moore exploits this trivial fact to create the false impression
that Goss lied about having a toll-free number.
As far as I can tell, the slam on Rep. Goss is the only factual error
in the segment on the misnamed USA PATRIOT Act. While there are a few
good things in the Act, Moore's general critique of the Act is valid.
The Act does contain many items which had long been on the FBI
wish-list, which do not have real relation to the War on Terror, and
which were pushed through under the pretext of 9/11. Similar critiques
are also valid for the Clinton "terrorism" bill which was pushed
through Congress in 1996.
[Moore response: None.]
Oregon Troopers
There are several scenes involving Oregon state troopers who patrol
coastal areas in the state. The Troopers are presented as underfunded
and spread far too thinly.
But this has nothing to do with Fahrenheit's claim that the Bush
administration is not sincerely interested in homeland security. The
Oregon State Police are paid by the Oregon state government (which has
been suffering from a budget crisis). Whatever the problems with
Trooper funding, the problems are the responsibility of the Oregon
state government, not the federal government. Moore's point makes no
more sense than blaming the Oregon state government for shortages of
FBI personnel in Eugene.
[Moore response: Cites an article about Oregon state budget cuts.
Continues to ignore the fact that the Oregon State Police budget is
not the responsibility of the federal government.]
Saddam Hussein Never Murdered Americans
Deceits 40-41
Fahrenheit asserts that Saddam’s Iraq was a nation that "had never
attacked the United States. A nation that had never threatened to
attack the United States. A nation that had never murdered a single
American citizen."
Jake Tapper (ABC News): You declare in the film that Hussein’s regime
had never killed an American …
Moore: That isn’t what I said. Quote the movie directly.
Tapper: What is the quote exactly?
Moore: “Murdered.” The government of Iraq did not commit a
premeditated murder on an American citizen. I’d like you to point out
one.
Tapper: If the government of Iraq permitted a terrorist named Abu
Nidal who is certainly responsible for killing Americans to have Iraq
as a safe haven; if Saddam Hussein funded suicide bombers in Israel
who did kill Americans; if the Iraqi police—now this is not a murder
but it’s a plan to murder—to assassinate President Bush which at the
time merited airstrikes from President Clinton once that plot was
discovered; does that not belie your claim that the Iraqi government
never murdered an American or never had a hand in murdering an
American?
Moore: No, because nothing you just said is proof that the Iraqi
government ever murdered an American citizen. And I am still waiting
for you to present that proof.
You’re talking about, they provide safe haven for Abu Nidal after the
committed these murders, uh, Iraq helps or supports suicide bombers in
Israel. I mean the support, you remember the telethon that the Saudis
were having? It’s our allies, the Saudis, that have been providing
help and aid to the suicide bombers in Israel. That’s the story you
should be covering. Why don’t you cover that story? Why don’t you
cover it?
Note Moore’s extremely careful phrasing of the lines which appear to
exonerate Saddam, and Moore’s hyper-legal response to Tapper. In
fact, Saddam provided refuge to notorious terrorists who had murdered
Americans. Saddam provided a safe haven for Abu Abbas (leader of the
hijacking of the ship Achille Lauro and the murder of the elderly
American passenger Leon Klinghoffer), for Abu Nidal, and for the 1993
World Trade Center bombmaker, Abdul Rahman Yasin. By law, Saddam
therefore was an accessory to the murders. Saddam order his police to
murder former American President George Bush when he visited Kuwait
City in 1993; they attempted to do so, but failed. In 1991, he ordered
his agents to murder the American Ambassador to the Philippines and,
separately, to murder the employees of the U.S. Information Service in
Manila; they tried, but failed. Yet none of these aggressions against
the United States “count” for Moore, because he has carefully framed
his verbs and verb tenses to exclude them.
According to Laurie Mylroie, a former Harvard professor who served as
Bill Clinton's Iraq advisor during the 1992 campaign (during which
Vice-Presidential candidate Gore repeatedly castigated incumbent
President George H.W. Bush for inaction against Saddam), the
ringleader of the World Trade Center bombings, Ramzi Yousef, was
working for the Iraqi intelligence service. Laurie Mylroie, The War
Against America: Saddam Hussein and the World Trade Center Attacks: A
Study of Revenge (N.Y.: HarperCollins, 2d rev. ed. 2001.)
But even with Moore’s clever phrasing designed to elide Saddam’s
culpability in the murders and attempted murders of Americans, Tapper
still catches him with an irrefutable point: Saddam did perpetrate the
premeditated murder of Americans. Every victim of every Palestinian
terrorist bomber who was funded by Saddam Hussein was the victim of
premeditated murder—including the American victims.
So what does Moore do? He tries to change the subject. Moore makes the
good point that the U.S. media should focus more attention on Saudi
financial aid to Palestinian terrorists who murder Americans in
Israel. On NRO, I’ve pointed to Saudi terror funding, as have other
NRO writers. But pointing out Saudi Arabia’s guilt does not excuse
Moore’s blatant lie about Saddam Hussein’s innocence.
[Moore response: Quotes a think tank writer: "Iraq has never
threatened nor been implicated in any attack against U.S. territory
and the CIA has reported no Iraqi-sponsored attacks against American
interests since 1991." The statement does not address Iraqi payments
to the families of terrorists who murdered Americans in Israel. Nor
does it address the undeniable fact that Iraq was providing a hide-out
for terrorists who had murdered Americans.]
Saddam’s Threats
Deceit 42
Moore’s pro-Saddam allegation that Saddam "never threatened to attack
the United States" is true in the narrow sense that Saddam never gave
a speech in which he threatened to, for example, send the Iraqi navy
and army to conduct an amphibious invasion of Florida. But although
Saddam never threatened the territorial integrity of America, he
repeatedly threatened Americans. For example, on November 15, 1997,
the main propaganda organ for the Saddam regime, the newspaper Babel
(which was run by Saddam Hussein's son Uday) ordered: "American and
British interests, embassies, and naval ships in the Arab region
should be the targets of military operations and commando attacks by
Arab political forces." (Stephen Hayes, The Connection: How al Qaeda's
Collaboration with Saddam Hussein has Endangered America (N.Y.:
HarperCollins, 2004), p. 94.) On November 25, 2000, Saddam declared in
a televised speech, "The Arab people have not so far fulfilled their
duties. They are called upon to target U.S. and Zionist interests
everywhere and target those who protect these interests."
On the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks, a weekly
newspaper owned by Uday Hussein said that Arabs should, "use all
means-and they are numerous-against the aggressors...and considering
everything American as a military target, including embassies,
installations, and American companies, and to create suicide/martyr
[fidaiyoon] squads to attack American military and naval bases inside
and outside the region, and mine the waterways to prevent the movement
of war ships..."
Moreover, the Saddam regime did not need to make verbal threats in
order to "threaten" the United States. The regime threatened the
United States by giving refuges to terrorists who had murdered
Americans, and by funding terrorists who were killing Americans in
Israel. Saddam gave refuge to terrorists who had attacked the United
States by bombing the World Trade Center. In addition:
In 1991, a large number of Western hostages were taken by the hideous
Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and held in terrible conditions for a long
time. After that same invasion was repelled—Saddam having killed quite
a few Americans and Egyptians and Syrians and Brits in the meantime
and having threatened to kill many more…
….Iraqi forces fired, every day, for 10 years, on the
aircraft that patrolled the no-fly zones and staved off further
genocide in the north and south of the country. In 1993, a certain Mr.
Yasin helped mix the chemicals for the bomb at the World Trade Center
and then skipped to Iraq, where he remained a guest of the state until
the overthrow of Saddam….On Dec. 1, 2003, the New York Times
reported—and the David Kay report had established—that Saddam had been
secretly negotiating with the “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il in a series of
secret meetings in Syria, as late as the spring of 2003, to buy a
North Korean missile system, and missile-production system, right off
the shelf. (This attempt was not uncovered until after the fall of
Baghdad, the coalition’s presence having meanwhile put an end to the
negotiations.)
Hitchens, Slate. The cited article is David E. Sanger & Thom Shanker,
"A Region Inflamed: Weapons. For the Iraqis, a Missile Deal That Went
Sour; Files Tell of Talks With North Korea, New York Times, Dec. 1,
2003.
As French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin stated on November
12, 2002, "The security of the United States is under threat from
people like Saddam Hussein who are capable of using chemical and
biological weapons." (Hayes, p. 21.) De Villepin's point is
indisputable: Saddam was the kind of person who was capable of using
chemical weapons, since he had actually used them against Iraqis who
resisted his tyrannical regime. As de Villepin spoke, Saddam was
sheltering terrorists who had murdered Americans, and was subsidizing
the murder of Americans (and many other nationalities) in Israel.
[Moore response: Cites a column by Maureen Dowd and an article for a
former Australian Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs And
Trade asserting that Iraq never threatened the United States. Does not
address the extensive threats detailed in this section.]
Iraq and al Qaeda
Deceit 43-44
Moore declares that George Bush completely fabricated an Iraq/al Qaeda
connection in order to deflect attention from his Saudi masters. But
consider the facts presented in Stephen F. Hayes's book, The
Connection : How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has
Endangered America (N.Y.: HarperCollins, 2004). The first paragraph
of the last chapter (pp. 177-78) sums up some of the evidence:
Iraqi intelligence documents from 1992 list Osama bin Laden as an
Iraqi intelligence asset. Numerous sources have reported a 1993
nonaggression pact between Iraq and al Qaeda. The former deputy
director of Iraqi intelligence now in U.S. custody says that bin Laden
asked the Iraqi regime for arms and training in a face-to-face meeting
in 1994. Senior al Qaeda leader Abu Hajer al Iraqi met with Iraqi
intelligence officials in 1995. The National Security Agency
intercepted telephone conversations between al Qaeda-supported
Sudanese military officials and the head of Iraq's chemical weapons
program in 1996. Al Qaeda sent Abu Abdallah al Iraqi to Iraq for help
with weapons of mass destruction in 1997. An indictment from the
Clinton-era Justice Department cited Iraqi assistance on al Qaeda
"weapons development" in 1998. A senior Clinton administration
counterterrorism official told the Washington Post that the U.S.
government was "sure" Iraq had supported al Qaeda chemical weapons
programs in 1999. An Iraqi working closely with the Iraqi embassy in
Kuala Lumpur was photographed with September 11 hijacker Khalid al
Mihdhar en route to a planning meeting for the bombing of the USS Cole
and the September 11 attacks in 2000. Satellite photographs showed al
Qaeda members in 2001 traveling en masse to a compound in northern
Iraq financed, in part, by the Iraqi regime. Abu Musab al Zarqawi,
senior al Qaeda associate, operated openly in Baghdad and received
medical attention at a regime-supported hospital in 2002. Documents
discovered in postwar Iraq in 2003 reveal that Saddam's regime
harbored and supported Abdul Rahman Yasin, an Iraqi who mixed the
chemicals for the 1993 World Trade Center attack...
Hayes is a writer for The Weekly Standard and much of his writing on
the Saddam/Osama connection is available there for free; simply use
the search engine and look for articles by Hayes.
The preliminary staff report of the September 11 Commission states,
"We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on
attacks against the United States." Some critics, including the chief
prosecutor of the World Trade Center bombers, have argued that the
staff report inexplicably ignores substantial evidence of Iraqi
involvement in the September 11 attacks. Whether you agree with the
staff report or the critics, there is no dispute that Saddam Hussein
had a relationship with al Qaeda, an organization whose only activity
was terrorism. Fahrenheit dishonestly pretends that there was no
relationship at all.
Fahrenheit shows Condoleezza Rice saying, "Oh, indeed there is a tie
between Iraq and what happened on 9/11." The audience laughs
derisively. Here is what Rice really said on the CBS Early Show, Nov.
28, 2003:
Oh, indeed there is a tie between Iraq and what happened on 9/11. It’s
not that Saddam Hussein was somehow himself and his regime involved in
9/11, but, if you think about what caused 9/11, it is the rise of
ideologies of hatred that lead people to drive airplanes into
buildings in New York. This is a great terrorist, international
terrorist network that is determined to defeat freedom. It has
perverted Islam from a peaceful religion into one in which they call
on it for violence. And they're all linked. And Iraq is a central
front because, if and when, and we will, we change the nature of Iraq
to a place that is peaceful and democratic and prosperous in the heart
of the Middle East, you will begin to change the Middle East....
Moore deceptively cut the Rice quote to fool the audience into
thinking she was making a particular claim, even though she was
pointedly not making such a claim. And since Rice spoke in November
2003, her quote had nothing to do with building up American fears
before the March 2003 invasion, although Moore implies otherwise.
[Moore response: None.]
Iraq before Liberation
Deceit 45
Moore shows scenes of Baghdad before the invasion (read: liberation)
and in his weltanschauung, it’s a place filled with nothing but happy,
smiling, giggly, overjoyed Baghdadis. No pain and suffering there. No
rape, murder, gassing, imprisoning, silencing of the citizens in these
scenes. When he exploits and lingers on the tears of a mother who lost
her soldier-son in Iraq, and she wails, “Why did you have to take
him?” Moore does not cut to images of the murderers/terrorists (pardon
me, “insurgents”) in Iraq…or even to God; he cuts to George Bush. When
the soldier’s father says the young man died and “for what?”, Moore
doesn’t show liberated Iraqis to reply, he cuts instead to an image of
Halliburton.
Jeff Jarvis, "Watching Michael Moore," Buzz Machine weblog, June 24,
2004.
The most offensive sequence in “Fahrenheit 9/11”’s long two hours
lasts only a few minutes. It’s Moore’s file-footage depiction of happy
Iraq before the Americans began their supposedly pointless invasion.
You see men sitting in cafes, kids flying kites, women shopping. Cut
to bombs exploding at night.
What Moore presumably doesn’t know, or simply doesn’t care about, is
that the building you see being blown up is the Iraqi Ministry of
Defense in Baghdad. Not many children flew kites there. It was in a
part of the city that ordinary Iraqis weren’t allowed to visit—on pain
of death.
…Iraq was ruled by a regime that had forced a sixth of its
population into fearful exile, that hanged dissidents (real
dissidents, not people like Susan Sontag and Tim Robbins) from
meathooks and tortured them with blowtorches, and filled thousands of
mass graves with the bodies of its massacred citizens.
Yes, children played, women shopped and men sat in cafes
while that stuff went on—just as people did all those normal things in
Somoza’s Nicaragua, Duvalier’s Haiti and for that matter Nazi Germany,
and as they do just about everywhere, including in Iraq today.
Foreman, New York Post. For more, see the weblog of Iraqi Sarmad Zanga
(part of which cites this report).
Fahrenheit points out, correctly, that the Saudi monarchy is "a regime
that Amnesty International condemns as a widespread human rights
violator." Fahrenheit does not mention that the Saddam regime was
likewise condemned by Amnesty International. As AI's 2002 annual
report noted, in April 2002 "the UN Commission on Human Rights adopted
a resolution strongly condemning 'the systematic, widespread and
extremely grave violations of human rights and of international
humanitarian law by the Government of Iraq, resulting in an
all-pervasive repression and oppression sustained by broad-based
discrimination and widespread terror.'''
[Moore response: None.]
Invasion of Iraq
Deceits 46-47
According to the footage that ensues, our pilots seem to have hit
nothing but women and children.
Labash, Weekly Standard.
Then—wham! From the night sky come the terror weapons of American
imperialism. Watching the clips Moore uses, and recalling them well, I
can recognize various Saddam palaces and military and police centers
getting the treatment…I remember asking Moore at Telluride if he was
or was not a pacifist. He would not give a straight answer then, and
he doesn’t now, either. I’ll just say that the “insurgent” side is
presented in this film as justifiably outraged, whereas the 30-year
record of Baathist war crimes and repression and aggression is not
mentioned once. (Actually, that’s not quite right. It is briefly
mentioned but only, and smarmily, because of the bad period when
Washington preferred Saddam to the likewise unmentioned Ayatollah
Khomeini.)
Hitchens, Slate.
Major Coalition Partners Ignored
Deceit 48
Q: You mock the “coalition of the willing” by only showing the tiny
countries that have voiced support. But you leave out England, Spain,
Italy and Poland. Why?
Moore: “This film exists as a counterbalance to what you see on cable
news about the coalition. I’m trying to counter the Orwellian nature
of the Big Lie, as if when you hear that term, the ‘coalition,’ that
the whole world is behind us.”
Patrick Goldstein, “Truth teller or story stretcher?” Los Angeles
Times, June 22, 2004.
If it is a “Big Lie” to mention only the powerful and important
members of the Coalition (such as the United Kingdom and Australia),
then it is an equally “Big Lie” to mention only the small and
insignificant members of the Coalition.
[Moore response: Provides a citation showing that the small countries
which Fahrenheit mocks were part of the Coalition. Does not attempt to
justify omission of other countries.]
Major Gregory Stone
Exploitation and Invasion of Privacy
The family of U.S. Air Force Maj. Gregory Stone was shocked to learn
that video footage of the major's Arlington National Cemetery burial
was included by Michael Moore in his movie "Fahrenheit 9/11."
Maj. Stone was killed in March 2003 by a grenade that officials said
was thrown into his tent by Sgt. Hasan K. Akbar, who is on trial for
murder.
"It's been a big shock, and we are not very happy about it, to say the
least," Kandi Gallagher, Maj. Stone's aunt and family spokeswoman,
tells Washington Times reporter Audrey Hudson.
"We are furious that Greg was in that casket and cannot defend
himself, and my sister, Greg's mother, is just beside herself," Miss
Gallagher said. "She is furious. She called him a 'maggot that eats
off the dead.'"
The movie, described by critics as political propaganda during an
election year, shows video footage of the funeral and Maj. Stone's
fiancee, Tammie Eslinger, kissing her hand and placing it on his
coffin.
The family does not know how Mr. Moore obtained the video, and Miss
Gallagher said they did not give permission and are considering legal
recourse.
She described her nephew as a "totally conservative Republican" and
said he would have found the film to be "putrid."
"I'm sure he would have some choice words for Michael Moore," she
said. "Michael Moore would have a hard time asking our family for a
glass of water if he were thirsty."
John McCaslin, "Inside the Beltway," Washington Times, July 13, 2004.
Media Attitudes
Deceit 49
In very selectively edited clips, Moore poses the absurd notion that
the main news anchors—Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, and Ted
Koppel—wholeheartedly support Bush and the War in Iraq….Has Moore
forgotten the hour-long Saddam softball interview Rather did just
prior to the war, [or] Jennings’ condescending coverage…?
Schlussel.
Jennings is shown delivering a broadcast in which he says, “Iraqi
opposition has faded in the face of American power.” But Jennings was
simply stating an undeniable fact, as he stood next to a map showing
that Saddam’s army had collapsed everywhere, and all Iraqi cities were
in Coalition hands. Despite what Moore implies, Jennings strongly
opposed the liberation of Iraq. (Tim Graham, “Peter’s Peace Platoon.
ABC’s Crusade Against ‘Arrogant’ American Power,” Media Research
Center, March 18, 2003.)
[Moore response: None.]
Abuse of Iraqi Captives
Bonus Deceit
Long before Fahrenheit was released, Moore promised that he had videos
of Iraqi prisoner abuse. Fahrenheit presents a video of making fun of
a prostrate Iraqi. To the audience, it seems like another Abu Ghraib.
Moore told an audience, "You saw this morning the first footage of
abuse and humiliation of Iraqi detainees." Fahrenheit claims: "Immoral
behavior breeds immoral behavior. When a President commits the immoral
act of sending otherwise good kids into a war based on a lie, this is
what you get."
Not really. As reported in the (Toronto) Globe and Mail:
He revealed that a scene in which American soldiers appear to be
desecrating a corpse beneath a blanket may be misleading. In fact, the
soldiers had picked up an old man who had passed out drunk and they
poked at his visible erection, covered by a blanket.
It's not very respectful to make fun of a drunk who has passed out on
a street. But such teasing has nothing to do with the kind of bizarre
sexual abuse perpetrated at Abu Ghraib. All over the world, law
enforcement officers make fun of comatose drunks.
Such teasing is an abuse of power. (Although it's a relatively
harmless abuse of power, since the only victim can't hear the
disrespectful words.) Insulting a drunk who can't hear you is not like
torturing a conscious victim.
[Moore response: None.]
Support for Soldiers and Veterans
Deceits 50-52
Bush “supported closing veterans hospitals” says Moore. The Bush
Department of Veteran’s Affairs did propose closing seven hospitals in
areas with declining populations where the hospitals were
underutilized, and whose veterans could be served by other hospitals.
Moore does not say that the Department also proposed building new
hospitals in areas where needs were growing, and also building blind
rehabilitation centers and spinal cord injury centers. (For more, see
the Final Report of the independent commission on veterans hospitals,
which agrees with some of the Bush proposals, and with some of the
objections raised by critics.)
According to Moore, Bush “tried to double the prescription drug costs
for veterans.” What Bush proposed was raising the prescription co-pay
from $7 to $15, for veterans with incomes of over $24,000 a year.
Prescription costs would have remained very heavily subsidized by
taxpayers. Some, not all, veterans would have faced a doubling of
their prescription co-pay, but only to a level which is common for
many people with prescription insurance, and hardly a large enough
increase to make a great difference in most cases.
Bush, announces Moore, “proposed cutting combat soldiers’ pay by 33%.”
Not exactly. In addition to regular military salaries, soldiers in
certain areas (not just combat zones) receive an “imminent danger”
bonus of $150 a month. In April 2003, Congress retroactively enacted a
special increase of $75, for the fiscal year of Oct. 1, 2002 through
Sept. 30, 2003. At first, the Bush administration did not support
renewing the special bonus, but then changed its position
Likewise, Congress had passed a special one-year increase in the
family separation allowance (for service personnel stationed in places
where their families cannot join them) from $100 to $250. Bush’s
initial opposition to extending the special increase was presented by
Moore as “cutting assistance to their families by 60%.” (Edward
Epstein, “Pentagon reverses course, won’t cut troops’ pay,” San
Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 15, 2003.)
Even if one characterizes not renewing a special bonus as a “cut,”
Fahrenheit misleads the viewer into thinking that the cuts applied to
total compensation, rather than only to pay supplements which
constitute only a small percentage of a soldier’s income. An enlisted
man with four months of experience receives an annual salary more than
$27,000. (Rod Powers, “What the Recruiter Never Told You: Military
Pay.”)
Although Moore presents Bush as cutting military pay, Bush did the
opposite: in 2003, Congress enacted a Bush administration proposal to
raise all military salaries by 3.7%, with extra “targeted” pay
increases for non-commissioned officers. NCOs are lower-ranking
officers who typically join the military with lower levels of
education than commissioned officers. (Sgt. 1st Class Doug Sample,
“Defense Department Targets Military Pay Increases for 2004,” American
Forces Press Service.)
(Deceits: 1. Closing veterans hospitals without mentioning of opening
of veteran's hospitals, 2. Cutting combat soldiers pay as if it were a
cut in total salary, 3. Omission of Bush pay increase for military.
Prescription drugs not counted as deceit, although important context
is missing.)
[Moore response: Provides citations which are consistent with my
explanation of the facts. Does not attempt to explain or justify the
deceits or omissions.]
Congressional Children in War
Deceits 53-56
Early in this segment, Moore states that “only one” member of Congress
has a child in Iraq. The action of the segment consists of Moore
accosting Congressmen to try to convince them to have their children
enlist in the military. At the end, Moore declares, “Not a single
member of Congress wanted to sacrifice their child for the war in
Iraq.”
Moore’s statement is technically true, but duplicitous. Of course
no-one would want to “sacrifice” his child in any way. But the fact
is, Moore's opening ("only one") and his conclusion ("not a single
member") are both incorrect. Sergeant Brooks Johnson, the son of South
Dakota Democratic Senator Tim Johnson, serves in the 101st Airborne
Division and fought in Iraq in 2003. The son of California Republican
Representative Duncan Hunter quit his job after September 11, and
enlisted in the Marines; his artillery unit was deployed in the heart
of insurgent territory in February 2004. Delaware Senator Joseph
Biden's son Beau is on active duty; although Beau Biden has no control
over where he is deployed, he has not been sent to Iraq, and therefore
does not "count" for Moore's purposes.
How about Cabinet members? Fahrenheit never raises the issue, because
the answer would not fit Moore’s thesis. Attorney General John
Ashcroft’s son is serving on the U.S.S. McFaul in the Persian Gulf.
The editing of the Congressional scenes borders on the fraudulent:
….Representative Kennedy (R-MN), one of the lawmakers accosted in
Fahrenheit 9/11, was censored by Michael Moore.
According to the [Minneapolis] Star Tribune, Kennedy, when
asked if he would be willing to send his son to Iraq, responded by
stating that he had a nephew who was en-route to Afghanistan. He went
on to inform Moore that his son was thinking about a career in the
navy and that two of his nephews had already served in the armed
forces. Kennedy’s side of the conversation, however, was cut from the
film, leaving him looking bewildered and defensive.
What was Michael’s excuse for trimming the key segment?
Kennedy’s remarks didn’t help his thesis: “He mentioned that he had a
nephew that was going over to Afghanistan,” Moore recounted. “So then
I said ‘No, no, that’s not our job here today. We want you to send
your child to Iraq. Not a nephew.’”
Kennedy lambasted Moore as a “master of the misleading”
after viewing the interview in question.
Fahrenheit Fact.
George Stephanopoulos, of ABC News, asked Moore about the selective
cuts in the Kennedy footage:
Stephanopoulos: You have a scene when you’re up on Capitol Hill
encountering members of Congress, asking them if they would ask their
sons and daughters to enlist … in the military. And one of those
members of Congress who appears in the trailer, Mark Kennedy, said you
left out what he told you, which is that he has two nephews serving in
the military, one in Afghanistan. And he went on to say that, “Michael
Moore doesn’t always give the whole truth. He’s a master of the
misleading.”
Moore: Well, at the time, when we interviewed him, he didn’t have any
family members in Afghanistan. And when he saw the trailer for this
movie, he issued a report to the press saying that he said that he had
a kid in—
Stephanopoulos: He said he told you he had two nephews.
Moore:… No, he didn’t. And we released the transcript and we put it on
our Web site. This is what I mean by our war room. Any time a guy like
this comes along and says, “I told him I had two nephews and one was
going to Iraq and one was going to Afghanistan,” he’s lying. And I’ve
got the raw footage and the transcript to prove it. So any time these
Republicans come at me like this, this is exactly what they’re going
to get. And people can go to my Web site and read the transcript and
read the truth. What he just said there, what you just quoted, is not
true.
This Week followed up with the office of Rep. Kennedy. He
did have two nephews in the military, but neither served in Iraq.
Kennedy’s staff agrees that Moore’s Website is accurate but insists
the movie version is misleading. In the film, Moore says,
“Congressman, I’m trying to get members of Congress to get their kids
to enlist in the Army and go over to Iraq.” But, from the transcript,
here’s the rest:
Moore: Is there any way you could help me with that?
Kennedy: How would I help you?
Moore: Pass it out to other members of Congress.
Kennedy: I’d be happy to — especially those who voted for the war. I
have a nephew on his way to Afghanistan.
This Week, ABC News, June 20, 2004.
So while Fahrenheit pretended that Kennedy just stupidly looked at
Moore, Kennedy agreed to help Moore.
Notice also how Moore phrased his reply to Stephanopoulos: "Any time a
guy like this comes along and says, 'I told him I had two nephews and
one was going to Iraq and one was going to Afghanistan,' he’s lying."
But Kennedy never claimed that he had a nephew going to Iraq. The
insinuation that Kennedy made such a claim is a pure fabrication by
Moore.
Fahrenheit shows Moore calling out to Delaware Republican Michael
Castle, who is talking on a cell phone and waves Moore off. Castle is
presented as one of the Congressmen who would not sacrifice his
children. What the film omits is that Rep. Castle does not have any
children.
Are Congressional children less likely to serve in Iraq than children
from other families? Let’s use Moore’s methodology, and ignore members
of extended families (such as nephews) and also ignore service
anywhere expect Iraq (even though U.S. forces are currently fighting
terrorists in many countries). And like Moore, let us also ignore the
fact that some families (like Rep. Castle’s) have no children, or no
children of military age.
We then see that of 535 Congressional families, there are two with a
child who served in Iraq. How does this compare with American families
in general? In the summer of 2003, U.S. troop levels in Iraq were
raised to 145,000. If we factor in troop rotation, we could estimate
that about 300,000 people have served in Iraq at some point. According
to the Census Bureau, there were 104,705,000 households in the United
States in 2000. (See Table 1 of the Census Report.) So the ratio of
ordinary U.S. households to Iraqi service personnel is 104,705,000 to
300,000. This reduces to a ratio of 349:1.
In contrast the ratio of Congressional households to Iraqi service
personnel is 535:2. This reduces to a ratio of 268:1.
Stated another way, a Congressional household is about 23 percent more
likely than an ordinary household to be closely related to an Iraqi
serviceman or servicewoman.
Of course my statistical methodology is very simple. A more
sophisticated analysis would look only at Congressional and U.S.
households from which at least one child is legally eligible to enlist
in the military. Moore, obviously, never attempted such a comparison;
instead, he deceived viewers into believing that Congressional
families were extremely different from other families in enlistment
rates.
Moore ignores the fact that there are 101 veterans currently serving
in the House of Representatives and 36 in the Senate. Regardless of
whether they have children who could join the military, all of the
veterans in Congress have personally put themselves at risk to protect
their country.
(Deceits: 1. number of Congressional children in Iraq, 2. Mark
Kennedy, 3. Michael Castle, 4. False impression that Congressional
families are especially unlikely to serve in Iraq.)
[Moore response: Cites a May 11, 2003 article in the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch that only Brooks Johnson had a son who had fought in
Iraq. The article was accurate at the time, since Duncan Hunter's son,
who had already enlisted, had not yet been sent to Iraq. But
Fahrenheit premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2004--two
months after it had been reported that Duncan Hunter's son had been
sent to Iraq. At the least, Moore could apologize that his claim about
"only one" child is inaccurate, and blame the error on his having not
noticed the news about Hunter while the movie was in its final
production stages. But instead, Moore continues to repeat the "only
one" claim, which is indisputably false. Moore offers no defense for
the other falsehoods in this section.]
Lila Lipscomb and Military Casualties
Misleading
Fahrenheit spends a much time on the grief of Lila Lipscomb, the
mother of Sgt. Michael Pederson, who died in Iraq in April 2003. There
is no room in Fahrenheit for bereaved families who feel different from
Mrs. Lipscomb. Not even room for the widow Sgt. Michael Pederson, who
believes that "Hating President Bush is not going to bring Michael
back." Ben Schmitt, "Flint woman spotlighted in Moore's latest movie,"
Detroit Free Press, May 29, 2004.
Fahrenheit wallows in pity for Mrs. Lipscomb. “I was tired of seeing
people like Mrs. Lipscomb suffer,” Moore claims. Yet Moore’s website
is not quite so sympathetic:
I’m sorry, but the majority of Americans supported this war once it
began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children
until enough blood has been let that maybe -- just maybe -- God and
the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end.
Michael Moore, “Heads Up... from Michael Moore,” MichaelMoore.com,
April 14, 2004.
Fahrenheit is correct in pointing out that people who enlist in the
military are less likely to be college graduates and more likely to be
black than is the general U.S. population. However, Moore's portrayal
of the socioeconomics of the U.S. military is false is several
respects. First, people who are at the lowest end of the economic
spectrum--people who have failed to graduate from high school or to
obtain a G.E.D.--are not over-represented in the military. Like
college graduates, they are under-represented. In the case of high
school drop-outs, the reason is that the all-volunteer military can be
selective, and generally prefers not to enlist high-school drop-outs.
Although blacks are about twice as likely to serve in the military as
is the general U.S. population, black people do not suffer
disproportionate casualties in Iraq. Official casualty statistics for
Operation Iraqi Freedom report that--as of June 26, 2004--blacks
suffered 111 of the 850 U.S. fatalites. That figure of 13%. The Census
Bureau estimates that blacks comprise 12.3% of the U.S. population.
The reason that black enlistment is disproportionate but black
fatalities are not is that many blacks in the military serve in
support roles (such as providing supplies) which are unlikely to
suffer high rates of casualties. Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr., "The
Fallen: A profile of U.S. troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan,"
GovExec.com, May 28, 2004.
Flint
Deceit 57
Lipscomb is from Flint, Michigan, which Moore calls "my hometown." In
fact, Moore grew up in Davison, Michigan, a suburb of Flint. Davison
is much wealthier than Flint. According to the Census Bureau, 6
percent of children in the Davison public schools are from families
living in poverty, whereas in Flint, 31 percent of children are.
Calling Flint your "hometown" when you really grew up in Davison is
like calling the Bronx "my hometown" when you really grew up in
Westchester County.
Flint is working class, industrial, down-at-heel, where the majority
of the population is black or Latino. It's where the factories are.
Davison, where Moore grew up and attended Davison High School, is
comfortable middle class, suburban, and white. Overwhelmingly white.
It's where the managers and professionals live. While many of the
children of Flint go on to work at the factories...the normal
trajectory for the children of Davison is university. Michael Moore
went to university (though didn't stick long). Unusually, he also went
to Flint and tried his hand on the blue-collar front line with a job
on the Buick assembly line for General Motors. He found the conditions
under which the working class actually worked so appalling he quit the
job after one day.
"Less is Moore," Sydney Morning Herald, July 10, 2004.
Discussing unemployment rates, Mrs. Lipscomb states, "But you have to
take into account as well that when your unemployment runs out you're
no longer counted." (Presumably she means that when your "unemployment
insurance benefits" run out, you're no longer counted.) She also
incorrect in this regard. The Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment
rate counts all "Persons 16 years and over who had no employment
during the reference week, were available for work, except for
temporary illness, and had made specific efforts to find employment
sometime during the 4-week period ending with the reference week." The
rate has nothing do with whether the person is receiving unemployment
insurance payments.
[Moore response: Does not attempt to explain why he calls Flint "my
hometown." No defense of the misstatement about how unemployment
rates are calculated.
In previous draft, I had cited data from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics reporting that Flint's unemployment rate in January 2004
was 10 percent, and said that Fahrenheit''s claim about a 17 percent
rate was incorrect. Moore's response cited the Michigan Dept. of Labor
& Economic Growth for a 17 percent rate. The BLS figure (10 percent)
is labeled "Flint," but actually includes all of Genesee Country. The
Michigan DLEG figure (17 percent) is for the city of Flint only. So
Moore was correct, and I was incorrect.]
Moore’s Pro-Saddam Source
Washington Representative Jim McDermott appears in several segments.
McDermott was one of three Congressmen who went on
Saddam’s propaganda tour of Iraq in Fall 2002. The trip was funded by
Life for Relief and Development (LRD), a “charity” which laundered
money to terrorist group Hamas’ Jordanian operation. LRD is funded in
part by Shakir Al-Khafaji, a man who did about $70 million in business
with Saddam through his Falcon Trading Group company (based in South
Africa). LRD’s Iraqi offices were raided by US troops last week, and
the Detroit-area “charity” is suspected of funding uprisings, such as
the one in Fallujah. Its officials bragged of doing so at a recent
private US fundraiser.
Schlussel.
The McDermott quotes are, obviously, not like the deceitful quote of
Condoleezza Rice, in which her quote was twisted to mean the opposite
of what she really said. McDermott is apparently quite sincere, and
there is no indication that anything he said was taken out of context.
So you don't have to count this as a deceit if you don't want to. On
the other hand, McDermott's quotes about the alleged motivations of
the Bush administration are supported by no evidence, and amount to
nothing more than the speculative ravings of one of the very few
pro-Saddam members of Congress--who also worries that bin Laden has
already been captured, and will be brought out at an opportune time
before the election. To rely on McDermott to explain the Bush
administration's alleged secret intentions is akin to relying on a
bitter atheist to describe an alleged secret conspiracy in the
Vatican.
[Moore response: None.]
Famous Musicians
Bonus Deceit
He shows Britney Spears saying she supports the President on Iraq. [To
make Moore's oft-stated point that Americans who support the President
are ignorant.] As if there weren’t a host of brain-dead bimbo
celebs...spouting off on the other side.
Schlussel. As with much of the Iraq material, the Spears quote is not
an outright fraud, but is the result of perspective which is so
one-sided as to be misleading.
But Peter Townshend, lead guitarist for The Who, accuses Moore of
lying about the creation of Fahrenheit's soundtrack. The film
concludes with George Bush giving a speech in which he bumbles the
adage "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." He
recovers enough to deliver a final line: "Don't get fooled again." The
segment would have been nicely complemented by The Who's song "Won't
Get Fooled Again." According to Townshend:
Michael Moore has been making some claims – mentioning me by name -
which I believe distort the truth.
He says – among other things – that I refused to allow him to use my
song WON’T GET FOOLED AGAIN in his latest film, because I support the
war, and that at the last minute I recanted, but he turned me down....
I greatly resent being bullied and slurred by him in interviews just
because he didn’t get what he wanted from me. It seems to me that this
aspect of his nature is not unlike that of the powerful and wilful man
at the centre of his new documentary.
Townshend says that he never asked Moore to include "Won't Get Fooled
Again" in the film, that he would never have given permission without
seeing the film first, and that he was never provided with a preview
copy.
[Moore response: None.]
Tom Daschle
Double Bonus Deceit
Michael Moore told Time magazine that at the Washington premiere of
Fahrenheit, Tom Daschle "gave me a hug and said he felt bad and that
we were all gonna fight from now on. I thanked him for being a good
sport." Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) told the Rapid
City Journal that he has never even met Moore.
[Moore response: None.]
Return of the Jedi
Triple Bonus Deceit
Fahrenheit has enjoyed impressive box office success. But Moore, not
as much as Moore claims. On his website, he declares that Fahrenheit's
opening weekend "beat the opening weekend of Return of the Jedi." That
sounds awfully impressive, since Return of the Jedi was the
highly-anticipated third movie in the Star Wars series, and enjoyed a
phenomenal opening. Well, actually Fahrenheit didn't beat the 1983
opening weekend of Return of the Jedi. It beat the 1997 re-release,
Return of the Jedi: Special Edition. Moore might as well claim that
Fahrenheit is bigger than Disney's Beauty and the Beast--which would
be true for the Imax re-release of Beauty.
Moore Supports Terrorists
Deceit 58
In Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore claims to support our troops. But in fact,
he supports the enemy in Iraq—the coalition of Saddam loyalists, al
Qaeda operatives, and terrorists controlled by Iran or Syria—who are
united in their desire to murder Iraqis, and to destroy any
possibility of democracy in Iraq. Here is what Moore says about the
forces who are killing Americans and trying to impose totalitarian
rule on Iraq:
The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not
"insurgents" or "terrorists" or "The Enemy." They are the REVOLUTION,
the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win.
Michael Moore, “Heads Up... from Michael Moore,” MichaelMoore.com,
April 14, 2004. Of course if you believe that the people who are
perpetrating suicide bombings against Iraqi civilians and American
soldiers for the purpose of forcing a totalitarian boot onto Iraq are
the moral equivalent of the American Founders, then Moore's claim
about the Iraqi insurgents could be valid. But even if that claim were
valid (and I do not believe that any reasonable person can equate
people fighting for totalitarianism with people fighting for
constitutional democracy), then Moore is still being dishonest in
Fahrenheit when he pronounces his concern for American troops. To the
contrary, he is cheering for the forces which are killing our troops,
as he equates the killers with freedom-fighters. And if you think that
the people who are slaughtering American soldiers, American civilians,
Iraqi soldiers, and Iraqi civilians are terrorists rather than
"minutemen," then it is true that Moore supports terrorists. By the
way, the number of Iraqi victims of Moore's "minutemen" outnumbers
American victims by about 10:1.
There are some sincere opponents of the Iraq War who want to "support
our troops" by bringing them home, and thereby getting them out
danger. But it's deceptive to say that you support the troops if
(besides lobbying for troop withdrawal) you are actively recruiting
enemy fighters to kill our troops. Moore is doing so, as the next item
details.
[Moore response: None.]
Terrorists Support Fahrenheit
Deceit 59
As reported in the trade journal Screen Daily, affiliates of the
Iranian and Syrian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah are promoting
Fahrenheit 9/11, and Moore’s Middle East distributor, Front Row, is
accepting the terrorist assistance:
In terms of marketing the film, Front Row is getting a boost from
organizations related to Hezbollah which have rung up from Lebanon to
ask if there is anything they can do to support the film. And although
[Front Row’s Managing Director Giancarlo] Chacra says he and his
company feel strongly that Fahrenheit is not anti-American, but
anti-Bush, "we can’t go against these organizations as they could
strongly boycott the film in Lebanon and Syria."
Nancy Tartaglione, "Fahrenheit to be first doc released theatrically
in Middle East," Screen Daily.com, June 9, 2004 (website requires
registration). The story is discussed in Samantha Ellis, “Fahrenheit
9/11 gets help offer from Hezbollah," The Guardian, June 17, 2004; and
"Moore film distributor OK with terror support: Exec says firm doesn’t
want to risk boycott of 'Fahrenheit 9/11' in Mideast,"
WorldNetDaily.com, June 22, 2004.
Slate.com followed up on the story, and reported:
Gianluca Chacra, the managing director of Front Row Entertainment, the
movie’s distributor in the United Arab Emirates, confirms that
Lebanese student members of Hezbollah "have asked us if there's any
way they could support the film." While Hezbollah is considered a
legitimate political party in many parts of the world, the U.S. State
Department classifies the group as a terrorist organization. Chacra
was unfazed, even excited, about their offer. "Having the support of
such an entity in Lebanon is quite significant for that market and not
at all controversial. I think it’s quite natural." (Lions Gate did not
return calls asking for comment.)
John Gorenfeld, "Michael Moore Terrorizes The Bushies!" Salon.com,
June 24, 2004.
According to Screen Daily, Moore’s film will open in mid-July on ten
screens in Lebanon and two screens in Syria. Syria is a terrorist
state which invaded Lebanon in the 1970s and controls the nation
through a puppet government. The main al Qaeda commander in Iraq, Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi, has worked with Hezbollah and has operated out of
Syria.
Moore accuses the United States of sacrificing morality because of
greed: “The motivation for war is simple. The U.S. government started
the war with Iraq in order to make it easy for U.S. corporations to do
business in other countries. They intend to use cheap labor in those
countries, which will make Americans rich.” David Brooks, “All Hail
Moore,” New York Times, June 28, 2004; translation of original
Japanese interview with Moore.
Yet it turns out that the self-righteous Moore is the one who is
accepting aid from a terrorist organization which has murdered and
kidnapped hundreds of Americans--and also an organization that works
with Zarqawi and al Qaeda. Just to avoid a boycott on a dozen screens
in a totalitarian terrorist state and its colony?
Moore is, with terrorist assistance, pushing the film in Syria and a
Syrian colony, both of which are places which supply some of the
fighters who are currently killing Americans and anti-totalitarian
Iraqis. Fahrenheit presents the fighters as noble resistance, and the
American presence as entirely evil. It's not that the content of
Fahrenheit is all that different from the propaganda which pervades
the state-controlled Arab media, or on al Jazeera. But Fahrenheit's
may be more persuasive, to at least some of its Arab audience, because
its denunciations of American and praise for the Iraqi insurgents
comes from an American. It is reasonable to expect that such a film,
when shown in Syria and Lebanon, will aid in the recruiting of
additional fighters to kill Americans and Iraqis. In effect, the
presentation of Fahrenheit in Syria and Lebanon--especially with
explicit endorsement from a terrorist organization--amounts to a
recruiting film for terrorists (or, in Moore's terms, "minutemen") to
go to Iraq and kill Americans.
Because of Syria's oppression of Lebanon and its support for terrorism
in Iraq and other nations, Congress passed and President Bush signed
the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act. The
Act authorizes the U.S. government to freeze the assets of individuals
or organizations "who are determined by the Secretary of the Treasury,
in consultation with the Secretary of State, to be or to have been
directing or otherwise significantly contributing to" Syrian
sponsorship of terrorist organizations or the destabilization Iraq.
Theoretically, it might be possible that Moore has no personal
awareness that his Middle East distributor is working with terrorists.
But such ignorance is unlikely for two reasons: First, Moore’s “war
room” staff monitors controversial articles about the film, and there
could hardly be anything more controversial than making common cause
with terrorists. Not only has the Hezbollah relationship been
publicized in a leading film trade on-line newspaper, the
Moore-Hezbollah connection has been reported in one of the very most
significant British newspapers, and in an important American on-line
newspaper.
Second, Moore was personally questioned about the terrorist connection
at a Washington, D.C., press conference. He at first denied the
terrorist connection, but was then confronted with the direct quote
from his distributor. He stonewalled and refused to answer. So the man
who spends so much time getting in other people’s faces with tough
questions is unwilling to explain why he is accepting aid from
Hezbollah.
By way of reply, Moore could have said, "I sold the Middle East
distribution rights to FRE, so I can't legally control what they do.
But I strongly condemn their relationship with Hezbollah, and I've
already told them that if they don't stop cooperating with Hezbollah,
they will never distribute another movie of mine. I think it's
reprehensible for any business to accept terrorist assistance." But
instead, he stonewalls. Likewise, his website has provided no
explanation of Moore's conduct regarding Hezbollah.
The conclusion of Fahrenheit quotes from George Orwell’s 1984, the
novel of a totalitarian state perpetually at war. As Moore quotes
Orwell, "The war is not meant to be won, but it is meant to be
continuous...A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of
poverty and ignorance... The war is waged by the ruling group against
its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia
or east Asia but to keep the very structure of society intact." The
real purpose of war as “to keep the very structure of society intact.”
Fahrenheit applies Orwell’s words to the United States of today.
Moore’s purported positions on some issues in Fahrenheit are different
from his previous positions: whether people should have made a big
deal about September 11, whether Osama bin Laden is guilty of the
September 11 attacks, whether American families, including the
Lipscombs, deserve to suffer the deaths of their children because they
supported the war. But throughout Michael Moore’s career, he has
remained true to the central theme of Fahrenheit: capitalist America
is the real terrorist state. Because America is a capitalist society,
American use of force is necessarily evil. (Or as the New Yorker
reported, "He believes that the United States should not take military
action under any circumstances except emergency self-defense.")
Four days after September 11, Moore announced: “We, the United States
of America, are culpable in committing so many acts of terror and
bloodshed that we better get a clue about the culture of violence in
which we have been active participants.” (The statement has been
deleted from Moore’s website, but is available through the web archive
service called the Wayback Machine.) This is the view of Fahrenheit
9/11: Iraq under Saddam was fine until America began terrorizing it.
Saddam Hussein agrees; after September 11, his government issued an
official statement declaring, "The American cowboys are reaping the
fruit of their crimes against humanity." Saddam's media showed him
telling his generals, "Those who do not want to harvest evil, should
not plant evil...Despite the contradictory humanitarian feelings on
what happened in America, America is harvesting the thorns that its
rulers have planted in the world...Nobody has crossed the Atlantic
carrying weapons against America, but it has crossed the Atlantic
carrying death and destruction to the whole world."
For more of Moore's anti-American statements, see the Tacitus weblog
entry "Michael Moore in his own words." One of the posters for the
European release of Fahrenheit features a burning American flag, with
a cloudy death's-head skull in place of the white stripes.
Throughout American history, there have always been patriotic
Americans who criticized particular war-time policies, or who believed
that a war was a mistake and should be promptly ended. Today, there
are many patriotic Americans who oppose some or all aspects of the War
on Terror. I am among them, in that I have strongly opposed the USA
PATRIOT Act from its first days, have denounced the Bush
administration for siding with corporate interests rather than with
public safety by sabotaging the Armed Pilots law, and have repeatedly
stated that the current Saudi tyranny should be recognized as a major
part of the problem in the War on Terror--despite the tyranny's close
relationship with America's foreign policy élite.
In contrast to the large number of patriots who have argued against
particular wars or wartime policies, a much smaller number of
Americans have hated America. They have cheered for the fighters who
were killing Americans. They have belittled America’s right to protect
itself, and they have produced propaganda designed to destroy American
morale and to facilitate enemy victory. To advance their anti-American
cause, they have sometimes feigned love for the nation they despised.
For example, during the Vietnam War, many sincere patriots--such as
George McGovern and Robert Kennedy--opposed the war. But some people
actively collaborated with the totalitarian government of Ho Chi Minh,
and the totalitarian armies of the Khmer Rouge and the Pathet Lao.
These people tried to convince the American public that the soldiers
who were killing American troops were fighting in a just cause. They
were not; they were fighting for Stalinism and genocide.
Do the many falsehoods and misrepresentations of Fahrenheit 9/11
suggest a film producer who just makes careless mistakes? Or does a
man who calls Americans: “possibly the dumbest people on the planet"
believe that his audience will be too dumb to tell when he is tricking
them? Viewers will have to decide for themselves whether the extremist
and extremely deceptive Fahrenheit 9/11 is a conscientious work of
patriotic dissent, or the cynical propaganda of a man who gives
wartime aid to America’s murderous enemies, and who accepts their aid
in return.
Dave Kopel is Research Director of the Independence Institute and an
NRO columnist. He has previously written about the deceptions in
“Bowling for Columbine.” Like Michael Moore, in 2000 Kopel endorsed
and voted for Ralph Nader.
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"Everyone, Republican or otherwise has their own
particular part to play. No part is too great or too
small, no one is too old or too young to do something."
Bobby Sands (1954-1981), on hunger strike in 1981
Email: ray-AT-eirefirst.com
Website: http://www.eirefirst.com
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