| Topic: |
Science > Abortion |
| User: |
"Yang, AthD h.c" |
| Date: |
08 Jul 2004 08:14:18 PM |
| Object: |
Poll: Bush Lied |
Washington, DC, Jul. 1 (UPI) -- A majority of Americans believe
President Bush deliberately misled his nation to justify invading
Iraq, a survey released Thursday indicates.
The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, released four months before
the presidential elections, points out most Americans believe their
nation is headed in the wrong direction.
-----
Yang
a.a. #28
AthD (h.c.) conferred by the regents of the LCL
a.a. pastor #-273.15, the most frigid church of Celcius nee Kelvin
EAC Econometric Forecast and Socerey Division
Proudly plonked by Lani Girl and Crazyalec
The Bush 'balanced' budget: 1.2 trillion and worsening
The Bush 'economic' policy: -3 million jobs and counting
The Bush Iraq lie: -877 GIs, one friend's co-worker's son and mounting
Having Bush ***** up my country: Worthless
.
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| User: "Pookie" |
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| Title: Re: Bush Lied |
08 Jul 2004 08:28:44 PM |
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"Yang, AthD (h.c)" <eacmole@/*AWOLBUSH*/mail.com> wrote in message
news:d3sre0t68gtmgjdmmjcoe0hebe5aj4gsv5@4ax.com...
Washington, DC, Jul. 1 (UPI) -- A majority of Americans believe
President Bush deliberately misled his nation to justify invading
Iraq, a survey released Thursday indicates.
http://www.scaryjohnkerry.com/wmd.htm
.
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| User: "Carl Carlton" |
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| Title: Re: Bush Lied |
09 Jul 2004 12:36:56 AM |
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"Pookie" <pookie18323@optonline.net> wrote in message
news:gxmHc.90374$kz.19152600@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
"Yang, AthD (h.c)" <eacmole@/*AWOLBUSH*/mail.com> wrote in message
news:d3sre0t68gtmgjdmmjcoe0hebe5aj4gsv5@4ax.com...
Washington, DC, Jul. 1 (UPI) -- A majority of Americans believe
President Bush deliberately misled his nation to justify invading
Iraq, a survey released Thursday indicates.
http://www.scaryjohnkerry.com/wmd.htm
Kerry said that AFTER George Bush told the country that he had evidence and
CIA intelligence that Iraq had WMDs. As you know, BUSH LIED TO THE COUNTRY!!
Even I said go to war, I don't expect my president to blatantly lie and take
the country into war but he did and made BILLIONS FOR HIS BUDDIES AND PAID
FOR THEM WITH now over a 1000 American soldier's lives. How can you be so
blind Pookie, are you stupid or legally retarded? Which?
.
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| User: "Justice Cow" |
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| Title: Re: Bush Lied |
09 Jul 2004 08:50:38 AM |
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In article <Y9qHc.278$l32.151@news01.roc.ny>,
"Carl Carlton" <slipperywicket@nospam.com> wrote:
"Pookie" <pookie18323@optonline.net> wrote in message
news:gxmHc.90374$kz.19152600@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
"Yang, AthD (h.c)" <eacmole@/*AWOLBUSH*/mail.com> wrote in message
news:d3sre0t68gtmgjdmmjcoe0hebe5aj4gsv5@4ax.com...
Washington, DC, Jul. 1 (UPI) -- A majority of Americans believe
President Bush deliberately misled his nation to justify invading
Iraq, a survey released Thursday indicates.
http://www.scaryjohnkerry.com/wmd.htm
Kerry said that AFTER George Bush told the country that he had evidence and
CIA intelligence that Iraq had WMDs. As you know, BUSH LIED TO THE COUNTRY!!
Even I said go to war, I don't expect my president to blatantly lie and take
the country into war but he did and made BILLIONS FOR HIS BUDDIES AND PAID
FOR THEM WITH now over a 1000 American soldier's lives. How can you be so
blind Pookie, are you stupid or legally retarded? Which?
thats exactly where my husband and I were. we believed our president
and supported him. he lied.
pookie is either mentally ill. or paid. no one spends day after day
after day posting propaganda for free unless they're crazy.
.
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| User: "Pookie" |
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| Title: Re: Bush Lied |
09 Jul 2004 08:54:06 AM |
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"Justice Cow" <justicecow@hotmail.cow> wrote in message
news:justicecow-68FCF2.09503809072004@news.east.cox.net...
In article <Y9qHc.278$l32.151@news01.roc.ny>,
"Carl Carlton" <slipperywicket@nospam.com> wrote:
"Pookie" <pookie18323@optonline.net> wrote in message
news:gxmHc.90374$kz.19152600@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
"Yang, AthD (h.c)" <eacmole@/*AWOLBUSH*/mail.com> wrote in message
news:d3sre0t68gtmgjdmmjcoe0hebe5aj4gsv5@4ax.com...
Washington, DC, Jul. 1 (UPI) -- A majority of Americans believe
President Bush deliberately misled his nation to justify invading
Iraq, a survey released Thursday indicates.
http://www.scaryjohnkerry.com/wmd.htm
Kerry said that AFTER George Bush told the country that he had evidence
and
CIA intelligence that Iraq had WMDs. As you know, BUSH LIED TO THE
COUNTRY!!
Even I said go to war, I don't expect my president to blatantly lie and
take
the country into war but he did and made BILLIONS FOR HIS BUDDIES AND
PAID
FOR THEM WITH now over a 1000 American soldier's lives. How can you be
so
blind Pookie, are you stupid or legally retarded? Which?
thats exactly where my husband and I were. we believed our president
and supported him. he lied.
pookie is either mentally ill. or paid. no one spends day after day
after day posting propaganda for free unless they're crazy.
It's so easy to say "he lied" & just ignore anything or anyone that
disagrees with you. See no evil, hear no evil...just speak evil...
Propaganda? You probably believe that Moore's movie is a documentary.
.
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| User: "David W. Barnes" |
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| Title: Re: Bush Lied |
09 Jul 2004 09:02:37 AM |
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In article <2sxHc.2123$1C4.1683077@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net>, Pookie
<pookie18323@optonline.net> wrote:
"Justice Cow" <justicecow@hotmail.cow> wrote in message
news:justicecow-68FCF2.09503809072004@news.east.cox.net...
In article <Y9qHc.278$l32.151@news01.roc.ny>,
"Carl Carlton" <slipperywicket@nospam.com> wrote:
"Pookie" <pookie18323@optonline.net> wrote in message
news:gxmHc.90374$kz.19152600@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
"Yang, AthD (h.c)" <eacmole@/*AWOLBUSH*/mail.com> wrote in message
news:d3sre0t68gtmgjdmmjcoe0hebe5aj4gsv5@4ax.com...
Washington, DC, Jul. 1 (UPI) -- A majority of Americans believe
President Bush deliberately misled his nation to justify invading
Iraq, a survey released Thursday indicates.
http://www.scaryjohnkerry.com/wmd.htm
Kerry said that AFTER George Bush told the country that he had evidence
and
CIA intelligence that Iraq had WMDs. As you know, BUSH LIED TO THE
COUNTRY!!
Even I said go to war, I don't expect my president to blatantly lie and
take
the country into war but he did and made BILLIONS FOR HIS BUDDIES AND
PAID
FOR THEM WITH now over a 1000 American soldier's lives. How can you be
so
blind Pookie, are you stupid or legally retarded? Which?
thats exactly where my husband and I were. we believed our president
and supported him. he lied.
pookie is either mentally ill. or paid. no one spends day after day
after day posting propaganda for free unless they're crazy.
It's so easy to say "he lied" & just ignore anything or anyone that
disagrees with you. See no evil, hear no evil...just speak evil...
Propaganda? You probably believe that Moore's movie is a documentary.
Michael Moore's movie contains factual information that an idiot can
see looks bad for Bush. As for it being propaganda, it is identical to
what you see every day on Fox "NEWS" except it cuts against Bush.
.
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| User: "Pookie" |
|
| Title: Re: Bush Lied |
09 Jul 2004 09:08:35 AM |
|
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"David W. Barnes" <DumpBushInNovember@usa.com> wrote in message
news:090720040702376771%DumpBushInNovember@usa.com...
In article <2sxHc.2123$1C4.1683077@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net>, Pookie
<pookie18323@optonline.net> wrote:
"Justice Cow" <justicecow@hotmail.cow> wrote in message
news:justicecow-68FCF2.09503809072004@news.east.cox.net...
In article <Y9qHc.278$l32.151@news01.roc.ny>,
"Carl Carlton" <slipperywicket@nospam.com> wrote:
"Pookie" <pookie18323@optonline.net> wrote in message
news:gxmHc.90374$kz.19152600@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
"Yang, AthD (h.c)" <eacmole@/*AWOLBUSH*/mail.com> wrote in message
news:d3sre0t68gtmgjdmmjcoe0hebe5aj4gsv5@4ax.com...
Washington, DC, Jul. 1 (UPI) -- A majority of Americans believe
President Bush deliberately misled his nation to justify
invading
Iraq, a survey released Thursday indicates.
http://www.scaryjohnkerry.com/wmd.htm
Kerry said that AFTER George Bush told the country that he had
evidence
and
CIA intelligence that Iraq had WMDs. As you know, BUSH LIED TO THE
COUNTRY!!
Even I said go to war, I don't expect my president to blatantly lie
and
take
the country into war but he did and made BILLIONS FOR HIS BUDDIES
AND
PAID
FOR THEM WITH now over a 1000 American soldier's lives. How can you
be
so
blind Pookie, are you stupid or legally retarded? Which?
thats exactly where my husband and I were. we believed our president
and supported him. he lied.
pookie is either mentally ill. or paid. no one spends day after day
after day posting propaganda for free unless they're crazy.
It's so easy to say "he lied" & just ignore anything or anyone that
disagrees with you. See no evil, hear no evil...just speak evil...
Propaganda? You probably believe that Moore's movie is a documentary.
Michael Moore's movie contains factual information that an idiot can
see looks bad for Bush. As for it being propaganda, it is identical to
what you see every day on Fox "NEWS" except it cuts against Bush.
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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
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. 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 premature calls 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.
At 10:00 p.m., which network took the lead in retracting the premature
Florida win for Gore? The first retracting network was CBS, not Fox.
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.)
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.
2000 Election Recount
Deceit 3
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.
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.
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.
It seems to me that even if we presume that the 1,100 wrongly purged Florida
voters would have voted Democratic at the same rate that felons do (even
though some of these voters were non-felons who were the victim of mistaken
identity), the net result of the 2000 purge fiasco harmed Bush: the number
of votes which Gore gained as a result of 20 counties refusing to conduct
the felon purge far outnumbered how many votes that Gore lost as the result
of the overbroad purges in other counties.
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.
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. 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.
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.
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.
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 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, 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.
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."
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.")
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.
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.)
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.
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.)
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. 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, 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.
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."
Instead of relying on unsourced figures that someone says he "heard," let's
look at the available data. 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.-a large
amount, but less than half of the amount that Moore's source claims he
"heard." (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?"
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."
If all the Saudi investments in the U.S. were invested in the stock market,
the Saudis would own a significant percentage of the stock market's total
value. But, as Fahrenheit itself shows, the Saudis invest all over the
United States, not just on Wall Street, and they often invest in companies
which are not publicly traded. And of course they can also buy real estate,
precious metals, commodities, or other forms of wealth.
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 all American assets
are owned by foreigners, then it cannot possibly be true that Saudis "own
seven percent of America."
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.
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, they might be considerably more skeptical about Moore's claims
regarding other alleged global conspirators.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
(Two deceits here: 1. "FBI knew"; 2. Ashcroft's DOJ "turned a blind eye.")
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. As for Moore's
claim that the motive of the USA PATRIOT Act was to terrify the American
people, I disagree, but it's a matter of opinion, and therefore beyond the
scope of this report.
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 Trooper 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.
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.
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.)
Moreover, Saddam did not need to make verbal threats in order to "threaten"
the United States. He 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.
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.
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.'''
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 t
he 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.
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.) | | | | | | |
