Fahrenheit 9/11
Jun 27, 2004
Having seen Michael Moore's new movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, I draw two conclusions. None of which are new to me, nor to anyone else. The first conclusion is that Michael Moore knows how to make an engaging documentary, and the second conclusion is that it's too bad he doesn't know what a documentary really is.
The fact that Michael Moore doesn't make documentaries in the traditional sense is old, worn and has been debated about as much as it needs to be. The secret is out, has been out for a long time; everybody knows that Moore's documentaries aren't ones that you want to base an argument or opinion on. His latest film is no exception, and it doesn't really say anything that hasn't been said before.
The gist of it is that the 2000 US presidential election was as comical as it was tragic; that Iraq had nothing to do with September 11th; that the Bush family has a significant relationship with the Royal Saudi Arabian family; money was and is a considerable factor in the war for the Bush administration; the invasion of Iraq was made on false grounds; Iraq did not pose any significant threat; there were no weapons of mass destruction; the Bush administration did not particularly care about Osama Bin Ladin; the American people were scared into submission by their government; the invasion of Iraq was unilateral; and finally that the ongoing war in Iraq is pointless.
Michael makes several other smaller arguments, but essentially what he's doing is repeating and summarizing the events since 9/11. He's not trying to convince any right-wingers that they're leaning the wrong way, he's not really trying to change anyone's mind, he just wants to make sure that no leftists, and especially no-one undecided, forgets.
Because people do tend to forget.
Comments
Actually, Michael Moore does more damage than good. Sure, he has a decent amount of facts in his documentaries. The problem is that the republicans find the things that aren't true in his documentaries and can then write off the real facts as lies too. Moore is a funny american. An entertainer, but no documentarian.
Comment by talisyn at 12:28, 28 Jun, 2004 #
talisyn: Republicans are funny that way; they can tolerate a president that deceives his people to go to war, but they can't tolerate a documentarian that bends the truth to entertain.
Comment by Tomas at 13:24, 28 Jun, 2004 #
talisyn: We're not still talking about the hair-splitting festival that followed "Bowling for Columbine", are we? The right is very eager to demonize a character like Moore, so they've created a lot of buzz about how "Moore is lying" or "Moore distorts the facts", when there is in fact very little evidence for his actual doing so.
Comment by Magnus at 13:42, 28 Jun, 2004 #
Magnus: Nope. I'm talking about his latest, "911". If you're going to take on the very strong republican party and their way of governing you have to be very cunning and skilled. Moore isn't.
If his agitators can find ONE wrong fact in his film, they focus on that until all the right facts are written off as false as well. That's exactly what they're trying to do with "911". I suppose they tried the same thing with "Bowling"?
Comment by talisyn at 15:46, 28 Jun, 2004 #
Are you people kidding yourselves? Hell, I'm a Democrat, and even for me this movie tried to connect the fuzziest of dots. If you didn't see how misleading this film is, then I'm inclined to believe you may have had your eyes closed in the theatre. The fact is, Moore doesn't just bend the truth, he cracks it in half. If there were only a few examples, then people might just say, "Oh Mikey Moore and his darn entertainment," but there have been a plethora of people outing Moore for his frequent falsehoods. All you need is Google and a little gumption.
Comment by Will at 22:42, 28 Jun, 2004 #
To his credit, I understand that Michael Moore hired none other than a veteran of the legendary fact-checking department of the New Yorker to vet his facts. As someone as far left as Moore, I don't think the inaccuracies in Columbine and other previous works are insignificant. Of course, even when he's got his facts straight, what he does with them is occasionally meaningful but more often too glib, too facile, and too willing to preach to the choir. I hope he sways some of the undecided, but I'm not holding my breath.
Hey, at least the Greens (of which I'm also one) decided not to give Nader the nod. With any luck, come November the US can start repairing its relationships with the rest of the world.
Comment by Cheshire at 00:24, 29 Jun, 2004 #
Will: So why don't you outline the lies for us here? Not the truth-bending, but the flat out truth-breaking lies. Tell us what about what he is saying is fundamentally wrong, because just saying it is so, but not saying why it is so, or how it is so, isn't a particularly convincing argument.
Comment by Tomas at 08:07, 29 Jun, 2004 #
Moore claims the Saudi's departing after 9.11 were not interviewed - yet the FBI has said they interviewed everybody they wanted to.
Moore claims Bush spent 42% of his time on vacation before 9.11. You can only arrive at this number by using Bush's time spent on weekends at Camp David - often hosting foreign leaders - as vacation.
According to Hitchens, Moore claims Iraq under Saddam had never attacked or killed or even threatened (his words) any American
That said, my issue w/ Moore is not his facts, but what he leaves out, what he implies, and the connections he tries to make to get to his desired argument.
Comment by Bret at 18:59, 29 Jun, 2004 #
Bret: "Moore claims the Saudi's departing after 9.11 were not interviewed - yet the FBI has said they interviewed everybody they wanted to."
1. Not interviewed, or interviewed, they gave Bin Ladins a ride out of the US during a total ban on flights. Furthermore, they denied the flight from Tampa for three years.
2. That FBI didn't "want to" interview the Bin Ladins or the Saudis is exactly the point, isn't it? Just like how Bush admittedly didn't care about catching the ultimately reponsible for 9/11, but instead tried to shift the blame onto Saddam.
"Moore claims Bush spent 42% of his time on vacation before 9.11."
1. No, Moore claimed the Washington Post claimed so. 42% or 32% or whatever, the point is that he took a whole lot of vacation.
2. The country doesn't have to be run on weekends?
"According to Hitchens, Moore claims Iraq under Saddam had never attacked or killed or even threatened (his words) any American"
1. Uh, well that's not right. But I seem to remember him saying only that Saddam had never attacked an American.
2. Even if he did say that Saddam never killed an American, does that change the overall point? That point being that Saddam did not pose a threat to the US. Yes, US soldiers died in the first Gulf War, does that change the overall point? No, it's hair-splitting in an attempt to get away from the real issue.
"That said, my issue w/ Moore is not his facts, but what he leaves out, what he implies, and the connections he tries to make to get to his desired argument."
My perspective is the opposite. Moore is wrong on specific facts, if you pull them apart hard enough, but he is overall correct on what he is saying, his message in general is true.
An obvious exemple of which is that if Moore said that, in fact, no American has been killed in Iraq, or because of Saddams orders, or whatever, then that is false, obviously, since many US soldiers died in the first Gulf War. But, his general message, his overall point, that Saddam did not pose a threat to the US, he speaks the truth.
Or, would you say that this is fundamentally wrong? That Moore is lying when he says so? That Saddam could have invaded or destroyed the US at a moments notice with his non-army and his non-wmd?
Comment by T. Jogin at 21:24, 29 Jun, 2004 #
You obviously have a computer with an Internet connection, so I'm not sure why you didn't do your own Googling, but so it goes.
I think Bret's got it right here: "That said, my issue w/ Moore is not his facts, but what he leaves out, what he implies, and the connections he tries to make to get to his desired argument."
And here's a few reasons why -
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=fisking&s=sullivan062904
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-true28.html
http://sneakingsuspicions.com/a0627071004.htm#062704
http://www.instapunk.com/archives/InstaPunkArchive.php3?a=135
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/shapiro/2004-06-15-hype_x.htm
http://www.buzzmachine.com/archives/2004_06_24.html#007356
P.S. "That Saddam could have invaded or destroyed the US at a moments notice with his non-army and his non-wmd?" Of course he couldn't, but if you could see just a little bit past the tip of your nose, then you'd realize that this is obviously not the point.
Comment by Will at 05:37, 30 Jun, 2004 #
Will: "but if you could see just a little bit past the tip of your nose, then you'd realize that this is obviously not the point."
What an awesome way to make an argument; just tell the other guy he's wrong, and that he can't see, and instead of supplying a single argument just tell him to use Google.
I bow in awe before your mad rethoric skillz.
Saddam did not pose a threat, the Bush administration said he posed an immediate and direct threat. How is that not the point?
Comment by T. Jogin at 07:34, 30 Jun, 2004 #
That a lot of royal saudis were permitted to leave, no questions asked, is not something dreamt up by Moore. I've seen it in a pretty good (french, but don't hold it against them) documentary of the CIA running on Swedish state television.
Comment by talisyn at 15:21, 30 Jun, 2004 #
On the 42% issue - are you giving Moore a pass because the lie wasn't his originally? Bush was not on 'vacation' 42% of the time - it works out to 10% when you remove Camp David weekends with foreign leaders. Moore willfully passing on information known to be false isn't much different than just flat out making it up himself. Whether its his lie, or him repeating somebody elses lie - its still a lie.
The Saudi's didn't leave during a total ban, they flew within the US (to Kentucky) on the 13th - when traffic was open to private chartered flights (see 2nd to last paragraph - talk about burying the story). They then left the country on the 14th and the 15th, when airspace was back open.
On the issue of interviews, it was the FBI's call. And considering we are 3 years removed from all of this, and there is still zero evidence that any of the Saudi's that left the country were involved or had knowledge of the attacks, it seems like the right call. Moore appears to be hanging his hat on the conspiracy theory that the FBI just got lucky in that none of them were involved, or that Bush is willfully covering up for his pals the Saudi's - a claim for which there is again zero evidence.
Saddam did not pose a threat to the US mainland - he most certainly did pose a threat to US allies, the US military, and US citizens in the region. Moore makes him sound entirely non-hostile. Saddam did try to assasinate a former president, and his military was actively firing on US planes patrolling the no-fly zone for the last decade.
Comment by Bret at 16:20, 30 Jun, 2004 #
Bret: Suppose you're right, that Michael Moore lies and distorts facts to make a better case for himself and his arguments. Are you saying that this is a reason to not trust him, perhaps even to despise him?
Watch this video clip, featuring Donald Rumsfeld denying ever having said that he used the term "immediate threat", that it's a media invention of some sort, and then to have his audio quotes read back to him when he says exactly that.
If you have a problem with people who lie and distort the truth, shouldn't you have a problem with people that do that in order to sway opinion in favor of bombing a country?
Besides, if Saddam did pose a threat, why did administration officials say that he did in fact not pose a threat, that they had him under control, prior to 9/11 (video clips of which are featured in Fahrenheit 9/11)? Were they lying?
Comment by Tomas at 16:34, 30 Jun, 2004 #
Tomas: Just because the Administration lies does not justify if Michael Moore lies (if indeed, he has lied), does it?
Comment by talisyn at 17:36, 30 Jun, 2004 #
talisyn: Oh, I'm not saying it is justified. Although, I still think that his omissions and truth-bending is quite far from flat out lying, such as saying that "Iraq has so-and-so many litres of a such-and-such chemical and biological weapons in these specific locations, and that's why we're going to bomb and subsequently invade Iraq".
Comment by T. Jogin at 18:05, 30 Jun, 2004 #
I said back in May I wouldn't mind if Rumsfeld was fired. I don't trust him much at all anymore.
Also, most of the case against Saddam was not lies - it was bad intelligence. Everyone seems to forget that the pretty much the entire Western world shared roughly the same opinion of Saddam's goals and abilities. The disagreement was in what to do about his suspected weapons.
I absolutely though, have a problem with people lying and distorting the truth - regardless of their reasons for doing it. But I've yet to see evidence that the US intelligence was purposfully wrong, or that Bush mis-stated what our and other countries intelligence thought about Iraq. Our intelligence, and much of that of our allies, was simply wrong.
And because of that, 20 million Iraqis are getting a chance at freedom and democracy that they didn't have. Bush did the right thing for (what turned out to be) the wrong reasons.
Comment by Bret at 22:36, 30 Jun, 2004 #
Talisyn:
Air Bin Ladens
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, "Even Ricky Martin couldn't fly."
From here.
Misleading this much eventually must become tantamount to lying.
Comment by Will at 03:49, 01 Jul, 2004 #
To maintain any intellectual honesty at all one must at least admit the possibility of these two things:
1. The Bush administration did not lie, but rather did the best they could with what they had at the time, i.e. what they thought was good, actionable intelligence. (Let's also not forget Iraq definitely had ties to al-Qaeda [a la harboring and giving aid to terrorists], and had a severely repressive regime, both of which were, and are, according to the past and present rhetoric of the Administration, viable reasons for war. I would imagine those reasons would be suitable to yourself as well.)
2. Said intelligence may yet be correct, as Iraq's WMDs could have very easily been transported to other countries in the buildup to the war.
P.S. Did you add that 'z' to 'skill' with a straight face? Also, FYI, it's 'rhetoric' not 'rethoric'.
Comment by Will at 04:06, 01 Jul, 2004 #
Will: Did Iraq actually have ties to Al-Quaida before the war? I know that's what the administration tried to convince everyone of, but few outside the US seem to have believed them. Now, when the war is raging, Al-Quaida (or other terrorist groups) have made an appearance in Iraq - but that's mostly thanks to the horribly wrong planning of the invasion by the US.
Comment by talisyn at 10:43, 01 Jul, 2004 #
Yes.
"Now, when the war is raging, Al-Quaida (or other terrorist groups) have made an appearance in Iraq - but that's mostly thanks to the horribly wrong planning of the invasion by the US. Hmmm, no. How could the planning of the invasion have anything at all to do with the appearance of terrorists or terrorist groups? It's painfully clear that these groups, or individuals as the case may be, appeared because they have some vested interest in democracy, and the US, failing in Iraq. I'll leave you to decide what that interest is.
Comment by Will at 11:55, 01 Jul, 2004 #
Will: "To maintain any intellectual honesty at all one must at least admit the possibility of these two things:
1. The Bush administration did not lie, but rather did the best they could with what they had at the time."
Sure, anything is possible, but in my opinion that is about as possible as left being right, up being down, and red being blue. But yeah, it's possible.
Comment by Tomas at 12:21, 01 Jul, 2004 #
This and this were interesting reads.
Comment by Will at 20:39, 01 Jul, 2004 #
You know, I had a discussion with a friend today, whom have yet to see this documentary, and I told him pretty much the exact same thing that you write.
My opinion on Fahrenheit 9/11 is what you write in the last paragraph, that he's basicly summarizing the events since 9/11 to make sure that no one forgets. I was kind of stumped by this though, I had heard from numerous sources that there was something new and exciting about this documentary. I'm not saying it's a bad documentary, but it was neither very new information nor very exciting.
Entertaining though, and it does make one realize that hell, it's actually almost been three years since the attacks on the WTC towers.
Comment by Marcus Stade at 05:25, 04 Jul, 2004 #
Marcus: Actually, I think the information in the documentary is "new" to the americans, since they have a different angle of the news coverage than what europeans get. American news are generally (and I have this from a top rate source; american friends that visited Sweden) more biased than the european ones.
Comment by talisyn at 11:28, 05 Jul, 2004 #
The discussion has been closed on this entry. Thanks to everybody who participated.