Mark Steyn: Fantasy and "Fahrenheit 9/11"

The Jerusalem Post ^ | July 7, 2004 | Mark Steyn

[quidnunc]

If I were the late Osama bin Laden, I'd come away from Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 feeling a bit like Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard: I'm still big. It's the pictures that got small.

Bin Laden and his colleagues in al-Qaida, their various subsidiaries and affiliates, the Wahhabi bankrollers in Saudi Arabia, and thousands of mullahs throughout the Muslim world believe they're engaged in a great crusade (whoops) against the Great Satan and the rest of the infidel world that will go on until they achieve final victory.

Michael Moore and his own fanatical worshipers, on the other hand, think it's all to do with Bush. Bush, Bush, Bush! Who's in the pay of the Saudis? Bush! Who's the top business partner of the Taliban? Bush! Who put the ram in the rama-lama-ding-dong? Bush — because he was paid to do so by a subsidiary of Halliburton run by a man who was at school with someone who has some stock in a company building a pipeline with someone who used to go bowling with the half-nephew-in-law of King Fahd.

Whatever the question, the answer is Bush. The message of Moore's film is: Get rid of Bush this November and all the bad stuff will go away. That's why its starting point is the 2000 election and the Florida recount. On the face of it, dimpled chads don't seem to have much to do with Afghanistan and Iraq. But, for Moore, this is where it all began, and this is where it will end: Topple Bush, and the world will once again be full of happy smiley people as it is in the slow-motion scenes of laughing children gaily flying their kites in idyllic Saddamite Iraq.

If I were the late Osama, I'd be insulted by Moore's picture. Al-Qaida's jihadi blew up plenty of stuff while Bill Clinton was president. He had the boys in America taking their flying lessons during the 2000 election, when Al Gore was ahead in the polls. The Islamists despise Bush, but they despise Clinton and Gore, and Carter and Kerry, too.

-snip-

[mc5cents]

Must read later.

Yes you must because it's GOOD!

[Tolik]

Mark Steyn:

Whatever the question, the answer is Bush. The message of Moore's film is: Get rid of Bush this November and all the bad stuff will go away. That's why its starting point is the 2000 election and the Florida recount. On the face of it, dimpled chads don't seem to have much to do with Afghanistan and Iraq. But, for Moore, this is where it all began, and this is where it will end: Topple Bush, and the world will once again be full of happy smiley people as it is in the slow-motion scenes of laughing children gaily flying their kites in idyllic Saddamite Iraq.

...This is the real difference between those who see the big picture and those who insist there is no big picture to see, that Michael Moore's small hick picture is the answer to everything. In the days after September 11, the fringe Left were fond of lecturing us that we needed to address the "root causes." Well, they got tired of that. If it's a choice between some big socioeconomic geopolitical root cause or Dick Cheney, they'll take Cheney.

Which is a great pity. I look on 9/11 as the sudden revelation of the tip of a vast iceberg. It's all been there under the surface for some time, but we never grasped the size of it. At one level, it's about the mainstreaming of the fringe. ...  I mean that troublesome groups on the far horizons of the superpower can now strike at its heart.

...MAYBE IT was just a freaky one-off; maybe now that they've done it they'll leave us alone as the Spaniards have bet. But almost every technological advance works to the terrorists' advantage: an old-fashioned European army Belgium's, say is incapable of projecting itself to Saudi Arabia; but a terrorist group in Saudi Arabia, through now humdrum innovations like e-mail, cell phones, and automated bank machines, can easily project itself to Belgium. Then add nuclear technology, which has slipped the bunkers of the great powers to seep piecemeal through the murkier chancelleries.

Beyond that, consider the broader sea in which these currents course. Not all Muslims are al-Qaida supporters, but they don't have to be. If just one percent is generally sympathetic, that's enough for a vast global support network.

....we're living through a period of extraordinarily rapid demographic and cultural change that broadly favors the Islamists' stated objectives, a period of rapid technological advance that greatly facilitates the Islamists' objectives, and a period of rapid nuclear dissemination that will add serious heft to the realization of their objectives. If the West, and I use the term in the widest sense to mean not just swaggering Texas cowboys but sensitive left-wing feminists in favor of gay marriage, is to survive, it will only be after a long struggle lasting many decades.

Nailed It!
Outstanding even by the usually high Steyn standards!

Mark Steyn PING list is maintained by Pokey78. I just could not contain myself :^)

[Tolik]

Thanks for the ping.

Mark Steyn BTTT!

[Dog Gone]

Thank you.

[Defiant]

It was my turn this time. You've got the next one.

[Dog Gone]

You've got a deal.

[epigone73]

natch, and this is confirmed by the request for the U.N. to 'monitor" our election. i think they do want to spark a civil war, and bring in the U.N. to fix the problem.

[RobFromGa]

thanks for the full post. (even with the ?'s)

[Brian Allen]

Thanks, Defiant.

Me too!

[Tamzee]

Married :-(

I bet he is fascinating to know in person...

[Valin]

Yes, but how do you REALLY feel about him? :-)

Moore, like his compatriots in the "peace" movement is a moral midget.

[lawgirl]

Mark Steyn on Farenheit 9/11. Brilliant!

[Starve The Beast]

Thanks for the complete post. SPUE... love it.

[GretchenM]

Thanks for defacing quidnunc's attempted abortion of Mark Steyn's wisdom by posting the whole story.

Maybe every time I refer to quidnun now I will drop one letter until there is only a blank space where his name used to be.

[GretchenM]

i think they do want to spark a civil war, and bring in the U.N. to fix the problem.

This could actually be a good thing:

1. We defeat the UN (natch)
2. The liberals go down with them.
3. Bush pushes through a REAL reconstruction.

[NutCrackerBoy]

Bump for Steyn!

Bump also for Respecting Intellectual Property. Click on links - let those who provide the information profit by their labors. Register, but opt out of spam.

[ccmay]

Of the increase in global population between 1970 and 2000, the developed world accounted for under 9% of it, while the Muslim world accounted for 26% of the increase. Between 1970 and 2000, the developed world declined from just under 30% of the world's population to just over 20%; the Muslim nations increased from about 15% to 20%.

Let's not panic. These are problems that could be fixed in less time than it takes to boil an egg.

-ccm

[ccmay]

will the English, one day be begging for a gun

They did in 1939, they probably will again.

Indeed they did:

American Rifleman, Nov. 1940.

-ccm

[Rastus]

When the dems lose this election, they are going to go absolutely ape.

If we win--and I'm not yet confident enough to say when we win--the victory will be made that much sweeter by seeing all the effort they've put into Bush's defeat come to nothing. If their movies, commercials, and the rest of their all-out assault have no effect, it'll be time to gloat. If their loss can be traced in any way back to Moore et. al, he and they will lose a lot of capital with the Left. Maybe he can climb back under his rock at that point. Maybe he'll have to.

[NutCrackerBoy]

Now go back to watching Fahrenheit 9/11 and kid yourself that this will all go away if Bush, Cheney, and Rummy are thrown out this November. -Mark Steyn

Do like the Spanish did! Democratic elections means you can vote a fantasy!