Posted on 07/21/2004 5:03:28 PM PDT by bgcountry187
The Lies of Fahrenheit 911
I have attained and watched a copy of Fahrenheit 911. After viewing this movie--I will not call it a documentary, because documentaries are based on fact, not lies and misrepresentations, I feel I should respond. I am a young college student without the access of the resources of Mr. Moore, so this might not be as eloquent as it could be, but I still feel a response is in order. You'll have to bear with me on this, English was not my best subject in school.
The movie starts out attacking President Bush right away. Mr. Moore points out that the Washington Times put out a statistic saying President Bush was on vacation 42 percent of the time, his first 8 months in office. This statistic does not take into account the work the President does away from Washington. There is no mention of the numerous foreign leaders who have met the President at his Texas ranch. I would like to point out that President Reagan did a lot of work away from Washington also. He also did a lot of work out of his ranch and frequently had foreign dignitaries visit. Does this mean he was “on vacation” most of his presidency? I could take this to the other extreme and say that my friend, who is a Air Force Reserve Recruiter, works seven days a week, 15-18 hours a day, because he is constantly talking to people about the reserve. Everywhere he goes he hands out business cards and talks to people about the benefits of joining the reserve. I could conclude that my friend has never taken a vacation and money is owed to him for his time he is supposed to get for vacation. I would be willing to bet Mr. Moore would argue otherwise.
The next thing Mr. Moore states is that President Bush was given a report on August 6th, 2001, stating that “Bin Ladin was planning to attack America by hijacking airplanes.” The title of this briefing was “Bin Ladin determined to strike in U.S.” This is a very generalized title. The briefing mentions nothing about Bin Ladin using airplanes to directly attack America. It actually states that Osama had been trying since 1998 to hijack a plane to gain release of U.S. held extremists. This is something that has been known for quite a while, since Clinton was in office. There was no new information in the briefing. Here is the language, taken straight from the August 6, 2001 briefing:
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 Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar' Abd aI-Rahman and other US-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.
The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.
Moore then blatantly claims President Bush decided to blame Saddam Hussein. There is no proof of this and Moore knowing this is a bunch of crap moves on to his next set of lies.
The next lies set forth by Michael Moore have to do with Bin Ladin’s family and Saudi Nationals. He claims that in the days following September 11th, Bin Ladin’s family and the Saudi Nationals were flown to Saudi Arabia while air travel was on lockdown, all approved by President Bush. The truth is that the flights chartered for these groups went up after the lockdown had been eased and in some cases completely lifted. It is also known that former Terrorism Czar and a critic of the Bush white house has stated that the decision was his and his alone and not President Bush’s. The 9/11 commission supports this claim. He also states that none of those on the flights were questioned. The 9/11 commission also stated “each of the flights we have studied was investigated by the FBI and dealt with in a professional manner prior to its departure.”
He then goes on a big long rant about connections between President Bush and the Bin Laden family. They are very loose connections at best that deal with Saudi investments in U.S. companies and I don’t feel the need to discredit them, although the resources are out there. I will point out however that in this movie, Michael Moore himself points out that Saudi Arabia’s investments counts for six to seven percent of the stock market here in America. That is a lot of money and one could point out connections between Democrats and Saudis and Bin Ladins the way Mr. Moore has connected Bush to the Bin Ladins. He also fails to mention that the Bin Ladin family cut off all ties to Osama in the early Eighties and are fond of America and our schools to the point that all of their kids are educated in American colleges.
After this he goes on to Afghanistan. He says we didn’t do much here. I would like to remind people of the fact that Afghanistan is now a free and sovereign nation. Free from the torture and tyranny of the Taliban and their Al Queda friends. He mentions the real reason we went in is to build a pipeline through the country. There has yet to be a pipeline built.
Moore then goes on with more of his lies. He creates a picture that President Bush had the threat levels frequently changed to create a scare in America. Anyone who believes this kind of crap is out of their minds! He leads the viewer to believe by doing this, the American people would support him going to war with anyone including Iraq. He states that we attacked a sovereign nation that never attacked the U.S. and was no threat to the U.S. There is no mention of the terrorist training camps in Iraq. He says that Bush deceived the American people about the threats in Iraq. He makes no mention that all the intelligence at the time, including intelligence from the British Intelligence service, supported his claims. He fails to mention the over 350,000 dead Kurds. How about those guys? That is reason enough in my mind. Even if there were no WMD’s, Saddam was practicing genocide on a group who opposed him. Anyone who opposed him was tortured and killed. There is nothing about the torture chambers that are now closed. He does, however, show a select few of Iraqis who were upset with the U.S. at the onset of the war because they lost loved ones due to American bombs. No weapons are perfect and sometimes they hit unintended targets. This is sad and I am pretty sure that I would be upset also. This does not take away the fact that we stopped genocide. It was not an accurate representation of the people of Iraq. There were no clips of the Iraqi people celebrating in the streets with U.S. soldiers. I recall a clip showing Iraqis celebrating the toppling of a Hussein statue. Where was their representation?
He then goes on talking about unemployment in Flint, Michigan, something he frequently goes back to in his films. He attacks military recruiters, claiming that they go after low income people. He makes no mention of the fact that the military improves their lives and the lives of their families. He fails to recognize the fact that most people in the military are there because they love their country, and they see the benefits of joining the military. He only presents the notion that poor people are the only target of recruiters. In the final cut of the movie Michael Moore states (and this is a direct quote):
“I’ve always been amazed that the very people forced to live in the worst parts of town, go to the worst schools, and who have it the hardest, are always the first to step up to defend us. They serve, so that we don’t have to. They offer to give up their lives so that we can be free. It is, remarkably, their gift to us. And all they ask for in return is that we never send them into harms way, unless it is absolutely necessary. Will they ever trust us again?”
To this I must say you are absolutely wrong. The military seeks to recruit those who are ready to do their part to serve their country. They do not look at your monetary status. This is not Hollywood Mr. Moore. Nobody cares how much money you have. I did not come from the worst part of town. I did not go to the worst school, in fact my school is pretty damn good. My family was neither poor, nor rich. We were comfortable in what we had. I went into the Air Force. I went in to serve my country and if need be, I would have died for my country and I will do so today if called upon. I went in because of my love of country. It had nothing to do with money, in fact the military pay isn’t all that great. It had everything to do with the fact that I love this country and felt it was my duty to serve her. I will continue to love and support my country and I am thankful that Americans are more intelligent than you make them out to be.
Some interesting quotes from Michael Moore (found on MooreWatch.com):
To German fans Moore asked: “Should such an ignorant people (Americans) lead the world?”
When a Japanese interviewer remarked that Moore did not appear to like America very much, Moore replied “I like America, to some extent.”
Please take from this analysis what you will, but it is my opinion that Moore will do anything he can to make money. I don’t believe he cares about anyone but himself, and this movie of lies is another way of making money. Why else would you load a “documentary” full of lies and not call it for what it is---a fiction movie?
By: Todd “bgcountry187”
After seeing this piece of agitprop I am now convinced. There WAS a Plan 9 From Outer Space!
I also did not pay to see F9/11. I spent the money of The Princess Diaries II and walked into MM's high school a/v project. I had already seen it with my daughter, so Ms. Andrews didn't get used.
That's not what the NY Times is saying now. NY Times argument: Why didn't we secure the WMDs that didn't exist?
I checked this thread out again because some moron in the office is talking to someone on the phone recommending the movie. The great thing is that the person on the phone is saying that the movie is full of lies.
If I vote for a particular candidate because of a film, please do your best to supress my vote, because I don't deserve to vote.
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