I’ve been hearing this constant chant of “Michael Moore, Michael Moore, Michael Moore” from everyone I’m around, every blog I visit, every site I go to. And you know what? I’m sick of it. A couple days ago, I read something so horrific in connection with Michael Moore that it literally made me cry. Sure, it was a column by David Brooks – an infamous and hated-by-the-left columnist for the New York Times – but the article simply contained quotes from Michael Moore, statements issued whilst publicizing his “film” in Europe. It made me cry because I remembered seeing some of those quotes in newspapers in England, right next to the pictures of the burned and desecrated bodies of American civilians in Fallujah, the faces of crazed children emblazoned with smiles as they whipped the remains. Here’s one of the quotes from Moore that really got me:
“The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not `insurgents’ or `terrorists’ or `The Enemy.’ They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow – and they will win.”
Check out the rest of the article, it might make you cry too:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/26/opinion/26BROO.html?th
Since that article requires a subscription, if you don’t have an account, you can view the article here: http://www.dprophet.com/meggers/allhailmoore.html
I would encourage you to get an account with the New York Times – it’s free, and worth it.
Then there’s another article, sent to me by Jan, that was actually a rather surprising find – it’s not written by anyone like David Brooks, and yet it more clearly illustrates exactly why Michael Moore churns my stomach. The best part – it was written by a liberal. It’s a very well-written review, of sorts, of Moore’s latest “documentary.” I’d encourage you to read it – even though it’s long – if you’ve seen the film, are going to see the film, or have any questions about Michael Moore. You can read it here:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723
Michael Moore claims he’s out to “unseat” a dishonest President. That’s a very, very serious claim. Don’t play along with him until you really understand both sides to the man – the on-screen “key to all mythologies”, or the off-screen opportunist in the worst sense of the word.
I’m not going to go see it. I don’t want to see it. I don’t need to see it. Frankly, I’m trying to cut out all the angry, mean bits of my life because they are just not worth the hassle. I’ve found that when they’re left to fester, they take over everything. This is why I haven’t written about it on my blog (but I have commented on it over at Cameron’s and here now, too).
And yeah, that article about Moore from MSN was written by a man who ripped into Reagan before he was even burried. So he is definitely not conservative friendly, yet even he couldn’t stand the “documentary.”
And that “Minutemen” comment from Moore? Reprehensible. I guess there is no doubt as to which side he is rooting for in this war, is there?
Argh. I’m going to go look at pictures of my cousin’s baby now and try to find my zen. I thought I had it this morning.
I’m sorry and maybe it’s just me, but what is wrong with the quote of his you put up? I mean, looking at it from the Iraqi point of view, who are we to come in to their country and start bombing innocent civilians? What if one day China decides that Bush is murdering his own people and has weapons of mass destruction and that one day could possibly attack China, so they figure to pre-emptively strike us?
“The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not `insurgents’ or `terrorists’ or `The Enemy.’ They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow – and they will win.”
Seems to me all he’s saying is that from their point of view, we are the enemy and they’re going to fight back and chances are, they will win. I don’t think he’s encouraging them, I don’t think he hopes they win, I don’t think he wants the troops to die, I think he’s simply saying that this could happen.
You need to watch the movie to understand his point of view. He’s not against the troops, he’s against the reason we got into this war.
I think it is just you. The fact is they did in fact have a tyrant that was murdering thousands — it’s not a “what if.” Also, even the Iraqi government and many common folk condemn the violence. They are not fighting for a cause. They are not fighting for a country, a nationality and therefore cannot be called revolutionaries or Minutemen. They are fighting to disrupt Democracy. They are simply terrorists.
So do we now go into every country where there is a tyrant killing his own people? Ethnic cleansing is going on currently in the Sudan. So when does the U.S. military go in ang get rid of the tyrants there? What made Iraq so special? Because of the ties to Al-Quida that no one can seem to find? Or those weapons of mass destruction that no one can seem to find?
So the use of the words revolutionaries and Minutemen may have been a bad choice, but the fact is, not everyone wanted the U.S. to come in, essentially alone, and start a war. And now that the reasons that Bush started the war are being picked apart one by one, people are even more upset.
The 9-11 Commission has found ties between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. The “statement” that was issued, was an unauthorized statement issued by the staff, not the leadership. The leadership, when later interviewed regarding the unauthorized statement, stated that yes, they have found evidence of discussions between Sadam’s regime and Al Qaeda, and that support had been given. But of course, since that wasn’t sensational, that didn’t get a major headline.
We didn’t go in alone, and we certainly aren’t alone anymore. To say we went in alone is to think that France, Germany, and Russia make up the entirety of Europe. And they don’t. There are still over a dozen other countries there that went in with us. So maybe Italy couldn’t provide troops, but they provided assistance in other ways.
As for out situation now, the EU voted unanimously to aide us from here on out. Oh, and if we didn’t think there were any WMDs there, or that there aren’t any now, why is one of the bulleted issues in the EU negotiation to stop the export of WMDs out of Iraq? If there aren’t any WMDs there, then why did that issue make it into the discussions with the EU? It’s not like we were looking to find a gigantic, already made, A-bomb hidden underneath a tent out in the desert. WMDs can be as small as a perfume vial, but can be just as deadly as any A-bomb. Think how easy it’d be to hide that perfume vial, hop on a plane, and suddenly convince a bunch of Americans that gee, there weren’t any WMDs to begin with.
Let’s not forget that Osama Bin Laden hated Saddam Hussein. That is very well documented. So why would he team up with Saddam? He wouldn’t. Of course now there are al-Qaeda in Iraq… Saddam is gone and the whole country is in turmoil… and that’s where the Americans are! Imagine Bush and you standing outside an empty apartment. Bush says there are people inside. You say no, there are not. He says, well, go look. You walk inside and then he rightly claims, look, there are people inside! See, I was right! There were no al-Qaeda ties to Iraq until after the U.S. went in there.
North Korea has nuclear capabilites. As does India and Pakistan. North Korea was even part of the ‘axis of evil’ Bush mentioned a few years ago. Why haven’t we gone there, a place we know has the ability to create a WMD? Why would Colin Powell go to the UN on the eve of attacking Iraq and use maps to show exactly where WMD were being created, and then when we do show up, we can’t find them? Are we saying Saddam is so smart he got rid of every single shred of evidence that he could create WMD?
A perfume vial could be created by any person with a lab in the U.S. so I think when Bush said Saddam had WMD, he wasn’t talking about a single vial of anything. He was talking about something big, and even if he was only talking about vials of chemical weapons, Bush also talked about the ability to create a large amount of the stuff. And unless Saddam has built a secret city far underground somewhere, no one has been able to find it.
The Saddam and Osama connection was noted way back in 1999. Here is a CNN report: http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9902/13/afghan.binladen/
And here is a Guardian report: http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,314700,00.html
Both are from 1999. And both of those organizations are anything but Bush friendly. And while Osama did hate Saddam because he thought Saddam was a poser, Osama was only too happy to meet with Saddam’s goons and accept Saddam’s money.
As far as a single vial of chemical weapons, the gallons that have been discovered could, if dispersed to thier maximum distribution, kill 300,000. And what is this? All of a sudden it’s not enough that we have found WMD, it’s that we haven’t found *stockpiles* of WMD? There is no pleasing people who don’t want to be pleased by Bush.
And if you are looking at it from the Iraqi point of view, then of which Iraqi are we speaking? The wealthy Iraqi who tortured people for Saddam and who accumulated wealth by his labors might indeed see himself as a Minuteman, fighting for the return of his old lifestyle. Is this who Moore sides with? But I think that the common Iraqi who saw his countrymen buried in mass graves might see things a bit differently.
Weren’t we just on this topic over at my place? Sigh.
one should not say it is a bad film unless one has seen the film.
You don’t need to see the film to know what Michael Moore is telling people. It’s the same far left bull crap that been thrown around since the beginning of American involvement in Iraq. If you want to see what he’s saying, its just as affective to go to Barnes and Noble and hit the “Current Affairs” section. There’s plenty of propaganda for sale there too.
Michael Moore is no lone zealot out to enlighten a nation of misled lemmings. He has a stated political agenda: to unseat a dishonest president.
Think about that word: dishonest. Michael Moore has only played off of an equally deceptive liberal media that has chosen consciously to present one side of the issue claiming to be in defense of the Iraqi people. Lets look at the facts:
When Bush sent troops into Iraq, he told us that our military would remove Saddam Hussein, a dictator responsible for the deaths of over a million people. We did that. He said that we would help the Iraqis establish their own democratic government, and then leave them to govern themselves. That’s happened now too. We don’t control Iraq anymore. Yes we have a presence there and we will for a while, because terrorism is running rampant, but we also have a military presence in Germany left over from World War Two, and we do not by any means control that country.
Moore would have you believe that the United States has become a nation of dictators out to “impose” democracy on the world. The only problem with that is that you can’t impose self government on anyone. If the people want a dictator, they’ll elect a dictator through democratic processes, that they have a right to as a direct result of our actions there. That’s the point. There’s no was no way to know what the Iraqi people wanted before we went into Iraq because they lived under a dictator who put live human beings through a wood chipper and gassed his own citizens, because of their dissent. BECAUSE OF THEIR DISSENT. This is something that people in Iraq have been trying to do for years, but they couldn’t because Saddam Hussein HAD WMD’S and used them and stopped them.
Get it?
>>North Korea has nuclear capabilites. As does India and Pakistan
Out of these countries, only North Korea has posed a remote threat, and the chances that Kim would fire at Japan and S. Korea were extremely high if attacked.
The argument about WMD is a fairly weak one since it is only existent in hindsight. The whole world pretty much thought Saddam had stockpiles of WMD. The UN inspectors found plenty of them by ’98, when Saddam suddenly kicked them out. He had a 12-year string of ignoring and outright disobeying UN orders, as well as a horrible track record of murdering his own countrymen, thousands of them.
As you mentioned, Sudan is in a problematic position currently. Powell just went there to make the government do something. He already got them to push for a ceasefire and improvements in southern Sudan, and is now aiding the Darfur crisis. Powell has threatened further sanctions if there is no action. Remember, this is a relatively new crisis, whereas Saddam had been murdering for many years.
>>one should not say it is a bad film unless one has seen the film.
There’s been plenty of testimony confirming that it is a very biased and left-extremist film. The testimony of many is fine for me (Do you believe Pluto exists? I’ll bet you’ve never been there.) and I choose to spend my money on SpiderMan2 :).