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Phillip
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[Poll] Fahrenheit 9/11 - Fair or foul?
August 7, 2004 - 04:35 AM
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I was surprised not to already find a thread in the Media area regarding this film. Love it or hate it this was a very well produced and very powerful film. I suspect, if only because its all but impossible to avoid it, that there are some inaccuracies. But, on balance, I have to say I basically agree with the premise and/or conclusions ... that the Bush administration was itching for an excuse to go into Iraq, that there are at least SOME business interests involved, that there were some political interventions on behalf of some people that were clearly unethical even if they were legal, that this administration was woefully unprepared to deal with a post-war Irag and the fact that the guys in power are the last to suffer as a result of their own decisions. So who am I to judge? A former U.S. Marine Vietnam war veteran. Considering that none of the guys making the decisions in the highest positions of power relative to the Iraq War ... Bush Cheyney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz ... served in combat I think my opinion is pretty legitimate. For the conservatives and religious right ... yes ... Saddam was an evil man and thank god he's gone - but don't get sidetracked here because that's not the issue. The main reason he butchered many of the Kurds and Shiites he butchered was because the Bush I administration encouraged them to rise up against Saddam following Gulf War I and then did nothing as Saddam went in and mercilessly crushed the rebellions. There can be no doubt that Michael Moore is biased. But so am I ... so are you. My question is simply ... what about the film? This is a groundbreaking media-impact event that many are comparing to the impact that John Kennedy had when he took to the television to mount his successful 1960 presidential election campaign. I think the film is very well done, powerful, thought provoking and insightful. I applaud the effort and the result. Thumbs up for Michael Moore on this one. Along similar lines, I'm proud to announce as Founder of The Rhythm of Hope in Brazil that our newest board member is an internationally critically acclaimed web film producer. Please look for two of his web film shorts on themes very relevant to TIG at http://www.iei.net/~pwagner/brazilhome.htm and then encourage your friends to stop by. And if you're old enough and a U.S. citizen make sure you get registered and vote in the upcoming election !!!
Fahrenheit 9/11 is a constructive use of the media
Yes, without a doubt
(5 votes for 50%)
Yes, but with some reservations
(3 votes for 30%)
No
(1 votes for 10%)
I can't make up my mind
(1 votes for 10%)
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An
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Re: Fahrenheit 9/11 - Fair or foul?
September 18, 2004 - 01:40 AM
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The film is just democratic propaganda. C'mon. It does have some truths, but when the conspiracy theories came i really had to laugh.
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Phillip
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What "conspiracy" theory?
September 18, 2004 - 02:56 AM
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The film doesn't generally promote the idea of conspiracy. There are oblique references to particular instances where specific parties pursued something like that. The film does reveal deception, incompetence, the compromise of national interests for the sake of self-interests, ignorance, arrogance, short-sightedness, a lack of preparation, misrepresented agendas, questionable priorities, paralysis of leadership at what was arguably the most vulnerable moment in our nation's history, miscalculation, socio-economic "bottom fishing" for military recruits and a predisposition for slanting the interpretation of intelligence reports and current events to support initiative that would otherwise be unjustifiable. I won't question that you found all this amusing. I can't pretend to see the world through your eyes. But I'm a U.S. Marine Vietnam veteran, with time in service at USMC East Coast HQ in Norfolk, Virginia and 26 years at IT giant EDS where I was a risk management and process management subject matter expert (and addressed three national conferences). In 1989 I was named, along with now U.S. Senator Evah Bayh as one of the ten outstanding young men in Indiana. In that decade I organized an international relief campaign for Soviet Jewish Refusniks and met in Washington with Jack Kemp and Al Gore, who later ran against each other for the Vice Presidency. I've traveled extensively in Asia and the Americas and for the past nine years I've been working with social programs in Brazil and I'm currently a graduate student in the area of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. I think I have a pretty good grasp of world events and ... for what its worth ... I didn't find myself laughing when I saw the film. Thank you, sincerely, for your feedback however. I'll accept it for what I believe it is worth.
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An
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Re: Fahrenheit 9/11 - Fair or foul?
September 19, 2004 - 07:31 AM
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I clearly haven't seen so much things as u, so i judge the film different. Don't get me wrong, i am for democratic politics, but my personal opinion is, that whoever is in power will also seek a personal interest (and that is human), be it a democrat or republican. I am sure that somebody could make a similar film, just change the politicians with democrats.
The fact that makes modern politics dirty is, that nobody actually cares about the people and country they stand for. The democrats would say anything (the war wasn't fair) just to win the election. Although this may be true, the integrity of what USA stands for is sacrificed just for the sake of coming to power and making everything your way (perhaps better, perhaps not). If there would be a united stand and opinion for certain issues, changes could be made with far less damage taken in the long run. Bad politicians have to be taken down, no doubt about it, but i would prefer a more quiet way.
For instance. The war in Iraq wasn't justified. I agree on that issue. But, don't u think that some European countries have given Sadam too much manouvering space. If all would support a single demand (disarm, disband, let us inspect, ...) he wouldn't gamble so much and perhaps made everyhing less problematic. But of course they didn't support the US, because they have their own interests.
Nowadays it is more and more forgotten that Sadam was a bad guy after all. The Americans started an illegal war, maybe even for their pesonal interests, but still the removal of Sadam was a good thing to be done. The management after the formal end of war is the issue where the USA failed. But again some might argue, that they failed because there wasn't any real support and interest in other nations, to remove the regime and help the people of Iraq.
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Phillip
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No one's forgotten Saddam was a bad guy
September 19, 2004 - 12:12 PM
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We all know he was. We don't intervene in anyone's affairs to remove bad guys without having a better reason, and its our credibility ... not a value judgement on whether the world is better off without Saddam ... that is at the root of our problems with our friends around the world. Since 1985 about threee million people have died in the Sudan (far fewer in the more recent conflicts of the Darfur region, which are the focus of current reporting), but we haven't lifted a finger to intervene. Is it racism? Probably not in the premeditated sense. But if three million Euro-descended people had died over a two decade period we'd be moving heaven and earth in mounting a massive aid and military assistance campaign. We intervened in the Balkans, but allowed the slaughter to continue in Rwanda.
Saddam was a monster, but when this administration talks about the hundreds of thousands of Iraquis in the north and south of Iraq who were slaughtered post Gulf War I it fails to mention what triggered the slaughter. I vividly recall that the Bush I administration publicly urged the southern and northern populations to rise up against Saddam with an implied promise of stepping in to support them if they would. But when they did rise up advisors within the administration had second thoughts. Their revised thinking - too late for the hundreds of thousands of Iraquis who had already put their necks on the line - was that sympathetic relations between the southern moslem population and Iran might lead to the formation of a more radical moslem theocracy that we would not be able to deal with. From a purely economic perspective there was an implicit threat of facilitating the spread of radical moslem theocracies then beyond Iraq's borders to Saudi Arabia and elsewhere as well. So we went back on our implied word and failed to intervene when the northern and southern populations rose up against Saddam post Gulf War I. We stood by and did nothing as Saddam slaughtered them.
Later, of course, the argument became we need to remove Saddam not only because he's a bad guy - having just slaughtered all those people we encouraged to rise up and then abandoned (and by the way, we've executed this involve them and then abandon them strategy many times in the past, as with the Hmong hill people in Vietnam)- but also because of a host of other reasons. Lets examine a few.
1) WMD - We now know that the CIA made it pretty clear that the WMD argument was a specious one at best ... weak, unsubstantiated and almost wholly speculative.
2) Terrorism - Well, Damascus has been home to no fewer than 12 international terror organizations for years and we've never given much thought to invading Syria. Iraq, on the other hand, could only be tied to terrorism through a single oblique reference ... a (now disputed) meeting between one Iraqui intelligence official and a member if Al Quaeda. Never mind that Al Quaeda was committed to bringing down secular Arab governments as well as the western "satans" like the U.S. and Great Britain.
3) The need to liberate oppressed peoples - Lebanon has been occupied for more than a decade by Syria but we're not putting any young American men and women in harms way in order to liberate the Lebanese.
4) The humanitarian issue - I've already addressed that vis a vis the Sudan.
5) Saddam was a proven threat to the U.S. because he had a long history of attacking other nations - Saddam, in fact, never attacked any nation outside of the Middle East. He had pan-Arab dreams of uniting the Arab world under his (and I use the term loosley) leadership. He isn't the first Arab leader with such dreams, Nassar in Egypt almost pulled it off once.
The world watches us closely because we're at the top of the heap. When we encourage and support dictators like Manuel Noriega in Nicaragua or Saddam Hussein when its convenient for us (and we did supprt each - have you forgotten that Saddam was one of "our guys" when he was at war with Iran?) and then later invade and remove them under prolamations of serving the interests of God, good and mankind those proclamations are not always well received by our friends and neighbors. But worse than that it seems to be the case that we aren't who we say we are. Our credibility is something we cannot afford to fritter away so carelessly.
If we went into Iraq to liberate Iraquis and establish democracy (not that it should be our choice as to whether Iraq becomes a democracy or not), then how does the prison torture scandal make us look? Sure, it was a minority of the military and civilian (CIA) component that perpetrated these unforgivable acts, but ask yourself this ... suppose the situation were reversed. What if we had gotten videos of captured young American men and women soldiers being tortured, humiliated and sexually abused at the hands of some of Saddam's henchmen? Would we have said ... "oh, but it was only a few bad guys who did that", or would there have been a national outcry to "nuke those bastards"? I think there isn't any doubt about what the answer would have been.
Politicians DO often mislead us, regardless of party. But the situation at the present time is exceptional in terms of the magnitude and of the misleading and the magnitude of the negative consequences on the lives of young men and women placed in harms way, on our national unity (which has all but evaporated in the face of polarizing politics), our national economy (we've gone from an historical budget surplus to an historical budget deficit), our national credibility and our international relations.
Our credibility is a form of national currency. Long before 9/11, when the Societ Union was still the Soviet Union, we were supplying Osama Bin Laden and his peers with hand-held heat seeking missles and hailing Chechen rebels as "freedom fighters". Today, of course, Bin Laden is public enemy number one and we sympathize with our Russian counterparts who suufer at the hands of Chechen terrorists. Bin Laden and the Chechen revels, of course, ARE terrorists. But there's little evidence to suggests they were ever our friends and the world watches and judges us by the friends we keep - even if we later abandon them.
I reiterate that the film offers worthwile insight, clearly slanted because - after all - its an "Op Ed" piece, not a documentary - but also not a grand "conspiracy theory". I continue to appreciate your feedback.
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Brian
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Re: Fahrenheit 9/11 - Fair or foul?
September 20, 2004 - 02:01 AM
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I find Michael Moore personally to be a bit flaky but the film itself I appreciated very much. It saddened me and I was more than a little outraged at the whole "oil pipeline" scam. To me, that's why Iraq got the attention they did when we invaded. And I'm glad we got rid of Saddam. Now let's go and help everybody else!
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Phillip
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Your response is appreciated BrianK
September 20, 2004 - 03:43 AM
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I just wanted you to know ...
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tanm
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Hmmmm.
December 4, 2004 - 02:38 AM
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well, now after the elections... would yu say it didn't have any effect? or was the fact that the democrats didn't produce any good candidate, enough to just drown the effects of that film?
I watched 'bowling for columbine' (as soon as i could get my hands on it, considering where i am.. it was whole months after its release) but when F911 came out... i just put it off. I knew how i felt inside at that moment about all happenings of 'world events', and i knew that the film would just confirm my sentiments. I did put it off for a long time.. and then finally after a few months it happened.
It was everything I feared it would be. And now, in December 2004, the world is exactly where i feared it would be.
Mr. pwagner, Thank you for sharing what you know too!
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Phillip
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Response to Tanm
December 4, 2004 - 10:10 AM
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Thank you for your post. As for what I think now? I don't think we can attribute the result to the Democrats failure to put up a good candidate since more people voted for Kerry than voted for Ronald Reagan. I think the issue is much more worrisome. I believe that the polarization between political perspectives is so deep and divisive that the results reflect the degree to which one side or the other has the discipline (among its ranks) to get out the vote ... and GB's base is very disciplined. Post election rhetoric referencing political capital is not helpful since - basically - every time you see two people walking down the street you can assume - symbolically - that one voted for Bush and one voted for Kerry. So Bush is not further alienating the 50% of the country who voted for Kerry by saying, in essence "now that I've won a mandate I'm going to capitalize on that". What mandate? It is true that the Democrats fail to bring anything new to the table. We basically prosecute foreign policy through Departments of State and Defense which - respectively - compromise the interest of people to secure agreements between governments on the one hand, and cause death and destruction on the other. I agree with the need to shoot a man who is trying to shoot you and even I saw no fault with going into Afghanistan after Bin Laden after 9/11. But the War on Terrorism is a war of ideas. We won't ever win it by killing off all the terrorists because every time you kill one the nephews and sons and uncles of the ones you kill are more likely to become terrorists themselves. We won't win hearts and minds by trying to force our way of life on them either. Last week here in Indiana a half dozen children at school were slashed by a machete and knife wielding student who said god was telling him to eliminate the sinners. The scandal at Abu-Grab (spelling?) prison, the corporate scandals that have ruined tens of thousands of lives, the fact that we're the largest consumer nation of illegal drugs and our incredibly high rates of murder and putting people in prison offer too much fodder for those who would demonize us as "satans". But if we would invest 300 billion dollars a year (about what the Defense Dept spends with supplementary appropriations - State probably spends even more) building bridges and roads and cisterns and hospitals and schools around the world we might really begin to make a positive impression. More importantly, we would be drying up the breeding grounds of terrorism. Of course we would have to do that without trying to push our religious and political preferences off on anyone - to remain credible - but we can't seem to do that. So, bottom line, I'm not very hopeful. I'm less hopeful than I would have been had the election gone in another direction - because I don't see wounds being healed - but even if it had gone the other way I would still have not been very optimistic about the future. Until we can break through the hard shell of our ignorance and self-centeredness and encourage - rather than disparaging as unpatriotic or radical - new ideas, I think we've got a tough road ahead of us. You asked. Thank you for asking. Phillip http://wwwrhythmofhope.org
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