Text 547, 227 rader
Skriven 2004-08-03 10:55:00 av John Hull (1:379/1.99)
Ärende: 59 Deceits - Pt 10
==========================
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Iraq before Liberation
Deceit 44

     Moore shows scenes of Baghdad before the invasion (read: liberation) and
in his weltanschauung, it’s a place filled with nothing but happy, smiling,
giggly, overjoyed Baghdadis. No pain and suffering there. No rape, murder,
gassing, imprisoning, silencing of the citizens in these scenes. When he
exploits and lingers on the tears of a mother who lost her soldier-son in Iraq,
and she wails, "Why did you have to take him?" Moore does not cut to images of
the murderers/terrorists (pardon me, "insurgents") in Iraq…or even to God; he
cuts to George Bush. When the soldier’s father says the young man died and "for
what?", Moore doesn’t show liberated Iraqis to reply, he cuts instead to an
image of Halliburton.

Jeff Jarvis, "Watching Michael Moore," Buzz Machine weblog, June 24, 2004.

      The most offensive sequence in "Fahrenheit 9/11"’s long two hours lasts
only a few minutes. It’s Moore’s file-footage depiction of happy Iraq before
the Americans began their supposedly pointless invasion. You see men sitting in
cafes, kids flying kites, women shopping. Cut to bombs exploding at night. 
     What Moore presumably doesn’t know, or simply doesn’t care about, is that
the building you see being blown up is the Iraqi Ministry of Defense in
Baghdad. Not many children flew kites there. It was in a part of the city that
ordinary Iraqis weren’t allowed to visit—on pain of death. 
        …Iraq was ruled by a regime that had forced a sixth of its population
into fearful exile, that hanged dissidents (real dissidents, not people like
Susan Sontag and Tim Robbins) from meathooks and tortured them with
blowtorches, and filled thousands of mass graves with the bodies of its
massacred citizens. 
        Yes, children played, women shopped and men sat in cafes while that
stuff went on—just as people did all those normal things in Somoza’s Nicaragua,
Duvalier’s Haiti and for that matter Nazi Germany, and as they do just about
everywhere, including in Iraq today. 

Foreman, New York Post. For more, see the weblog of Iraqi Sarmad Zanga (part of
which cites this report).
 
Fahrenheit points out, correctly, that the Saudi monarchy is "a regime that
Amnesty International condemns as a widespread human rights violator."
Fahrenheit does not mention that the Saddam regime was likewise condemned by
Amnesty International. As AI's 2002 annual report noted, in April 2002 "the UN
Commission on Human Rights adopted a resolution strongly condemning 'the
systematic, widespread and extremely grave violations of human rights and of
international humanitarian law by the Government of Iraq, resulting in an
all-pervasive repression and oppression sustained by broad-based discrimination
and widespread terror.''' 
 
[Moore response: None.]
 
Invasion of Iraq
Deceits 45-46

     According to the footage that ensues, our pilots seem to have hit nothing
but women and children.

Labash, Weekly Standard.

     Then—wham! From the night sky come the terror weapons of American
imperialism. Watching the clips Moore uses, and recalling them well, I can
recognize various Saddam palaces and military and police centers getting the
treatment…I remember asking Moore at Telluride if he was or was not a pacifist.
He would not give a straight answer then, and he doesn’t now, either. I’ll just
say that the "insurgent" side is presented in this film as justifiably
outraged, whereas the 30-year record of Baathist war crimes and repression and
aggression is not mentioned once. (Actually, that’s not quite right. It is  
briefly mentioned but only, and smarmily, because of the bad period when
Washington preferred Saddam to the likewise unmentioned Ayatollah Khomeini.)

Hitchens, Slate. 
 
A National Public Radio reporter describes a scene in which an Iraqi woman
wails about the death of a loved one:

     reporters who were taken around to see the sites of civilian deaths during
the bombing of Baghdad also observed that some of those errant bombs were fired
by Iraqi anti-aircraft crews. Mr. Moore doesn't let the audience know when and
where this bomb was dropped, or otherwise try to identify the culprit of the
tragedy.

Fahrenheit includes some material in which American soldiers explain what kind
of music they listen to. Seventeen selections in Fahrenheit are taken from the
an Australian war documentary, Soundtrack to War, and were used against the
objection of film-maker George Gittoes:

     "I was concerned of course for my soldiers because their interviews were
taken out of context," Mr Gittoes told the Nine Network. 

     "There are about 17 scenes from my documentary in his film. I wouldn't go
so far as to say he lifted (them). Michael got access to my stuff and assumed
that I would be happy for it to be in 9/11. I would actually have been quite
happy for it not to be in 9/11."...

     Mr Gittoes said he had some contact with a company Westside Productions
associated with Michael Moore but had no idea his work was in Fahrenheit 9/11
until it was screened at the Cannes film festival. 

[Moore response: none.]

Major Coalition Partners Ignored
Deceit 47

     Q: You mock the "coalition of the willing" by only showing the tiny
countries that have voiced support. But you leave out England, Spain, Italy and
Poland. Why? 
     Moore: "This film exists as a counterbalance to what you see on cable news
about the coalition. I’m trying to counter the Orwellian nature of the Big Lie,
as if when you hear that term, the ‘coalition,’ that the whole world is behind
us." 

Patrick Goldstein, "Truth teller or story stretcher?" Los Angeles Times, June
22, 2004.
 
If it is a "Big Lie" to mention only the powerful and important members of the
Coalition (such as the United Kingdom and Australia), then it is an equally
"Big Lie" to mention only the small and insignificant members of the Coalition.
 
[Moore response: Provides a citation showing that the small countries which
Fahrenheit mocks were part of the Coalition. Does not attempt to justify
omission of other countries.]
 
Major Gregory Stone and Reservist Peter Damon
Exploitation and Invasion of Privacy

     The family of U.S. Air Force Maj. Gregory Stone was shocked to learn that
video footage of the major's Arlington National Cemetery burial was included by
Michael Moore in his movie "Fahrenheit 9/11." 
     Maj. Stone was killed in March 2003 by a grenade that officials said was
thrown into his tent by Sgt. Hasan K. Akbar, who is on trial for murder. 
     "It's been a big shock, and we are not very happy about it, to say the
least," Kandi Gallagher, Maj. Stone's aunt and family spokeswoman, tells
Washington Times reporter Audrey Hudson. 
     "We are furious that Greg was in that casket and cannot defend himself,
and my sister, Greg's mother, is just beside herself," Miss Gallagher said.
"She is furious. She called him a 'maggot that eats off the dead.'" 
     The movie, described by critics as political propaganda during an election
year, shows video footage of the funeral and Maj. Stone's fiancee, Tammie
Eslinger, kissing her hand and placing it on his coffin. 
     The family does not know how Mr. Moore obtained the video, and Miss
Gallagher said they did not give permission and are considering legal recourse.

     She described her nephew as a "totally conservative Republican" and said
he would have found the film to be "putrid." 
     "I'm sure he would have some choice words for Michael Moore," she said.
"Michael Moore would have a hard time asking our family for a glass of water if
he were thirsty." 

John McCaslin, "Inside the Beltway," Washington Times, July 13, 2004. Sgt.
Stone was killed by an American Muslim soldier, who threw a grenade in his tent
while he was sleeping.
 
Fahrenheit shows an interview in Walter Reed Army Medical Center with
Massachusetts National Guardsman Peter Damon. Damon lost parts of both his arms
in Iraq, and is learning how to use prosthetic arms. The footage comes from an
interview Damon granted to NBC Nightly News. Damon's wife says that he never
granted Moore permission to use the footage, was never asked, and strongly
objects to being used in the film. As of July 15, it is not clear whether
Moore's usage of the footage was illegal. But it hardly seems ethical for a
film-maker who dedicates his film to the soldiers in Iraq to put a
double-amputee veteran into the film without even bothering to ask for
permission.
 
Media Attitudes
Deceit 48

     In very selectively edited clips, Moore poses the absurd notion that the
main news anchors—Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, and Ted Koppel—wholeheartedly
support Bush and the War in Iraq….Has Moore forgotten the hour-long Saddam
softball interview Rather did just prior to the war, [or] Jennings’
condescending coverage…?

Schlussel.
 
Jennings is shown delivering a broadcast in which he says, "Iraqi opposition
has faded in the face of American power." But Jennings was simply stating an
undeniable fact, as he stood next to a map showing that Saddam’s army had
collapsed everywhere, and all Iraqi cities were in Coalition hands. Despite
what Moore implies, Jennings strongly opposed the liberation of Iraq. (Tim
Graham, "Peter’s Peace Platoon. ABC’s Crusade Against ‘Arrogant’ American
Power," Media Research
Center, March 18, 2003.)
 
[Moore response: None.]
 
Abuse of Iraqi Captives
Deceit 49
 
Long before Fahrenheit was released, Moore promised that he had videos of Iraqi
prisoner abuse. Fahrenheit presents a video of making fun of a prostrate Iraqi.
To the audience, it seems like another Abu Ghraib. Moore told an audience, "You
saw this morning the first footage of abuse and humiliation of Iraqi
detainees." Fahrenheit claims: "Immoral behavior breeds immoral behavior. When
a President commits the immoral act of sending otherwise good kids into a war
based on a
lie, this is what you get."
 
Not really. As reported in the (Toronto) Globe and Mail: 

     He revealed that a scene in which American soldiers appear to be
desecrating a corpse beneath a blanket may be misleading. In fact, the soldiers
had picked up an old man who had passed out drunk and they poked at his visible
erection, covered by a blanket.

It's not very respectful to make fun of a drunk who has passed out on a street.
But such teasing has nothing to do with the kind of bizarre sexual abuse
perpetrated at Abu Ghraib. All over the world, law enforcement officers make
fun of comatose drunks. 
 
Such teasing is an abuse of power. (Although it's a relatively harmless abuse
of power, since the only victim can't hear the disrespectful words.) Insulting
a drunk who can't hear you is not like torturing a conscious victim. And such
insults are not the result of "sending otherwise good kids into a war based on
a lie"; the insults are the result of the fact that law enforcement personnel
all over the world have to remove comatose drunks from the streets, and law
enforcement personnel sometimes make fun of the drunks.
 
[Moore response: None.]
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John 

America:  First, Last, and Always!
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