Text 548, 233 rader
Skriven 2004-08-03 10:55:52 av John Hull (1:379/1.99)
Ärende: 59 Deceits - Pt 11
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Support for Soldiers and Veterans
Deceits 50-52
 
Bush "supported closing veterans hospitals" says Moore. The Bush Department of
Veterans Affairs did propose closing seven hospitals in areas with declining
populations where the hospitals were underutilized, and whose veterans could be
served by other hospitals. Moore does not say that the Department also proposed
building new hospitals in areas where needs were growing, and also building
blind rehabilitation centers and spinal cord injury centers. (For more, see the
Final Report of the independent commission on veterans hospitals, which agrees
with some of the Bush proposals, and with some of the objections raised by
critics.) 
 
According to Moore, Bush "tried to double the prescription drug costs for
veterans." What Bush proposed was raising the prescription co-pay from $7 to
$15, for veterans with incomes of over $24,000 a year. Prescription costs would
have remained very heavily subsidized by taxpayers. Some, not all, veterans
would have faced a doubling of their prescription co-pay, but only to a level
which is common for many people with prescription insurance, and hardly a large
enough increase to make a great difference in most cases.
 
Bush, announces Moore, "proposed cutting combat soldiers’ pay by 33%." Not
exactly. In addition to regular military salaries, soldiers in certain areas
(not just combat zones) receive an "imminent danger" bonus of $150 a month. In
April 2003, Congress retroactively enacted a special increase of $75, for the
fiscal year of Oct. 1, 2002 through Sept. 30, 2003. At first, the Bush
administration did not support renewing the special bonus, but then changed its
position.
 
Likewise, Congress had passed a special one-year increase in the family
separation allowance (for service personnel stationed in places where their
families cannot join them) from $100 to $250. Bush's initial opposition to
extending the special increase was presented by Moore as "cutting assistance to
their families by 60%." (Edward Epstein, "Pentagon reverses course, won’t cut
troops’ pay," San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 15, 2003.)
 
Even if one characterizes not renewing a special bonus as a "cut," Fahrenheit
misleads the viewer into thinking that the cuts applied to total compensation,
rather than only to pay supplements which constitute only a small percentage of
a soldier’s income. An enlisted man with four months of experience receives an
annual salary more than $27,000. (Rod Powers, "What the Recruiter Never Told
You: Military Pay." The figure includes the value of health care, housing, and
so on.) So allowing the $75 per month supplemental bonus to expire would have
amounted to a "cut" of only about 3 percent of total compensation, even at the
lowest levels. So Moore claim of a "33%" cut is a ten-fold exaggeration. 
 
Although Moore presents Bush as cutting military pay, Bush did the opposite: in
2003, Congress enacted a Bush administration proposal to raise all military
salaries by 3.7%, with extra "targeted" pay increases for non-commissioned
officers. NCOs are lower-ranking officers who typically join the military with
lower levels of education than commissioned officers. (Sgt. 1st Class Doug
Sample, "Defense Department Targets Military Pay Increases for 2004," American
Forces Press Service.)
 
(Deceits: 1. Closing veterans hospitals without mentioning of opening of
veterans hospitals, 2. Cutting combat soldiers' small bonus as if it were a cut
in total salary, 3. Omission of Bush pay increase for military. Prescription
drugs not counted as deceit, although important context is missing.) 
 
[Moore response: Quotes the movie as referring to "combat soldiers' bonus pay."
The theatrical movie I have seen does not include the word "bonus." On other
matters, Moore provides citations which are consistent with my explanation of
the facts, and does not attempt to explain or justify the deceits or
omissions.]
 
Congressional Children in War
Deceits 53-56
 
Early in this segment, Moore states that "out of the 535 members of Congress,
only one had an enlisted son in Iraq." The action of the segment consists of
Moore accosting Congressmen to try to convince them to have their children
enlist in the military. At the end, Moore declares, "Not a single member of
Congress wanted to sacrifice their child for the war in Iraq."
 
Moore’s second statement is technically true, but duplicitous. Of course no-one
would want to "sacrifice" his child in any way. But the fact is, Moore's
opening ("only one") and his conclusion ("not a single member") are both
incorrect. Sergeant Brooks Johnson, the son of South Dakota Democratic Senator
Tim Johnson, serves in the 101st Airborne Division and fought in Iraq in 2003.
The son of California Republican Representative Duncan Hunter quit his job
after September 11, and enlisted in the Marines; his artillery unit was
deployed in the heart of insurgent territory in February 2004. Delaware Senator
Joseph Biden's son Beau is on active duty in the Judge Advocate General Corps;
although Beau Biden has no control over where he is deployed, he has not been
sent to Iraq, and therefore does not "count" for Moore's purposes. Seven
members of Congress have been confirmed to have children in the military.
 
How about Cabinet members? Fahrenheit never raises the issue, because the
answer would not fit Moore’s thesis. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s son is
serving on the U.S.S. McFaul in the Persian Gulf.
 
Why not count Duncan Hunter's son? Note the phrasing: "only one had an enlisted
son in Iraq." Although Hunter's son "enlisted" in the Marines, he is a Second
Lieutenant, which means that he is above the rank of an "enlisted man." But why
hide from the viewers how many Congressmen really have sons serving in the
military in Iraq?
 
The editing of the Congressional scenes borders on the fraudulent: 

     ….Representative Kennedy (R-MN), one of the lawmakers accosted in
Fahrenheit 9/11, was censored by Michael Moore. 
        According to the [Minneapolis] Star Tribune, Kennedy, when asked if he
would be willing to send his son to Iraq, responded by stating that he had a
nephew who was en-route to Afghanistan. He went on to inform Moore that his son
was thinking about a career in the navy and that two of his nephews had already
served in the armed forces. Kennedy’s side of the conversation, however, was
cut from the film, leaving him looking bewildered and defensive.
        What was Michael’s excuse for trimming the key segment? Kennedy’s
remarks didn’t help his thesis: "He mentioned that he had a nephew that was
going over to Afghanistan," Moore recounted. "So then I said ‘No, no, that’s
not our job here today. We want you to send your child to Iraq. Not a nephew.’"
        Kennedy lambasted Moore as a "master of the misleading" after viewing
the interview in question. 

Fahrenheit Fact.
 
George Stephanopoulos, of ABC News, asked Moore about the selective cuts in the
Kennedy footage:

     Stephanopoulos: You have a scene when you’re up on Capitol Hill
encountering members of Congress, asking them if they would ask their sons and
daughters to enlist … in the military. And one of those members of Congress who
appears in the trailer, Mark Kennedy, said you left out what he told you, which
is that he has two nephews serving in the military, one in Afghanistan. And he
went on to say that, "Michael Moore doesn’t always give the whole truth. He’s a
master of the misleading." 
     Moore: Well, at the time, when we interviewed him, he didn’t have any
family members in Afghanistan. And when he saw the trailer for this movie, he
issued a report to the press saying that he said that he had a kid in— 
     Stephanopoulos: He said he told you he had two nephews. 
     Moore:… No, he didn’t. And we released the transcript and we put it on our
Web site. This is what I mean by our war room. Any time a guy like this comes
along and says, "I told him I had two nephews and one was going to Iraq and one
was going to Afghanistan," he’s lying. And I’ve got the raw footage and the
transcript to prove it. So any time these Republicans come at me like this,
this is exactly what they’re going to get. And people can go to my Web site and
read the transcript and read the truth. What he just said there, what you just
quoted, is not true. 
      
        This Week followed up with the office of Rep. Kennedy. He did have two
nephews in the military, but neither served in Iraq. Kennedy’s staff agrees
that Moore’s Website is accurate but insists the movie version is misleading.
In the film, Moore says, "Congressman, I’m trying to get members of Congress to
get their kids to enlist in the Army and go over to Iraq." But, from the
transcript, here’s the rest: 
     Moore: Is there any way you could help me with that?
     Kennedy: How would I help you? 
     Moore: Pass it out to other members of Congress. 
     Kennedy: I’d be happy to — especially those who voted for the war. I have
a nephew on his way to Afghanistan. 

 This Week, ABC News, June 20, 2004.
 
So while Fahrenheit pretended that Kennedy just stupidly looked at Moore,
Kennedy agreed to help Moore. 
 
Notice also how Moore phrased his reply to Stephanopoulos: "Any time a guy like
this comes along and says, 'I told him I had two nephews and one was going to
Iraq and one was going to Afghanistan,' he’s lying." But Kennedy never claimed
that he had a nephew going to Iraq. The insinuation that Kennedy made such a
claim is a pure fabrication by Moore. 
 
Fahrenheit shows Moore calling out to Delaware Republican Michael Castle, who
is talking on a cell phone and waves Moore off. Castle is presented as one of
the Congressmen who would not sacrifice his children. What the film omits is
that Rep. Castle does not have any children.
 
Are Congressional children less likely to serve in Iraq than children from
other families? Let’s use Moore’s methodology, and ignore members of extended
families (such as nephews) and also ignore service anywhere except Iraq (even
though U.S. forces are currently fighting terrorists in many countries). And
like Moore, let us also ignore the fact that some families (like Rep. Castle’s)
have no children, or no children of military age. 
 
We then see that of 535 Congressional families, there are two with a child who
served in Iraq. How does this compare with American families in general? In the
summer of 2003, U.S. troop levels in Iraq were raised to 145,000. If we factor
in troop rotation, we could estimate that about 300,000 people have served in
Iraq at some point. According to the Census Bureau, there were 104,705,000
households in the United States in 2000. (See Table 1 of the Census Report.) So
the ratio
of ordinary U.S. households to Iraqi service personnel is 104,705,000 to
300,000. This reduces to a ratio of 349:1.
 
In contrast the ratio of Congressional households to Iraqi service personnel is
535:2. This reduces to a ratio of 268:1.
 
Stated another way, a Congressional household is about 23 percent more likely
than an ordinary household to be closely related to an Iraqi serviceman or
servicewoman. Of course my statistical methodology is very simple. A more
sophisticated analysis would look only at Congressional and U.S. households
from which at least one child is legally eligible to enlist in the military.
Moore, obviously, never attempted such a comparison; instead, he deceived
viewers into believing that Congressional families were extremely different
from other families in enlistment rates.
 
Moore ignores the fact that there are 101 veterans currently serving in the
House of Representatives and 36 in the Senate. Regardless of whether they have
children
who could join the military, all of the veterans in Congress have personally
put themselves at risk to protect their country.
 
During the segment, Moore is accompanied by Corporal Abdul Henderson, a Marine
Corps Reservist. Corporal Henderson wears several ribbons and medals on his
uniform; interestingly, a Good Conduct ribbon or medal, which is awarded "for
the successful completion of a prescribed period of time of service without
incident," is not among them. 
 
(Deceits: 1. number of Congressional children in Iraq, 2. Mark Kennedy, 3.
Michael Castle, 4. False impression that Congressional families are especially
unlikely to serve in Iraq.)
 
[Moore response: Cites a May 11, 2003 article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
that only Brooks Johnson had a son who had fought in Iraq. The article was
accurate at the time, since Duncan Hunter's son, who had already enlisted, had
not yet been sent to Iraq. But Fahrenheit premiered at the Cannes Film Festival
in May 2004--two months after it had been reported that Duncan Hunter's son had
been sent to Iraq. At the least, Moore could apologize that his claim about
"only one" child is inaccurate, and blame the error on his having not noticed
the news about Hunter while the movie was in its final production stages. But
instead, Moore continues to repeat the "only one" claim, which is indisputably
false. Moore offers no defense for the other falsehoods in this section.]
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John 

America:  First, Last, and Always!
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