Text 550, 230 rader
Skriven 2004-08-03 10:57:11 av John Hull (1:379/1.99)
Ärende: 59 Deceits - Pt 13 (End)
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Terrorists Support Fahrenheit
Deceit 59
 
As reported in the trade journal Screen Daily, affiliates of the Iranian and
Syrian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah are promoting Fahrenheit 9/11, and
Moore’s Middle East distributor, Front Row, is accepting the terrorist
assistance: 

     In terms of marketing the film, Front Row is getting a boost from
organizations related to Hezbollah which have rung up from Lebanon to ask if
there is anything they can do to support the film. And although [Front Row’s
Managing Director Gianluca] Chacra says he and his company feel strongly that
Fahrenheit is not anti-American, but anti-Bush, "we can’t go against these
organizations as they could strongly boycott the film in Lebanon and Syria."

Nancy Tartaglione, "Fahrenheit to be first doc released theatrically in Middle
East," Screen Daily.com, June 9, 2004 (website requires registration). The
story is discussed in Samantha Ellis, "Fahrenheit 9/11 gets help offer from
Hezbollah," The Guardian, June 17, 2004; and "Moore film distributor OK with
terror support: Exec says firm doesn’t want to risk boycott of 'Fahrenheit
9/11' in Mideast," WorldNetDaily.com, June 22, 2004.
 
Salon.com followed up on the story, and reported:

     Gianluca Chacra, the managing director of Front Row Entertainment, the
movie’s distributor in the United Arab Emirates, confirms that Lebanese student
members of Hezbollah "have asked us if there's any way they could support the
film." While Hezbollah is considered a legitimate political party in many parts
of the world, the U.S. State Department classifies the group as a terrorist
organization. Chacra was unfazed, even excited, about their offer. "Having the
support of such an entity in Lebanon is quite significant for that market and
not at all controversial. I think it’s quite natural." (Lions Gate did not
return calls asking for comment.) 

John Gorenfeld, "Michael Moore Terrorizes The Bushies!" Salon.com, June 24,
2004.
 
According to Screen Daily, Moore’s film will open in mid-July on ten screens in
Lebanon and two screens in Syria. Syria is a terrorist state which invaded
Lebanon in the 1970s and controls the nation through a puppet government. The
main al Qaeda commander in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has worked with
Hezbollah and has operated out of Syria.
 
Moore accuses the United States of sacrificing morality because of greed: "The
motivation for war is simple. The U.S. government started the war with Iraq in
order to make it easy for U.S. corporations to do business in other countries.
They intend to use cheap labor in those countries, which will make Americans
rich." David Brooks, "All Hail Moore," New York Times, June 28, 2004;
translation of original Japanese interview with Moore.
 
Yet it turns out that the self-righteous Moore is the one who is accepting aid
from a terrorist organization which has murdered and kidnapped hundreds of
Americans--and also an organization that works with Zarqawi and al Qaeda. Just
to avoid a boycott on a dozen screens in a totalitarian terrorist state and its
colony?
 
Moore is, with terrorist assistance, pushing the film in Syria and a Syrian
colony, both of which are places which supply some of the fighters who are
currently killing Americans and anti-totalitarian Iraqis. Fahrenheit presents
the fighters as noble resistance, and the American presence as entirely evil.
It's not that the content of Fahrenheit is all that different from the
propaganda which pervades the state-controlled Arab media, or on al Jazeera.
But Fahrenheit's may be more persuasive, to at least some of its Arab audience,
because its denunciations of American and praise for the Iraqi insurgents comes
from an American. It is reasonable to expect that such a film, when shown in
Syria and Lebanon, will aid in the recruiting of additional fighters to kill
Americans and Iraqis. In effect, the presentation of Fahrenheit in Syria and
Lebanon--especially with explicit endorsement from a terrorist
organization--amounts to a recruiting film for terrorists (or, in Moore's
terms, "minutemen") to go to Iraq and kill Americans. 
 
Because of Syria's oppression of Lebanon and its support for terrorism in Iraq
and other nations, Congress passed and President Bush signed the Syria
Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act. The Act authorizes the
U.S. government to freeze the assets of individuals or organizations "who are
determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary
of State, to be or to have been directing or otherwise significantly
contributing to"
Syrian sponsorship of terrorist organizations or the destabilization Iraq.
 
Theoretically, it might be possible that Moore has no personal awareness that
his Middle East distributor is working with terrorists. But such ignorance is
unlikely for two reasons: First, Moore’s "war room" staff monitors
controversial articles about the film, and there could hardly be anything more
controversial than making common cause with terrorists. Not only has the
Hezbollah relationship been publicized in a leading film trade on-line
newspaper, the Moore-Hezbollah connection
has been reported in one of the very most significant British newspapers, and
in an important American on-line newspaper.
 
Second, Moore was personally questioned about the terrorist connection at a
Washington, D.C., press conference. He at first denied the terrorist
connection, but was then confronted with the direct quote from his distributor.
He stonewalled and refused to answer. So the man who spends so much time
getting in other people’s faces with tough questions is unwilling to explain
why he is accepting aid from Hezbollah.
 
By way of reply, Moore could have said, "I sold the Middle East distribution
rights to FRE, so I can't legally control what they do. But I strongly condemn
their relationship with Hezbollah, and I've already told them that if they
don't stop cooperating with Hezbollah, they will never distribute another movie
of mine. I think it's reprehensible for any business to accept terrorist
assistance." But instead, he stonewalls. Likewise, his website has provided no
explanation of Moore's conduct regarding Hezbollah.
 
Fahrenheit stitches together some scattered lines from the screenplay of 1984,
written by Ralph Gilbert Bettison and William Templeton. Moore implies that the
words are those of George Orwell, although the quotes do not come from George
Orwell's novel 1984. The screenplay depicts a totalitarian state perpetually at
war, and does accurately capture many of the points made in Orwell's book. As
Moore quotes "Orwell" (actually, Bettison and Templeton): "The war is not meant
to be won, but it is meant to be continuous...A hierarchical society is only
possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance... The war is waged by the
ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over
either Eurasia or east Asia but to keep the very structure of society intact."
The real purpose of war as "to keep the very structure of society intact."
Fahrenheit applies "Orwell’s" words to the United States of today. 
 
Moore’s purported positions on some issues in Fahrenheit are different from his
previous positions: whether people should have made a big deal about September
11, whether Osama bin Laden is guilty of the September 11 attacks, whether
American families, including the Lipscombs, deserve to suffer the deaths of
their children because they supported the war. But throughout Michael Moore’s
career, he has remained true to the central theme of Fahrenheit: capitalist
America is the
real terrorist state. Because America is a capitalist society, American use of
force is necessarily evil. (Or as the New Yorker reported, "He believes that
the United States should not take military action under any circumstances
except emergency self-defense.")
 
Four days after September 11, Moore announced: "We, the United States of
America, are culpable in committing so many acts of terror and bloodshed that
we better get a clue about the culture of violence in which we have been active
participants." (The statement has been deleted from Moore’s website, but is
available through the web archive service called the Wayback Machine.) This is
the view of Fahrenheit 9/11: Iraq under Saddam was fine until America began
terrorizing it. 
 
Saddam Hussein agrees; after September 11, his government issued an official
statement declaring, "The American cowboys are reaping the fruit of their
crimes against humanity." Saddam's media showed him telling his generals,
"Those who do not want to harvest evil, should not plant evil...Despite the
contradictory humanitarian feelings on what happened in America, America is
harvesting the thorns that its rulers have planted in the world...Nobody has
crossed the Atlantic carrying weapons against America, but it has crossed the
Atlantic carrying death and destruction to the whole world." 
 
For more of Moore's anti-American statements, see the Tacitus weblog entry
"Michael Moore in his own words." One of the posters for the European release
of Fahrenheit features a burning American flag, with a cloudy death's-head
skull in place of the white stripes.
 
Throughout American history, there have always been patriotic Americans who
criticized particular war-time policies, or who believed that a war was a
mistake and should be promptly ended. Today, there are many patriotic Americans
who oppose some or all aspects of the War on Terror. I am among them, in that I
have strongly opposed the USA PATRIOT Act from its first days, have denounced
the Bush administration for siding with corporate interests rather than with
public safety by sabotaging the Armed Pilots law, and have repeatedly stated
that the current Saudi tyranny should be recognized as a major part of the
problem in the War on Terror--despite the tyranny's close relationship with
America's foreign policy élite.
 
In contrast to the large number of patriots who have argued against particular
wars or wartime policies, a much smaller number of Americans have hated
America. They have cheered for the fighters who were killing Americans. They
have belittled America’s right to protect itself, and they have produced
propaganda designed to destroy American morale and to facilitate enemy victory.
To advance their anti-American cause, they have sometimes feigned love for the
nation they despised. 
 
For example, during the Vietnam War, many sincere patriots--such as George
McGovern and Robert Kennedy--opposed the war. But some people actively
collaborated with the totalitarian government of Ho Chi Minh, and the
totalitarian armies of the Khmer Rouge and the Pathet Lao. These people tried
to convince the American public that the soldiers who were killing American
troops were fighting in a just cause. They were not; they were fighting for
Stalinism and genocide.
 
Do the many falsehoods and misrepresentations of Fahrenheit 9/11 suggest a film
producer who just makes careless mistakes? Or does a man who calls Americans
"possibly the dumbest people on the planet" believe that his audience will be
too dumb to tell when he is tricking them? Viewers will have to decide for
themselves whether the extremist and extremely deceptive Fahrenheit 9/11 is a
conscientious work of patriotic dissent, or the cynical propaganda of a man who
gives wartime aid to America’s murderous enemies, and who accepts their aid in
return.
 
Dave Kopel is Research Director of the Independence Institute and an NRO
columnist. He has previously written about the deceptions in "Bowling for
Columbine." Like Michael Moore, in 2000 Kopel endorsed and voted for Ralph
Nader.
 
Contact Kopel.
 
Links:
 
Critiques of Moore or F9/11. MooreLies. Moorewatch. Neoperspectives. Fahrenheit
Fact. Centigrade 9/11. Moore Exposed. Bowling for Truth. Fahrenheit 411.
Watching Michael Moore. Democratic Leadership Council, "Michael Moore's Truth
Problem."
Critiques of this critique, and/or defenses of Fahrenheit. Anthony Wade. Mr.
Graff. Daily Kos. Defending Fahrenheit 911. Fahrenheit Fact Check. 
Media analysis: Professor Ifran Khawaja, Critical Reception: The Meaning of
'Fahrenheit 9-11'. Review of some major media reviews of Fahrenheit.
Collection of e-mails I received from Moore supporters: They're not all
Moore-ons: Some folks who defend Fahrenheit 9/11 are thoughtful and
constructive.
 
Copyright © 2004, David B. Kopel
 

                                              
                                                                               

                                                 World-wide web  Davekopel.org 



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John 

America:  First, Last, and Always!
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