Airman's review of Fahrenheit 9/11. Fire at will.

[Otto]

@Airman Doors

No, actually I’m wondering why we had enough on Martha Stewart comparatively quickly for what was a petty crime compared to Enron, but the guy who presided over what was basically the biggest business scandal of all time was completely unscathed for about three years. My understanding is that they were trying to get the little fish to roll over on Lay first, but all the same it’s not like you have to think too hard here. Lay was in charge. How hard can it be to find some evidence that he knew what was up?

I guess I’m still not getting this, perhaps because I’ve been awake for close to 24 hours, but it’s a minor point.

@ADUSAF

Well, sure they were. They are professional salemen. You’ve heard it before from other salemen. “If you want the moonroof, sir, you’ll need to buy the $1,000 for underbody protection.” Like I said, I thought they were a little callous with their approach on camera, but on the whole I didn’t see anything wrong with what they were doing.

You don’t see anything wrong with lying? If the military is such an honorable profession as you believe there should be no need for recruiters to tell lies to their potential recruits.

@ADUSAF

Location, location, location. If I go to the Harrisburg East Mall, for instance, I can state with near certainty that 8 out of every 10 teenagers walking around are not working, and probably half of those are not working at all, anywhere. If I tell them that they get to see the world, go to school, get health insurance, and get paid for doing it in a secure environment with the only drawback being that you may have to fight occasionally, I’ll have them eating out of the palm of my hand. Out of those four, probably three of those four have seen shootouts. So why would they be concerned about that? They see a way out. And they’re right.

And what has this to do with their ability to adjust to military life? That’s what I asked you about. They may be more likely, being poor, to view the military as a way out but that doesn’t mean they can hack the military any better than someone from the mall on the affluent side of town.

@ADUSAF

In Moore’s case it’s “Presenting the information and allowing viewers to draw a conclusion”, but in Rice’s case “It’s a misperception that Bush and company have encouraged through words carefully chosen to promote it while still preserving enough deniability so that they can say “we never said it.”” What’s the difference between the two?

Er, you were the one accusing Moore of lying…

@ADUSAF

That really bugs you, doesn’t it?

Actually, I couldn’t care less about it. There are several people whose movies I won’t spend my money on (some for political reasons and some because I can’t physically stand to look at them). I said that as a joke. You took it wrong.

[mhendo]

@Mr. Moto

Yep. This adds up to another snide little innuendo - that the administration needs bodies for their war, and so cooked up the tactics recruiters use.

No, in fact there was no such innuendo in the movie at all. The fact that you choose to see one says more about your powers of analysis than about the movie.

@Mr. Moto

In fact, recruiters have used the same tactics since time immemorial. They use these tactics because they work, and work well, wartime or peacetime.

Yes, and when the tactics move beyond exaggeration and extend to outright lies, as they do in at least one case that Moore shows, we should be troubled by it, no matter which party sits in the White House.

@Mr. Moto

Anybody who signed up willingly at any time within the last thirty years would look at those recruiters and recognize those tactics. This is hardly the Bush administration’s fault. If he’s to be blamed for it, then you have to blame Clinton as well, for the cute little war I found myself in the middle of after I willingly joined.

Ah, the last resort of the unsophisticated in America–as long as both major parties are guilty, then everything’s hunky-dory. I know this takes a while to sink in with some of you, but pointing out that something bad happened under Clinton does not somehow erase the fact that it happens under Bush. And vice versa.

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

The point of showing the aggressive and biased recruiting, as well as approaching congresspeople about their children’s participation in the war in Iraq is to highlight who is paying for this war of choice that we involved ourselves in. So, it doesn’t matter whether recruiters did the exact same things for the last four administrations. The point is that none of these administrations engaged in a pre-emptive war of choice based on false premises for which a certain segment of our society is paying a disproportionate price. The point of talking to congresspeople about their children is to suggest that we would demand higher stakes before choosing war if this inequity was not present. Sure, he could just give a statistic about the number of congresspeople with children in Iraq, which he does, but then you would not see how the excuse given by one member of the legislature (that he has a wife and children) is exactly the same as what one of the young men who is approached by the recruiters says (I have a wife and kids). The only difference is that the recruiters spin this as all the more reason to enlist, illustrating that some wives and children are valued more than others.

[Mr.Moto]

No, you get me wrong here. I wasn’t blaming Clinton either. The nature of government is that it’s a big bureaucracy that responds poorly to commands from whatever administration is in power.

The military runs its own recruitment system, and this system hasn’t been interfered with by outsiders for some time. This accounts for the similarity between my recruiting experience in the Clinton DoD and the recruiting experience now.

I’m just saying it’s foolish to blame Bush for this without examining whether this is a longstanding military recruitment problem. And if you don’t think Moore wasn’t trying to blame Bush for the lies of these recruiters, you’re being blissfully naive.

[Liberal]

Clinton knows as well as anyone what a behemoth the military bureaucracy is. Don’t ask, and he won’t tell.

[blowero]

@Airman Doors

Thanks. That’s a start, I guess.
I’d say that that’s a reasonable observation, but the truth is that the people that volunteer have the least to lose and the most to gain. It will always be that way.

Sp what’s wrong with Moore pointing that out? Don’t you agree that it’s an injustice?

Question them about what?

Well, “Where is Osama right now?” comes to mind. I don’t work for U.S. intelligence, so I’m really the wrong guy to ask. I’m sure they are experienced at knowing what questions to ask.

Where is your son whom you have had no association with for years because he’s a scumbag? Moore also tries to imply that they hadn’t disowned him because they attended his son’s wedding (I think, it might have been his birthday), to which I say “So what?”.

But you’ve just contradicted yourself. If they attended the wedding, then it can’t be true that they “have had no association”, right? The “so what?” is that they just might have known something about Osama. It doesn’t imply that they didn’t disown him, it implies that they did associate with him, which is the point.

Imagine John is accused of murder, and can’t be found. John has a brother, Jack. Jack says he disowned Joe, but admits that he had dinner with him last month. You think the police aren’t going to be interested in at least talking to Jack? Give me a break.

Regardless, they were foreign nationals with no association to the crime, and to detain them for something their disowned relative did wouldn’t have accomplished anything.

Detention itself may not have accomplished anything, but simply asking some questions may have. And it wasn’t that we merely didn’t detain them, we actually went far, far out of our way to get them out of the country without even saying “boo” to them.

See, here’s what you’re not getting: You seem to think they had to PROVE that Saddam’s family was involved in the plot before they could even ask them questions. You’re putting the cart before the horse. You can ask people questions about a crime without accusing them of the crime. It’s called investigating. It’s entirely possible that you’re right, and they would have learned nothing. But I find it highly suspicious that they didn’t even try to ask any questions, and I think that it’s a perfectly cogent point made by Moore.

[Apos]

Cool Doors. Now, just at some point compare matter-of-factly one of the thousands of right wing Moore clones on Tv and radio to a famous Nazi propagandist, and we’re done.

As for the connections: I’m not sure I got the sense from Moore that he was saying “it’s a conspiracy.” Maybe there was no way he could show that stuff without people making that connection and accusing him of making it, but at least from what he narrates on film, his point seemed more to be that nobody, for some reason, knows any of this information. Nobody knows who Bath is, or what giagantic influence the Saudi’s have on us via many of our most powerful citizens. You still have to seriously ask yourself if the Saudis got special treatment in the war on terror because of their connections and extensive investments in policymakers, not to mention generations of family friendships with the Bushes. Maybe there’s nothing there other than questionable special treatment… but why do people know all about the color of John Kerry’s left testicle and almost nothing at all about how closely the Saudis are tied in with us at the highest levels of power and dynasty in our country?

[blowero]

@Mr. Moto

I’m just saying it’s foolish to blame Bush for this without examining whether this is a longstanding military recruitment problem. And if you don’t think Moore wasn’t trying to blame Bush for the lies of these recruiters, you’re being blissfully naive.

Sorry, Mr. Moto, but you have absolutely no reason to believe that Moore was blaming Bush for the actions of those recruiters. As far as I am aware, Moore never said nor implied that. You have provided nothing (save ad hominem) to support your contention that he did.

If the best criticism of Moore you can come up with is to create and knock down strawmen, then don’t even bother.

[mhendo]

@Mr. Moto

And if you don’t think Moore wasn’t trying to blame Bush for the lies of these recruiters, you’re being blissfully naive.

Where does he make the connection? Oh, that’s right, HE DOESN’T!

Moore’s piece on the recruiting was, as others have pointed out, intended to demonstrate certain structural issues that affect who ends up serving in the military. Part of his point was that poor, undereducated kids get lied to by recruiters. At no stage does he attribute this to any particular administration. It’s not his fault if you can’t recognize where one argument starts and another begins.

[lissener]

@Doors

. . . the truth is that the people that volunteer have the least to lose and the most to gain. . . .

Right; because what they have to lose–their life–is less valuable to a poor person with brown skin than a rich whit kid. I see your logic.

In any case, you agree with MM here: that’s exactly the systemic injustice he was pointing out.

[lissener]

@Doors

. . . the truth is that the people that volunteer have the least to lose and the most to gain. . . .

Right; because what they have to lose–their life–is less valuable to a poor person with brown skin than a rich whit kid. I see your logic.

In any case, you agree with MM here: that’s exactly the systemic injustice he was pointing out.

[gobear]

I’ve given up posting to this board, but because I criticized Dave in a public thread, I’m breaking my exile in this instance to extend kudos to him in public for being fairminded enough to see F9/11 for himself. He echoed some of my own misgivings on Moore’s approach in the film, and I understand the constraints he has not to elaborate on his political stance while he’s on Uncle Sam’s dollar. His review is an example of the chief benefit of viewing Moore’s film, that is gets the audience talking about the issues it raises.

So, well done, Airman Doors.

[RedFury]

@Liberal

No, children in Fallujah played in streets flooded with sewage. The US has cleaned it up and built a new sewage treatment facility. It was children in northern Iraq who were gassed.

Health Fears Grow In Polluted Iraq

It’s not just the violence in Iraq that is keeping doctors busy. The country is facing an environmental crisis.

One of the main problems is waste water pouring out of Baghdad’s main sewage plants.

Iraq’s ancient sewage system collapsed during the war and insecurity is hampering efforts to repair it.

Not a drop has been treated yet at the Rustumiya works, which was damaged during the war and then looted.

Much of Baghdad’s untreated waste, the sewage of more than two-and-a-half million people, is now flowing straight into the River Tigris.

<snip>

And so, behind the bombs and the bullets that have claimed so many Iraqi lives, another quieter tragedy is unfolding and taking its own terrible toll.

At a local paediatric hospital, a doctor checks up on two-year-old Fatima Nasser, who has been sick with diarrhoea for two months and is now badly malnourished.

The child, who recently learnt to walk and talk, can now only cry or lie listlessly in her hospital bed and the likely culprit is dirty water.

The family has no running water. Her mother says they buy it in by tank, but do not know what the source is.

“Things haven’t got better since the war,” she says. “We still have no water and no sewage system. There are lots of people in my area whose children are falling ill.”

As for Fallujah, I wouldn’t exactly call it an example of American ‘success’ – sewage or no sewage, meet the new boss, possibly even worse than the old boss:

The Islamic Emirate of Fallujah

Taliban leader Mullah Omar, one of America’s most wanted, would love it: it’s the new Kandahar, the Afghan city that was once the Taliban stronghold. Under Sharia (Islamic) law: Fallujah is now totally under the control of the Sunni Iraqi resistance and their emirs (chieftains). More than 10,000 mujahideen armed to their teeth rule more than 500,000 people, just 50 kilometers west of Baghdad.

<snip>

If you qualify as an emir, you are a leading member of what is popularly described as “the Iraqi resistance” in control of “liberated Fallujah”, a region off-limits to US troops ever since the United States handed over control of the city in May after a month-long siege.

(Much more at source.)

Must say that I am more than a bit annoyed – and this is not something I am directly addresing to you, Lib – at yet the latest bit of spin used by those that continue to support this act of naked American aggresion. Namely that conditions in Iraq are either a-better than they were under Saddam or b-that they will be. Because I find both attempts at ‘justification’ extremely disingenuous. Why? Well, clearly I can’t speak for anyone else, but given a choice between living in Baghdad as a regular citizen pre-invasion days and now, I think one would need to be suicidal to choose the latter. As for the gist of the second justification, surely most of us have no reason but to hope for the best, but beyond the fact that no one knows at this point how things will turn out, it is also a truism that no one will ever know how things might have gone had the US taken a different course of action.

To expound a bit on point “a,” I myself grew up under a bloody dictatorship, Franco’s Spain, and while no comparisom can be exact, if one stayed out of politics, life was not much different than anywhere else as far as kids was concerned. Mind you, Spain had no draconian sanctions pending over its head – and we all know why.

Lastly, least anyone thinks this is some sort of ode to dictators of any stripe, I throroughly despise them all – simply amplifying Clairobscur’s point, namely that the rush to war, never emphasizing the certainty of the ensuing deadly and chaotic results, never mind the fact that Iraqis themselves never asked for your help (and are now overwhlemingly asking you to leave) is yet one more example of the duplicitous nature of this Administration.

So yes, Iraq was a less than idyllic place to grow up, yes Saddam was an evil bastard and mostly responsible for Iraq’s deterioration, but by the same token, kids could indeed go out and fly kites and play footy – and the odds of them dying while doing so were certainly less than they are today. And Moore, IMO, is certainly correct in making that point.

[Liberal]

That is a sad anecdote indeed, RedFury. It is always tragic when children suffer. But not all Fallujahn’s see it the way the woman in the BBC story does. (I did enjoy its silvae rhetorica, however. Textbook stuff.) I’m glad you weren’t directly addressing me because I do not support any aggression, including the invasion of Iraq. That does not mean, though, that I must oppose efforts to mitigate the coercion. And that is what US personnel in Fallujah are trying to do. But local terrorists are bent on not making it easy. Such activity is conspicuously missing from the BBC report.

Marines carry cash to combat insurgency
Residents compensated for damage in fighting

July 4, 2004

FALLUJAH, Iraq – Sheik Noori Muhsen watched as the Marines delivered a new ambulance and truckloads of antibiotics, vaccines, cabinets and other medical supplies to the rundown clinic just outside the city.

A stately man in polished black shoes and a flowing white robe, the sheik took particular interest in the air conditioners. He waited until the boxes lay at his feet like a ransom before he spoke.

“I offer you my thanks,” Muhsen said through a translator. "This thing that you do is going to be something that the people of Saqlawiyah are always going to remember.

“We are happy and glad,” he went on. “The people were not provided this equipment, even under Saddam Hussein. There is no way for us to show how grateful we are for these gifts.”

Actually, the Marines, who are handing out money for local projects and to compensate Iraqis for damage caused during fighting with U.S. troops, can think of a few ways.

The first is stopping the daily attacks on the Marine checkpoints around this city. Getting rid of the insurgents running Fallujah also is a priority.

[…snip…]

“There is roughly $107 million to be spent on Fallujah for water treatment and sewage treatment,” Capt. Steve Coast told the assembled medical staff. “The programs would move faster if it weren’t for the fighting.”

“Excuse me, you mean $10.7 million?” an Iraqi doctor asked.

“No, $107 million,” repeated Coast, 36, assigned to the 3rd Civil Affairs Group, based at Camp Pendleton.

“That’s a very large number,” the Iraqi replied.

Large, but just walking-around money compared with the $650 million set aside for projects throughout Anbar province, where roughly 19,000 Marines, many from Camp Pendleton, are patrolling.

So far, only about $1 million in projects have been built. The big-money undertakings, such as water, sewage and electric projects the region sorely needs to be brought into the 21st century, are on the drawing table – but not for long.

“There should be a pretty good flood of projects in September,” Coast said. “That’s when things should really take off, though some of that is contingent on the fighting.”

Regardless, he said, the United States is determined to better the lives of Iraqis, fighting or no fighting.

[ElvisL1ves]

(Looking at thread title)

Fire at Will? Aye-aye, sir, which one’s Will, sir?

[John_Mace]

@lissener

I have to agree with lambchops. Rice’s unedited quote is exactly the kind of doublespeak we have come to expect from this administration.

Taking a quote out of context in order to skew the information presented has its place when presenting a polical screed, but not when filming a documentary. There’s nothing wrong, per se, with the former as long as one doesn’t claim one is doing the latter.

[El_Cid_Viscoso]

Originally posted by Liberal

For the record, Moore has admitted in an interview with Matt Lauer that some of the soldiers didn’t know.

Holy Geraldo, with standards like that, Michael Moore couldn’t even work for a high school newspaper! Next time, instead of wasting eight simoleons I’ll just record O’Reilly and play him backwards.

…

by Airman Doors

Now we delve into the Carlyle Group/Bush connection. Tenuous at best, if you ask me.

Just to clarify, you’re not saying the Bush/Carlyle connection is tenuous, right? Because if you are, I guess I’ve finally got to throw this old dictionary away.

Is there evidence of Bush 41 using his clout as former President when he goes abroad, meaning that he speaks for the United States?

Yep. But I guess it again depends on what you mean by “using his clout”.

If you, Airman Doors, were to phone the heir to the Saudi throne in order to explain George W. Bush’s behavior, your words probably wouldn’t carry much weight. But if you’re George Herbert Walker Bush, the former president of the United States, a personal call to Crown Prince Abdullah to explain your heir’s behavior might be just the ticket. Avuncular clout is still clout, after all.*

This all is a chip-shot beyond “chummy,” if you ask me. Actually, it’s plumb nauseating, and it is best described in a Harper’s article from 2000 as “the shady world of bribes, kickbacks, and improper campaign contributions.” And sadly, the Bush-Carlyle-Saudi slap ‘n’ tickle is just the proverbial drop in the oilfield.

• In July of 2001, in direct response to Saudi pressure, George H. W. Bush personally telephoned the son of the current king of Saudi Arabia. In that conversation, the elder Bush soothed the future Saudi monarch by explaining the Administration’s blanket support of Israel, saying repeatedly, “my boy is going to do the right thing”. ~ Reporter Dan Briody, speaking on Public Radio International, circa August, 2001.

[rjung]

Most of the points have already been made, so I’ll keep this brief:

First, mad props to Airman Doors for seeing the movie. It’s the work of a coward to ding Fahrenheit 9/11 without seeing it (something a few other Dopers have done, unfortunately), and it’s good to not count AD in that crowd.

Second, in regards to the whole Bush/Carlyle/Saudi thing – let’s remember that Moore is merely laying out the data points, and letting the viewers draw whatever conclusions they want to. The flip side of this, of course, is that the viewer doesn’t have to draw whatever conclusions Moore draws, so saying this is a “lie” seems disingenious to me.

And to get slightly snarky here, I’ll point out that Clinton get Ken Starred about Whitewater on far less evidence than what Moore presents. I find it somewhat skeevy that Bush Sr. is the only ex-President who continues to get intelligence briefings. What’s he need that for?

Finally, I never got the impression that Moore was suggesting anything resembling a “conspiracy,” at least in the “let’s pretend to fight so we’ll all benefit” sort of way. At best, he is suggesting that Bush has treated the Saudis with kid gloves for personal and financial reasons, a move that might be detrimental to the future security of the United States. I find the revelation that the Saudi government was (is?) blocking US access to families of the 9/11 hijackers to be a bit disturbing.

Or, to steal from Jack Cloonan in the film, “Try to imagine what those poor bastards were feeling when they jumped outta that building to their death. Those those those young guys and cops ran into that building, never asked a question, and they’re dead. And their families’ lives are ruined. And they’ll never have peace. And if I had to inconvenience a member of the bin Laden family with a subpoena or a grand jury do you think I’d lose any sleep over it? Not for a minute, Mike.”

But hey, mad props for seeing the film, Doors. There’s still hope for you after all.

[DMC]

@John Mace

Taking a quote out of context in order to skew the information presented has its place when presenting a polical screed, but not when filming a documentary. There’s nothing wrong, per se, with the former as long as one doesn’t claim one is doing the latter.

It has been addressed repeatedly in this thread, by myself, tomndebb, and others, that cutting that quote short doesn’t really change the context. Feel free to address our points if you’d like, but don’t pretend that they haven’t been made.

[Liberal]

@Rjung

It’s the work of a coward to ding Fahrenheit 9/11 without seeing it…

Was Moore a coward for dinging Bush on September 11, since he wasn’t at Emma E. Booker Elementary School? I can presume your answer is no, but I cannot possibly prognosticate your rationalization. Please regale me.