Another F9/11 thread: Iraqi abuse footage revisited.

Great Debates
1

I know there are already a lot of F9/11 threads going on but I wanted to discuss a specific aspect of the movie rather than the movie as a whole.

There was some talk before the film was release about the footage of US troops behaving abusively towards Iraqi prisoners. There were some who criticized Moore for not making this footage public when he first obtained it and accused him of hoarding it for personal gain.

Now that I’ve seen the film I think that criticism is ridiculous. The “abuse” in the film, while inappropriate, shameful and unhelpful to our credibility as “liberators” is exceedingly mild compared to what happened at Abu Ghraib. If you haven’t seen the film, the footage is rather brief. It shows some prisoners being hooded in the field, some soldiers making demeaning jokes and one Iraqi lying on the ground who gets his crotch grabbed by a soldier making jokes about (apparently) the Iraqi having an erection (I was a little confused by that to be honest. One soldier says something like “Does Ali Baba still have a hard on?” Then another guy reaches down and feels the Iraqi’s crotch. That soldier then gets mocked for “touching his dick.” Maybe someone else understood that whole sequence better than me).

Anyway, that’s pretty much it. Having seen it, I am now positive that if MM had publicized this footage a year ago (well before the AG abuses were known about by either the public or by MM) he would have been accused of grandstanding, self-promotion, demonizing the troops, etc. There just wasn’t anything in that footage which was especially shocking or outrageous. It was wrong, it was stupid, but it wasn’t torture and it wasn’t anything extraordinary for the field, where adrenaline, fear and emotions run high.

I would also like to add that MM himself doesn’t make any big deal out of the footage in the movie, choosing simply to let it run by as part of a sequence of images and soundbites from Iraq (including some very positive images of soldiers) without making any narrative comment on it.

So here’s the debate. If you’ve seen the footage do you think Michael Moore should have released the footage a year ago? Does anyone seriously think that Moore would not have been flamed endlessly if he had done so? Or do you think that the footage really is that shocking and indefensible and that MM had a duty to make it public ASAP, regardless of any beating he might take from the right?

2

Why should that have stopped him? He is a grandstanding self-promoter. Since he already has that reputation, what did he have to lose by releasing the footage a year ago? Oh, that’s right. Think of all the promotion that this has given his movie. He got to come out and do the whole martyr act, in the national news no less, just before his movie came out. Of course, that never escaped mention in any of the articles about him having the footage, that his new movie was coming out soon.

If he had it he should have released it, plain and simple. He sat on it to get publicity. What a scumbag.

3

Airman, what would you have said if MM had released this footage a year ago? Be honest.

I think if you actually saw the footage you would agree that it was no big deal. And FTR, MM himself has not tried to use that footage to promote the movie. Whatever attention it’s gotten in the media has come from reviews of the film by others, not from Moore.

4

Because he didn’t know it was indicative of a deeper level of abuse that spreads across the entire military, Airman?

5

What would I have said? I would have excoriated him, of course, and then when I sobered up I would have probably had more respect for him in the end, because I would have seen that he was doing the right thing for once instead of the political thing or the profitable thing.

6

Actually, that was unnecessarily harsh. I’m sorry. But you get what I’m saying. He didn’t know how big of an issue it was.

7

Oh, and I should note that any publicity is good publicity. You don’t find anything coincidental about the timing of his announcement and the impending release of his movie? :dubious:

8

Also, look at it like this:

As DtC said, the footage is not very harsh - it is mostly some 18 year old kids screwing around and making jokes about an erection. It is certainly insulting and demeaning, but on its own, does not speak volumes.

It would be like the prosecuters in a case starting off with very weak evidence before they even had any other clues. Happens in Law and Order every so often, but it isn’t a terribly brilliant strategy.

It would have been waved off as irrelevant, and when the AG abuses were released, it may or may not have lessened the impact.

9

Maybe. Maybe not. The publicity about his possession of such info was fleeting, comparatively, a mere whisper in comparison the shrieks of outrage the actual movie has engendered. Not that I regard that with dismay, haven’t laughed so hard since they shot Ol’ Yeller.

I’ve not seen the movie, almost certainly won’t. The Hair Apparent has, and has naught but glowing things to say, even suggesting that there are elements of wry humor salted throughout.

But I have noted that others, whose opinions I respect, stating that the footage involved is slight, and in no wise comes anywhere near the ghastly images from Abu Ghraib. And, as noted, Mr. Moore is careful and respectful in his presentation of the “boots on the ground” soldiers, their humanity and their wretched position precisely between Iraq and a hard place.

Whether by cunning manipulation or sincere belief, Mr. Moore presents a populist view, he has sympathy for the common soldier, and contempt for the leaders who placed him there. As do I.

Might it be simply that he didn’t want to emphasize that aspect of the situation, that he accepts that such crude behavior is inherently unavoidable in situations of war? He might even, in his innocence, thought that such film as he had was actually the entire extent of bad behavior.

I, myself, would not be astonished by such, would not be tearing my hair over it. Certainly not to be shrugged at and ignored, but not rising anywhere near the outrage attendent to the Abu Ghraib revelations.

Is it impossible to believe that Mr. Moore, for all his numerous failings, simply hesitated to show the average troop in a bad light outside of the full context of his movie?

I don’t know, my capacity to peer into another’s soul is lacking. But the possibility exists, does it not?

10

I haven’t been following this story too closely, but it was my impression that the “knowledge” MM had of prison abuse went beyond what was shown in the actual film. Is there a link to reporting about exactly what he did or did not withold from public airing?

At any rate, I’m hesitant to impose a moral obligation on people in general and MM in this case, **especially ** when the details are so fuzzy. As much as I loathe the guy, this whole issue seems overblown.

11

The footage used in the film is indeed exceptionally mild. Diogenes left out the heinous tickling of feet that occurs prior to the erection grabbing.

Given that so many have been willing to dismiss the torture, beatings and murders that occurred in Abu Ghraib as “putting panties on people’s heads” and “blowing off a little steam,” the material shown in the film would have not registered at all as evidence of any wrong-doing, Moore would have been lambasted (even more than he presently is), and we all would have been somewhat more innoculated to the revelations that occurred later. The latter would have been, in my opinion, a bad thing.

I did seem to recall the story being that Moore had some other footage that did not make it into the film, but that is just my potentially faulty recollection.

12

:confused: May I ask why you are not planning on seeing the movie?

13

I got stuck in the fourth row, so my view of the whole “molestation” scene was slightly distorted by the combination of the whiplash camera work and my own 75-degree neck tilt. I thought the scene as shown as significantly less “revealing” than what folks were saying, but it wasn’t until DtC’s post that I can now recognize it wasn’t just me.

14

The footage in the film was taken in the field and was not related to any of the prison abuses. It was also taken well before the Abu Ghraib abuses were made public. If Michael Moore knew anything about AG, he didn’t say anything about it in the film and (to my knowledge) has never said so publicly. If he was sitting on AG footage- or even knowledge- for some personal gain, then why isn’t it in the film?

What is in the film is a a few fleeting images and sounds of soldiers taunting prisoners in the field. It’s probably less than two minutes of total footage and it is run as part of a larger montage of Iraq War footage which includes some displays of bravado by individual troops as well as soldiers who are shown expressing regret, shock, even remorse at killing civilians. It also shows images of both Iraqi and American casualities (not for the squeamish- or even for the non-squeamish). Moore was going for a gestalt with this montage, he was trying to show a broad look at life on the ground in Iraq, the good, the bad and the ugly. The abuse scene was very small and really quite trivial in its greater context.

I think when Moore first obtained the footage, he probably thought it showed the worst there was, having no idea of Abu Ghraib. I have to say that as bleeding-heart as I am, I saw nothing in the abuse footage that I though merited anything more than an ass-chewing by a CO. The behavior is inappropriate but did not strike me as blatantly illegal. And I guarantee that if Moore had tried to publicize those pictures he would have been accused of sensationalizing trivial offenses for personal gain. I would bet my house and my car if MM had put this stuff out a year ago- long before anyone knew about AG- all the conservatives on this board would have circled around these GIs with broken beer bottles defending them from any peacenik idiots who didn’t understand the realities of war, and they would have been right.

The images only seem significant in light of Abu Ghraib. Without that it’s just some macho posturing in the field. Moore could not have known how ominous those pictures would look until after the movie was in the can.

You’re probably thinking of some footage Moore had of Nicholaus Berg, specifically an interview of some sort which did not make it into the film.

Actually, Moore’s handling of the Berg footage pretty much contradicts all the suggestions that MM is interested in profiteering from the abuse stuff. Moore could have put that stuff in the movie and used it to sell tickets but he didn’t. He was also reprtedly offered large sums of money to sell the footage but he chose to turn the footage over to Berg’s family instead. He has refused to make any public comment about the content of the footage and his only public statement about it was to acknowledge that it existed after someone else told the press that Moore had it.

I don’t know a single person who went to see F9/11 just to see the abuse footage or who cared about those scenes at all, so I can’t see how Moore has made an extra dime off it anyway.

15

For the uninitiated, I will re-create the scene as I remember it as objectively as possible. Obviously, “spoilers” ahead.

Several Iraqis stand around with cloth covers over their heads. A soldier roughly puts the now-familiar squarish leather (?) hood over a prisoner’s head.

[new scene]

An Iraqi is laying in what appears to be a military or prison compound. There are maybe a dozen soldiers standing around, with a few hooded prisoners. We assume it is chronologically shortly after the above scene.

He is laying on his back with his hands and feet bound. A blanket covers his body, except for his feet, which a soldier tickles. The soldier then leaps back and wipes his hands on another sodlier’s shoulder, as if washing off something dirty. They laugh.

A soldier comments that the Iraqi prisoner “still has a hard on”. The camera zooms in on what appears to be an erect member “tenting” the blanket. A soldier laughs, runs up, and touches it. Someone yells something to the effect of “ewe, you touched it!”

[scene ends]

That is how I remember the scene. It may be inaccurate in some details (the end is fuzzier in my memory, and I don’t recall the leader or trailer scenes). WHat struck me at the time about the scene was that they treated the Iraqis like they were filthy and covered with germs (they may well be, insurgents aren’t the cleanest people in the planet). It reminded me of the film “Three Kings” where the Iraqi PoWs are treated with surgical gloves.

There is another scene filmed on Christmas Eve following an American patrol. They cruise the town listening to Christmas songs, and eventually reach their goal. They enter the apartment. There is no electricity in the neighborhood, so the lights are out and it is dark. The soldiers have flashlights mounted on their rifles, and they point these at the occupants. A soldier explains in Arabic what is happening. Two women are gatehred up and sat on a couch. The elder woman is hysterical, screaming and crying, “he has done nothing, he is a student.” The younger is trying to calm her down, saying, “they won’t hurt him” and conversing with the soldiers. They find “him” upstairs. A soldier downstairs shouts for them to “be careful” - the scene cuts to “him” laying on the ground with the plastic wrapties around his wrists. The elder woman is still screaming and crying over him.

Those are the only mentions of prisoners or abuse in the movie. The latter scene struck me almost like an episode of Cops.

No mention was made of what “he” had done to warrant being arrested, for those concerned about “his” welfare.