NP Michael Moore

[Otto]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper at hatguild.org>
To: "'Pynchon-L'" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 11, 2004 10:35 PM
Subject: RE: NP Michael Moore


> If you're *really* into this Michael Moore debate, check this one out
> (includes responses from Moore):
>
> http://www.davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm
>
>
> Fifty-nine Deceits in Fahrenheit 9/11
> By Dave Kopel
>
> (Otto: See Deceits 11-15: Saudi Departures from United States)
>

Thanks, Jasper

I agree to Prof. Barnett:
"In this way, Kopel's care in describing Moore's "deceits" is much more
interesting than other critiques I have read, including that of Christopher
Hitchens."
Boston University Law Professor Randy Barnett

Nodody ever did such a detailed analysis on the lies of the government, but
of course Moore has to be more perfect than the president's advisers. But
perhaps this case will help that the journalists begin to read official
statements more carefully.

On the Saudis-flight:

They've left nine days after 9/11 on the 20th. Given the time the
US-military needs to obtain information from the Guantanamo-detainees
including subtle ways of torture nobody can convince me that nine days are
enough to absolutely rule out that these 26 Bin Laden family-members have
nothing to do with the attack. Thus a suspicion remains.

---------------------------------
Moore asks, "Is it rude to suggest that when the Bush family wakes up in the
morning they might be thinking about what's best for the Saudis instead of
what's best for you?" But his Bush/Saudi conspiracy theory is contradicted
by very obvious facts:

     .why did Moore's evil Saudis not join "the Coalition of the Willing"?
Why instead did they force the United States to switch its regional military
headquarters to Qatar? If the Bush family and the al-Saud dynasty live in
each other's pockets.then how come the most reactionary regime in the region
has been powerless to stop Bush from demolishing its clone in Kabul and its
buffer regime in Baghdad? The Saudis hate, as they did in 1991, the idea
that Iraq's recuperated oil industry might challenge their[s]....They fear
the liberation of the Shiite Muslims they so despise. To make these
elementary points is to collapse the whole pathetic edifice of the film's
"theory."

Hitchens, Slate. This isn't to say that concerns about the wishes and
interests of the Saudi rulers play too large a role in American foreign
policy--especially in the U.S. State Department, which has been notoriously
supportive of pro-U.S. Arab dictatorships for many decades. I would much
prefer that the State Department and other American foreign policymakers
spent less time worrying about friendly relations with the governments of
Saudi Arabia, China, and other dictatorships, and more time supporting the
aspirations of people who want to free themselves from dictatorship. But
complaining about the historic pro-Saudi tilt in U.S. foreign policy, a tilt
which is partly the result of extensive business relations between the two
countries, is not the same as propounding a tin-hat conspiracy theory that
George Bush is a servile tool of the bin Laden family.
--------------------------

On Hitchens:

Proverbs for Paranoids, 3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions,
they don't have to worry about answers.

Again, it's been done the same way the Bushes have tried to convince the
"simple" American people that Saddam Hussein has been one of the masterminds
of 9/11, to get a public majority for the war, to make the soldiers go kill
& die, to be able to denounce every critic of this policy as un-patriotic or
anti-American. If intellectual people (Brainy Smurfs) don't get this "level"
of the film it's sorry, but if it's succeeds to get some of those who've
supported the war because they can be impressed by clever propaganda why
shouldn't the American left use this? Free Iraqi elections under a President
Kerry next year would be much more credible in the eyes of the Muslim world
than under a President Bush.

Otto

PS What I'd like to see from Moore isn't a film about Tony Blair but about
Vladimir Putin.