Michael Moore and Fahrenheit 9-11

It's no secret that I have nothing but disdain for Michael Moore. I've only debated with him electronically once and my impression is essentially that he's a lot like many far left wingers I see on the blogsphere that are willing to distort things in order to further their preconceived agenda. But he has the fortitude to actually go through and make movies and books to spread his drivel to the general public. I'm thankful there are sites like www.Moorewatch.com that help document the inaccuracies and other BS in his writings.

But back to Steven's post which I agree with -- Michael Moore writes "Remember when lots of people were asking 'Why do they hate us?'" No. Actually I don't. I, like many Americans, remember 9/11 and the aftermath quite well. Our main interest was finding out who did this and what we could do to eliminate them. This led us to Afghanistan and the elimination of the Taliban government and disrupting Al Qaeda well enough that there have been no major attacks against the United States since. Which is remarkable given how active Al Qaeda had been prior to 9/11 (USS Cole, the Embassy bombings, etc.).  So it would seem that the response has probably had some effect in all likelihood.

But Moore goes further and his film looks at all the terrible things the US government and US corporations do and says the pertinent question should be, "Why don't they hate us?"

But Moore, like many of his kind, falls into the intellectual trap of believing in some sort of mystical Karmic retribution. I believe in Karma about as much as I believe in the Force. US corporations doing bad things in Central America does not contribute to a group of Islamic terrorists deciding to fly airplanes into skyscrapers.

Besides that, such thinking represents a moral and intellectual surrender. It always bugs me when people throw up their hands and basically resort to magic explaining everything. That is one reason I'm not religious. "How does the TV work? Magic" Why did a bunch of people hijack 4 commercial airliners with the intention of crashing them into buildings to kill people? Karma.

Sadly, experts on both sides of the issue actually do have a pretty good idea of what specifically triggered Al Qaeda's actions on the US. It's just that neither side wants to make such information generally known. It's not a secret or anything, it just doesn't get very much coverage because it's not sexy and it makes Al Qaeda look pretty lame while as the same time not having the same grandiose goals necessary for keeping the war on terror going.

Osama Bin Laden began targeting the United States after the US took up a permanent military presence in his native Saudi Arabia. His long term goal was to overthrow the government of Saudi Arabia, a government he considered (rightly) to be corrupt. He believed, given the events of Somalia and Beirut that if the US got a bloody nose, it would eventually wisen up and get out of Saudi Arabia.

Ironically, he succeeded. The US has moved its forces out of Saudi Arabia -- into Iraq.

That said, the war on Terrorism isn't just a war on Al Qaeda. That is just one battle and I am working on an article that talks about what exactly the war on terrorism is and the eventual goals involved in winning it but that's another story.

Moore, however, won't get into those things. Instead, he just wants to present a litany of actions by the United States and its citizens that he feels makes people hate us to the point that they want to attack us. But hating us and being motivated to commit violence are two different things.  After all, pick France, Germany, Russia, UK, Australia, Belgium, Italy, or Turkey and you would have no problem coming up with a long list of equally karmic bad deeds.  I mean heck, the entire Middle East was ruled by the colonial powers for quite awhile and you don't see airplanes being flown into the Eiffel Tower. During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq France invaded the Ivory Coast. Should we be expecting Africans to start bombing Paris?

I'm convinced that Michael Moore is becoming more of a shtick than anything else. He has figured out that he can make money by catering to the ideological fringes of society and now provides a product for those people. I wonder how much of this stuff he even really believes personally at this point.

I don't think it'll be as smooth sailing as Bowling for Columbine was though. Reaction to that movie was strong enough to have created a net infrastructure that helps get the word out on the other side of the issues he (ahem) presents. So this time around, people will be ready to pounce. It'll be interesting to see.