On Monday, Michael Moore’s film “Fahrenheit 9/11″ was released on DVD, and I am quite looking forward to seeing it. It is not to see what all the fuss has been about; I saw it at the pictures when it was first released. And it is not because I thought it was so good that I can’t wait to see it again, although I did think it was good. It is because there has been such criticism leveled at the film, that I really want to see for myself if it is as good as I remember, or was my anti-war prejudice blinding me to its many faults.
First of all, I must explain where I am coming from. I have been a fan of Moore’s from his early “TV Nation” days. I have bought 3 of his books and enjoyed them, although I always read them as subjective satirical writing rather than books of incontrovertible fact; any statement he makes I take with a pinch of salt but try to bear it in mind. His Website has been an excellent source of information. That said, I wasn’t a fan of “Bowling for Columbine”; its approach often seemed scattergun and directionless, its conclusions woolly, and the final interview with Charlton Heston was a toe-curlingly embarrassment, a guilt tripping haranguing of a confused old man. Also, his website has recently gone seriously downhill; it is currently little more than publicity for his books and films, and his self styled one man mission to prevent a Bush second term smacks of egotism.
“Fahrenheit 9/11″ does have its fault; japes like reading the Patriot Act from an ice-cream van and asking Senators if they would sign their children up for military duty in Iraq are TV Nation style sketches which have passed their sell by date. Trying to build a conspiracy theory from the White House’s blocking of James Bath’s name when publishing Bush’s National Guard record is very weak. (James Bath is named as a money manager for the Bin Laden family, and a link between the Bin Laden’s and the Bush’s). A perfectly reasonable reason for blocking the name out is one of privacy; I have subsequently read that for the White House not to have blocked the name would have been a breach of federal law. But whatever the reason, conspiracy theory it is not.
In many ways there is not much in the film that is new for those who have followed Moore’s work and read the newspapers, but it is still well done. The links between the Bush’s, the Bin Ladens, the Saudi’s and the Carlyle group may not land a solid blow, but I thought they built up an effective picture of potential conflicts of interests in the White House. The Patriot Act is dealt with well (apart from the ice-cream van moment), and the absurdities of Airline security allowing 2 lighters and 4 boxes of matches on a plane while not allowing expressed breast milk in a plastic bottle is a neat juxtaposition. Some have criticised the intrusion into the grief of Lila Lipscomb who’s son was killed in Iraq, but although I normally hate this sort of thing, I thought it was extremely well done; indeed it reduced me to tears. Perhaps it was because I felt the issue warranted it, or perhaps it was because Ms Lipscomb has been a vocal promoter of the film.
What has interested me about most of the criticisms of the film has been how poor and nonsensical they have been; if people have to criticise the film by talking rubbish, then you feel perhaps Moore is doing something right.
Top of the shop is Dave Kopel’s “59 deceits in Fahrenheit 9/11″. When I first learned of this website I rushed to read it, anxious to see if I had swallowed a pack of lies. And I am glad I did, as it was hilarious. Kopel wants you to know, for example that Bush wasn’t reading “My Pet Goat” in a school class when he heard word of the second plane hitting the twin towers. No. the book was “Reading Mastery 2″; “My Pet Goat” was just an exercise within the book. Admittedly that is listed just as a “cheap shot” rather than a full blown “deceit”, but it illustrates well where he is coming from. Another supposed deceit is that at one point Moore says of Bush “perhaps he just should have read the security briefing that was given to him on August 6, 2001 that said that Osama bin Laden was planning to attack America by hijacking airplanes”, then goes on to say that perhaps the vagueness of the title “Bin Laden determined to strike in US” put him off. This qualifies at 2 deceits; there is no evidence given that Bush did not read the memo, and the memo’s title is given as a reason it was not read. Kopel clearly has no sense of humour to take this point seriously; even the slowest child watching the the film would not think Moore is actually alleging that Bush didn’t read the briefing. He is making a satirical and sarcastic point. Later Kopel says “…Flint, Michigan, which Moore calls ‘my hometown.’ In fact, Moore grew up in Davison, Michigan, a suburb of Flint. Davison is much wealthier than Flint”. This qualifies as a deceit apparently, one of the 59. Now you know. So, just in case you bump into Dave Kopel, just be careful on how precise you are about where your hometown is, or you too may be accused of deceit. For me the only deceit it that Mr Kopel thinks he should be taken seriously. He makes about 5 decent points, a poor strike rate out of 59. The rest are either nit picking, nonsensical or due to a sense of humour failure.
Christopher Hitchens in Slate got himself worked up into a such a state he clearly couldn’t think straight. He argues that in the film, Moore makes it clear he thinks that “Osama Bin Laden is as guilty as hell” for 9/11, and that the Iraq War was a distraction from bringing him to justice. This, says Hitchens is at odds with Moore stating in 2002 that Bin Laden “should be considered innocent until proven guilty”. Well obviously they are not at odds, and for someone as intelligent as Hitchens to not get it, and indeed to regularly repeat his contention that these two beliefs are at odds is quite depressing. It is of course totally consistent to think someone is guilty, to want every available resource to be spent on detaining them and bringing them to justice, and yet still think they should be treated as innocent until proven guilty. Later Hitchens states Moore “wants to have it both ways” when he accuses the Bush administration of “overlooking too many warnings” in relation to 9/11 itself, and yet then taunts them for “issuing too many” terror warning to stoke up fear among the public after 9/11. Now whether or not you agree with Moore’s point, there is clearly a difference between “overlooking” and “issuing”. You would hope no warning is overlooked, and that only the relevant warnings are issued, but quite apart from the fact that Moore is comparing two different time periods (ie. before and after 9/11), it is quite possible for bogus warnings to be issued to stoke up fear at the same time as serious threats are being overlooked. Hitchens also objects to Moore’s reference to Iraq as “a sovereign nation”. Hitchens points out that “In fact, Iraq’s ‘sovereignty’ was heavily qualified by international sanctions, however questionable, which reflected its noncompliance with important U.N. resolutions”. True, but by that measure all nations sovereignty is qualified by the UN, the EU, NAFTA, the IMF etc. Iraq was a sovereign state, albeit a brutal and tyrannical one.
Mark Steyn’s criticisms are fewer and a little less daft in the Telegraph. He thinks the main problem with the film is that it just makes George Bush look stupid. He is right, it does, but that is not necessarily Moore’s fault. But he also goes for the idea that Moore contradicts himself when he paraphrases Moore as saying “Because of Bush, the Taliban were in bed with Texas energy executives. Because of Bush, the Taliban got toppled.” “Whoa, hold up a minute,” says Steyn “I thought he was all pals with the Taliban.” Again, this is not a contradiction. Yes, Bush ousted the Taliban after 9/11 because of its links with al-Qaida, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t act very differently towards the terrorist sponsoring, human rights abusing Afghan leaders whilst he was governor of Texas. The contrast between his attitude to the Taliban before and after 9/11 is a valid point.
Kopel, Hitchens and Steyn, along with others such as David Aaronovitch and Nick Cohen all complain about a particular scene in “Fahrenheit 9/11″; images of happy Iraqis going about their daily business peacefully just before the Coalition start bombing, most notably a boy flying a kite. Now, this is without doubt the worst moment in the film; it has the feel of propaganda about it, a real Leni Riefenstahl moment, and in my opinion it shouldn’t be there; although why an Oscar winning film-maker should listen to me I really don’t know. Now perhaps I am being unduly generous to Moore, but I don’t think for one minute that he is claiming that Saddam’s Iraq was a “sweet and simple” “peaceable kingdom”, a”Baathist utopia”. He was trying to humanise the people of Iraq under Saddam, to say they were not just people under the yoke of oppression who didn’t mind bombs falling on them for the cause of WMD, democracy or oil. I don’t think this scene is aimed at the writers I have already quoted; it is aimed at the the sort of people I have spoken to who morally pronounced that we “have to do something” about Iraq, but who also said “why should we bother” about Liberia, Haiti, Congo and Sudan. One charge is that Moore could have shown some pictures of people being tortured by Saddam’s regime, to show the reality in Iraq. Well, yes, he could, but in fairness his film wasn’t about the brutality of Saddam, it was about Bush. Are we saying that whenever we see images of mass graves or torture in Iraq we should also see images of happy boys flying kites to show another side of Iraq? No, of course we are not, yet that is the logic of this criticism.
I have picked just a few of the bizarre complaints about the film, and I could be accused of being selective, but believe me, there are many more strange points in the articles I have mentioned. I am not saying that these critics didn’t raise any good issues, and I will try to bear them in mind when I watch the film again. But by making so many out and out silly points, they have clearly shown the sort of lack of objectivity they so dislike in Moore.
Actually, I don’t know if I can be bothered. I may wait until it is shown on telly.
