Redline Rants has posted a partial transcript of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. I read through the thing and culled the issues that most bother me. I’ve elaborated on some things and copied other parts verbatim.
It’s easy to point out some of the flaws in Mr. Moore’s cinematic style. He relies too heavily on pure emotional reaction and uses people’s pain to create audience reaction. Some say he unfairly uses off-camera and out of context footage to unfairly paint negative images of members of the White House staff. I agree with some of these points and disagree with others.
What comes through as the most important part of the film to me are the hundreds of factual truths that Moore drops throughout the picture that question the motives of the Bush administration. So without further ado;
Several facts about the Bush administration discussed in Fahrenheit 9/11 that demand their removal from office:
The general misconduct in the Florida elections should have never flown. Kathleen Harris should not have been both the chairman of his FL campaign and the person in charge of supervising the election. Why were those names stricken from the voter registries? The Supreme Court should never have ruled in Bush’s favor. Every study of the election post the SCOTUS decision showed Gore should have been deemed the winner.
In the first 8 months of his presidency he spent 42% of his time on vacation.
He did not hold a single meeting with his anti-terrorism chief in that time.
He ignored the August 6th PDB titled, Bin Laden determined to Attack Inside the United States.
He cut funding to the FBI prior to 9/11.
The Bin Laden family was evacuated from the United States to Saudi Arabia by the federal government before they could be routinely questioned. Why would you let people related to the man responsible walk away without questioning? How many other random Arabs and Muslims were interviewed and/or detained in the months following the attacks? Thousands of mostly uninvolved, innocent people were held. Some for weeks and months.
Bush has major ties to the Bin Laden family going back to the 70’s. The Bin Laden family directly invested in his company Arbusto and later Harken Energy, of which he was a sitting board member. The only possible reason the Saudis would have been interested in investing in his companies was to gain access to his politically powerful family. At the time that they held interest in Harken, George H.W. Bush was the POTUS.
Bush’s family is making loads of money through their position in the Carlyle Group, which owns United Defense, makers of the Bradley Armored Fighting Vehicle.
Six weeks after 9/11 Carlyle took UD public and made a one-day profit of $237 million.
The people of the United States of America pays G.W. Bush $400,000 a year. The Bush family has made a total of $1.4 Billion over several years from their Carlyle and Saudi relations. Where does their true allegiance lie?
Why wasn’t an investigation into the events of 9/11 started immediately? First, Bush tried to stop Congress from investigating 9/11. When Congress filed its findings the White House censored twenty-eight pages of the report. Then when he couldn’t stop Congress he tried to stop an independent 9/11 commission from forming. After the commission was formed when asked if he would testify before the commission he said, “This commission? Testify, I mean, I'd be glad to visit with them.”
Blocking Congressional and independent inquiry is a major break from the way things have always been done in America. Independent investigations were launched within days of both the Pearl Harbor invasion and the Kennedy assassination. These investigations are for the good of the country and its citizens. They reveal things that cause horrible events to occur in order that they not happen again. They also allow for swift retribution and give solace to those affected by tragedy. Why wouldn’t the President of the United States of America want this delivered to the people?
On September 13th, two days after the attacks, Crown Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia had a private meeting with George W. Bush. Bandar is so close to the Bush family that they have a nickname for him, Bandar Bush. By this time the government of Saudi Arabia had been reluctant to allow US officials to interview the family members of the 15 hijackers. They were also reluctant to freeze terror organizations bank accounts. Why? Was this what they discussed at this secret meeting? Or was it something else?
In the days and weeks after 9/11 President Bush did not send a single troop to Afghanistan, which is where we knew Bin Laden and the majority of al Qaeda were hiding out. In possibly the first meeting with Clinton appointed terrorism chief Richard Clarke, Bush, in Clarke’s words, “in a very intimidating way, left us - me and my staff - with the clear indication that he wanted us to come back with the word that there was an Iraqi hand behind 9/11 because they had been planning to do something about Iraq from before the time they came to office.” He didn’t even ask about al Qaeda.
Here’s Clarke’s recollection of a conversation with Donald Rumsfeld following the attacks, “when we talked about bombing the al Qaeda infrastructure in Afghanistan, he said there were no good targets in Afghanistan, let's bomb Iraq. And we said but Iraq had nothing to do with this. And that didn't seem to make much difference. And the reason they had to do Afghanistan first was it was obvious that al Qaeda had attacked, and it was obvious that al Qaeda was in Afghanistan. The American people wouldn't have stood by if we had done nothing on Afghanistan.”
When the campaign in Afghanistan finally started it was a show more than anything. We sent 11,000 troops over there. There are more police in Manhattan than that. What’s worse is that US Special Forces didn’t get to the area where Bin Laden was believed to be for two months. We gave him an eight-week head start to burrow into the underground and redistribute his network of terrorists.
Here’s some background on the Taliban regime that Bush&Co. went to such great lengths to topple. In 1997 while George W. Bush was Governor of Texas, a delegation of Taliban leaders from Afghanistan flew to Houston to meet with Unocal executives to discuss the building of a pipeline through Afghanistan bringing natural gas from the Caspian Sea. And who got a Caspian Sea drilling contract the same day Unocal signed the pipeline deal? A company headed by a man named Dick Cheney: Halliburton.
And who else stood to benefit from the pipeline? Well, Bush's number one campaign contributor, Kenneth Lay, and the good people of Enron, that’s who. Then in 2001, just 5 1/2 months before 9/11, the Bush Administration welcomed a special Taliban envoy to tour the United States to help improve the image of the Taliban government. Why on Earth did the Bush administration allow a Taliban leader to visit the United States knowing that the Taliban were harboring the man who bombed the USS Cole and our African embassies? Well, I guess 9/11 put a stop to that. When the invasion of Afghanistan was complete we installed its new president, Hamid Karzai. Who was Hamid Karzai? He was a former advisor to Unocal. Bush also appointed as his envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad who was also a former Unocal advisor. I guess you can probably see where this is leading. Faster than you can say Black Gold Texas Tea, Afghanistan signed an agreement with her neighboring countries to build a pipeline through Afghanistan carrying natural gas from the Caspian Sea. Oh, and the Taliban? Uh, they mostly got away. As did Osama bin Laden and most of al Qaeda.
Then on March 19th, 2003 America attacked Iraq, a sovereign nation. Why did we attack them? Let’s see what the leaders in the white house said during the time leading up to the war:
PRESIDENT BUSH: Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction.
SECRETARY POWELL: Saddam Hussein is determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb.
SECRETARY POWELL: Iraq currently possesses active chemical munitions bunkers, and mobile production facilities.
PRESIDENT BUSH: We know he's got chemical weapons.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists. Including members of al Qaeda.
VP CHENEY: There was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.
SECRETARY RUMSFELD: It is only a matter of time before terrorists states armed with weapons of mass destruction develop the capability to deliver those weapons to US cities.
SECRETARY POWELL: What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.
PRESIDENT BUSH: This is a man who hates America. This is a man who cannot stand what we stand for. He hates the fact, like al Qaeda does, that we love freedom. After all, this is a guy that tried to kill my dad at one time.
These were the reasons Bush defied the UN and rounded up his “Coalition Of The Willing” and invaded Iraq. We unilaterally invaded a sovereign nation and broke international law for the above reasons?
On May 2nd, 2003, after the majority of Iraq was successfully occupied by American forces, George W. Bush landed on the deck of an American aircraft carrier named Lincoln and declared “Mission Accomplished!” on the war in Iraq. But the mission was far from over. The total amount of Americans killed in Iraq before that day was 140. Since then 719 Americans have given their lives for this war. Over 5,000 more have been wounded. How can this man look at himself in the mirror every day?
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The transcript only covers the first 43 minutes of the film, so I can only comment on those parts of the film. Clearly Moore has collected numerous facts on the Bush admin's deceitful intentions. The question is whether it will do any good. I certainly hope that it does and I will do everything I can to get others to vote along with me.
