MICHAEL Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, as expected, was ushered in by a million or so controversies. Disney refused to release it, as did other distributors, and—if Moore is to be believed—the White House wanted to ban its screening. The reason: if viewers take the film at face value, they’d think George Bush is a fraudulent and possibly corrupt president who went to war in Iraq because of a of grudge, greed, and thirst for power.
But this is a Michael Moore film and, while that does not mean he is wrong, it must be watched with a critical eye.
Chilling
Moore wants Bush removed from office, that we know. The film’s conclusions are reached via a mix of hard evidence, interesting information, moving scenes, and tenuous theories.
Starting with the presidential election in 2000, it firmly plants the idea that Bush’s election was not exactly free and fair. The first conspiratorial link comes when Moore identifies as Bush’s first cousin the Fox News Channel employee who decided to report that Bush had won Florida on election night—when all other channels were reporting an Al Gore win. If true, it is an interesting piece of trivia, but hardly proof of a family plot to steal the presidency.
He introduces 9/11 with a blank screen and chilling audio of planes hitting the Twin Towers and the cries of those on the ground.
The film has footage of Bush sitting in a school classroom, reading a children’s book with pupils, for more than 10 minutes after being told the second plane had hit. Moore says this has not been seen before because no one asked the teachers at the school if they caught the US President on tape.
One of Moore’s chief accusations is that Bush allowed planes to pick up 24 members of the Bin Laden family and fly them out of the US in the days following the attacks, while all other aircraft were grounded.
To back this up, he shows a document that seems to list them, and uses it as a base from which to explore the relationships between the Bush and Bin Laden dynasties.
Little proof
Fahrenheit goes back to Bush’s military days and produces military records showing the future president in the Texas Air National Guard with a man who allegedly went on to sell a plane to one of Osama Bin Laden’s brothers.
When Bush was trying his fortune as a Texan oil magnate, this same man was hired by the Bin Ladens to invest their money in Texas, and he in turn invested money in Bush’s company, the film says.
Moore asserts that prominent Saudis invested in Bush’s ailing companies to get access to former US President Bush Sr. The result: the oil and arms companies the Saudis invested in, and in which the Bush family and their inner circle have interests, profited from the aftermath of 9/11. But aside from the original military records, Moore has little more proof for other links.
Using a clip of former US head of counter-terrorism Richard Clarke saying how Bush immediately wanted to find an Iraq link to the attacks, the film moves on to Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Afghanistan segment—including a screen shot of a BBC News Online story—claims that the military action in Afghanistan was really about laying a natural gas pipeline across the country.
The Iraq segment is more substantial. It changes the film’s direction, using interviews with US soldiers, footage of civilians suffering, and highly moving testimonies from bereaved parents of killed US servicemen.
The film shows graphic footage of GI corpses being burnt, dragged behind a truck, and strung up, and, on the other hand, a scene of US soldiers apparently mistreating Iraqi prisoners.
Emotional interviews
All the while, persuasive army recruiters are followed as they try to sign up young people in Moore’s deprived hometown of Flint, Michigan.
So Moore goes to Washington to try to persuade Congressmen to send their children to Iraq. Only one Congressman has a son in service there, Moore says.
Moore himself appears less in this film than he does in Bowling for Columbine, his other big hit, leaving most of the talking to politicians, soldiers, parents, experts, and assorted real Americans.
There is highly selective editing, but the story is not totally one-sided. For example, there are soldiers in Iraq who believe in their mission, as well as those who say they are disillusioned.
But the movie’s conclusions, true or otherwise, and emotional interviews with parents and injured soldiers, will have a big impact on audiences around the world. Here, it may strike one trivial or alien, but the poignant images alone, and the bravery this effort takes—may be enough to make every Juan dela Cruz give another thought to the great controversy.
