Well, I must say that I was not impressed with Michael Moore when he chose to show his displeasure with Bush’s presidency (the Iraq war) at the 2003 Oscar ceremony. I thought (& still think) that was not the place & he was wrong using that platform for his political/personal thoughts. Afterwards I saw everyone including Jay Leno, David Letterman making fun of him. Jon Stewart also made a little fun of him but with a restraint. I wondered why..usually he is very heavy on anyone doing such a mistake. (either on so called left/right wing). I thought Moore must be a much more serious guys with enough information & hence Jon Stewart going a little easy on him.
The next time I saw Moore was when he came on Jon Stewart’s show. I must say I liked him then. Rather I just loved the stories he told from his college days, how he fought an election & won it despite tremendous opposition & anti-propaganda. The man had a substance to go with the show. I said to myself. Then, I happened to read his book (well, partially), it made a LOT of sense & I wondered how Bush & company with the help of Fox news have succeeded to make a mockery of everyone opposing the war. His questions to president made a lot of sense & at times his anger took the best of him I still believed that his 95% of the material was objective & based on proof & lot of hard-work & study unlike the Books from the likes of ’Hannity/Colmes’ & also some part of Bill O’Reilley’s books. (Although, I love O’Reilley not bcos of his manipulative habits but despite that)
Yesterday, I saw this latest movie/documentary from Moore. A special show arranged at INOX at Pune for press before the actual release this Friday. I saw it from the point of view of an average American. Hard to explain it but you would know if you stayed in USA for some period of time. I must say that if I was an American I would have seriously disturbed the way this president & his team have handled the post-9/11 conditions.
Here are the facts/questions from the movie that would have made me nervous if I was an American:
(1) Bush was specifically told along with Condalisa Rice about the possible attack by Laden by hijacking airplanes (August when he was on vacation)
(2) Ashcroft telling his advisors ’do not tell me that again’ when his advisor updated him about many Saudi descent people taking flight simulation Trng etc
(3) Bush showing displeasure to the advisors & asking them arrogantly to check if 9/11 had anything to do with Iraq/Saddam (on 9/13). He didn’t ask a single question on Al-Qaeda even though most hijackers were from Saudi.
(4) He allowed all Laden’s relatives fly out of USA when all the flights were grounded for security. (Special Clearance)
(5) Bush’s (both Jr/Sr) close multi-billion-$ worth ties with Laden’s family.
(6) Saudi’s have over a Trillion $ investment in USA 6 to7% of US economy!
(7) Vice president’s ties with Halliburton & in 97 they made money by dealing with Saddam; Taleban visited USA/Texas for some gas-line that would go thru Afghanistan after Laden/Taleban had attacked US Embassies across the world.
(8) Playing around with severity level (Red/Orange etc) just to keep people interested/feared so that they approve whatever administration decides.
(9) Lack of Reasons to go against war in Iraq; Soldiers & their families & their stories.
(10) Patriot Act that gives tremendous power to Govt to do anything with any Citizen was passed without reading by any congressman!
(11) US has only 11, 000 troops in Afganistan & didn’t enter the area of Laden for 2 months giving him enough time to run-away.
What it didn’t show is some of the lies that Mrs. Rice & Bush has said like the tubes found in Iraq were for nukes & nukes only. This documentary also didn’t attack Donald Rumsfeld as it should have. During my stay in USA every time Rusmfeld spoke on TV, he came across (to me) as a fake person. Just check when he starts saying words repeatedly: ’& & &...’ or ’when when when’ thats the time you know he is telling lies or covering something. Mrs Rice recently had no explanation to her lies about ’tubes for nukes’ on Wolf’s show on CNN.
The documentary is very well presented & I specially liked the notorious scenes when Moore tries to convince senators/congressman that supported war to get their children enlisted. He also threw light on how military focuses on relatively poor neighborhoods for new recruits etc & not the rich colonies. Moore also highlights that 100 miles of border that meets the pacific ocean have how many troops to protect it: ONE !!!!!! (In his effort to expose Homeland security).
Moore is highly articulate & presents facts/figures & evidence at almost all the places, he is a little too bitter of the president when he comments on why the hell president was seating in his seat in the school for 7 minutes after he was told ’America is under attack’! (2nd plane hitting the tower). He does have a point here but could’ve ignored this mistake. For an average American it would have been a little too much to swallow that as Bush sat there doing nothing as nobody whisked him away or nobody told him what to do.
I don’t think Al Gore (supposedly) ’actually’ winning the election & also 15, 000 African Americans were not allowed to vote in Florida should have been covered in the documentary about 9/11. The coverage is good/quality & serious but doubt the usefulness with respect to the Iraq war!
I highly recommend it though it is a little notorious at places & criticizes the president but leaves Donald Rumsfeld & Mrs Rice who should get equal stick. Collin Powell has come across as a very helpless person in the last 3 years. He seems to be bullied by others in the Govt but then he should get an equal blame for this mess. This is a very disturbing movie & Bush/Company is again trying to undermine what it tries to say by bullying or by the way of ridicule instead of answering the points raised.
Various songs are used very effectively throughout the movie & also the aggressive feelings of the us tropps at the beginning of the way are also shows effectively, the same marines are shown after some time questioning the purpose of the war & describing how much more worse/ugly it is than they thought.
Doesn’t matter if you are a republican or a democrat, you got to watch this movie just to make sure you are aware of what Govts can & will do due to the fear-factor & lack of information to generic media. US Govt has become a machinery that is driven by the opinion polls. 70% Americans believed Saddam had soemthing to do with Iraq & hence the support for the war. Well, there is a lesson to everyone from here. You can still vote for Bush & all but that should not affect your decision to watch this movie or not.
Hats off to Moore. Thanks for such a wonderful documentary & special thanks for taking such a pain to make it.
Please do comment & let me know what you think of this review & your viewpoint on these issues.