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Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

Michael Moore

USA

112 min, color, English

Review © 2004 Branislav L. Slantchev

It is very unlikely that this film or this review would change a single mind. People who like Mr. Moore's work would go and see the film, and will feel vindicated in their disapproval of Mr. Bush's administration and the Iraq War. People who dislike Mr. Moore's politics will either not bother with the film or will go and see it, and feel either outraged or dumbfounded, depending on their expectations of the American public. I think that despite the several good points in this film, Mr. Moore ultimately delivers nothing but a rehash of well-known conspiracy theories laden with a dollop of emotionalism designed to sway the audience with the power of the heart but not with that of the mind.

The film is a bit longer than necessary and seems rambling (could have benefited from more editing). However, its points are very clear and can be summarized here:

Mr. Moore's conclusion from this series of assertions is simple: Mr. Bush, the inept wealthy and well-connected member of the elite, stole the presidential election from Mr. Gore, neglected the terrorist threat, and then used 9/11 to promulgate his supporters' secret agenda to deprive Americans of their liberties and to enforce the rigid hierarchical structure of American society by dispatching thousands of its poor (especially blacks) to die in a foreign war whose sole purpose is to enrich well-positioned global companies and ensure the flow of oil.

I believe the above represents a fair assessment of what the film tells. As one should have noted already, I have studiously avoided labeling Mr. Moore's product a documentary, for one the film most certainly is not. Although not entirely fictitious, the film is a cinematic kangaroo court, in which the prosecution calls its own witnesses with no credentials other than writing conspiracy books and speaking critically of Mr. Bush. There is no attempt to analyze the Iraq War from the other perspective (which in itself is rather puzzling for Mr. Moore would have no doubt found enough eager academics to substantiate his most virulent accusations... but then such academics would probably be called on to substantiate their assertions by honest colleagues, which probably explains their notable absence from the film). In short, Mr. Moore presents a string of accusations cleverly designed to invoke a general sense of uneasiness or outrage but he fails to connect the dots.

There is nothing new in this conspiratorial world view. It is astonishingly simplistic and naive in its touching comprehensiveness. The commercial elite runs the world... yawn. If only this were so simple. No blood for oil... yawn. And how does Mr. Moore propose to run the world economy without the damnable resource?

The problem is that the film does make several good points. The election... yes, Mr. Bush stole it, no doubt about that. Wouldn't be the first (or last) time the candidate who loses the popular vote weasels his way into the White House. Why did Mr. Gore concede so easily? Why did no Senator support the petitions?

Mr. Bush sat for seven minutes not knowing what to do after being told of the second plane crashing in the WTC on 9/11. Yep, Mr. Bush was a bad leader that day but not because it took him minutes to collect his thoughts and overcome the shock of the news. Mr. Moore should have mentioned that Mr. Bush disappeared for countless hours and hunkered in a bunker instead of taking charge. Yes, the self-proclaimed "war president" abysmally failed in his responsibilities after the attacks. But did he somehow allow them through incompetence? That's debatable, to say the least. Would Mr. Gore have prevented them? Preposterous.

Why did the FBI clear the evacuation of Saudis and members of Bin Laden's family? Contrary to the film's assertion, Richard Clarke is on record testifying that this decision came from him after consulting with the FBI (here's Mr. Moore acknowledging this fact in an interview).

But that's, basically, it. Everything else in this film is paranoia and extremism wrapped in emotion. Mr. Moore pokes fun at Mr. Bush's less than stellar articulation. Why didn't he mention Mr. Bush's 2.35 GPA at Yale? Maybe because Mr. Gore's was 2.2 at Harvard? While busily chastising Mr. Bush's conservative right-wing politics, Mr. Moore never mentions that Mr. Gore spent 1971-2 at Vanderbilt Divinity School before dropping out (presumably because of seeing the light). You know, one can endlessly make funny comparisons and fling baseless accusations but that does not a good argument make.

I have to admit that Mr. Moore's style is quite off-putting. It is melodramatic and relies extensively on (a) not allowing opponents to voice their views, (b) cleverly (and misleadingly) juxtaposing contradictory evidence designed to convince the viewer of the deliberate lies of Mr. Bush's administration, and (c) crass appeal to the audience emotions.

Let me talk a bit about (c). Mr. Moore spends quite a bit of time in his home-town of Flint, Michigan. He interviews the mother of a soldier who was killed in the line of duty in Iraq. The story is heart-rending for the mother's emotions are so palpably real that one cannot help but be moved to tears regardless of his views of the war. She reads from her son's last letter and she breaks down unable to continue. She goes to Washington where she is accosted by a rather rude woman who accuses her of staging everything for the benefit of the camera. By the end of this segment there was hardly a dry eye in the audience, and one could almost hear the gritting of teeth with indignation at the stupid outburst by that unnamed woman that confronted the mother.

I firmly believe that Mr. Moore's behavior here is absolutely despicable. Why would a good human being deliberately nurture and encourage the mother's belief that her son died in vain? This soldier did not die in vain. He died so that we can continue our way of life. He died so that Mr. Moore can make a film like that and show it to fellow Americans. He died so Iraqis could fly their kites and protest at the American occupation without fear of being imprisoned by the thousands and executed after torture. He died so that all the teary-eyed members of the audience could shake with rage and then walk outside to their SUVs and drive home to La Jolla feeling utterly vindicated for not sending their sons to that unjust war for oil.

I also could not forget that Mr. Moore had this devastated woman cry on camera when just minutes ago he had her wave the American flag and proclaim her patriotism and support for the military. Since it is unlikely that Mr. Moore interviewed her before he learned of her son's death, such manipulative behavior only undermines his sincerity. (Update 7/4/04: I was right in my guess. Her son was killed April 2, 2003 and Mr. Moore contacted her in January 2004. Here's the info from The Flint Journal) Yet, astonishingly, nobody in the audience seemed to have noticed the discrepancy. Did Mr. Moore ask the grieving mother to suspend her pain and appear upbeat while talking of the good side of the military and the opportunities it had provided for her family?

Ah, the reviled military. In Mr. Moore's universe war is evil, universally and unconditionally so. War, he asserts, is fought by the poor on behalf of the rich. He shows how the marines recruit in poor neighborhoods because they are unlikely to find people willing to enlist in the rich suburbs. And why should they? The poor (especially black) have no prospects, their only chance of getting what the rich whites take for granted (like education) is to enlist. We want the same things like other kids, one of them states, but preferably without getting killed in the process. The implication then is clear: if you are poor, your only option is to buy your future at the risk of having your blood spilled by the white government conspiracy in some war for their benefit.

Mr. Moore never mentions that for most recruits war is distant and unreal. In fact, it clear from the film that it is: many seem to have been surprised when called upon to serve in Iraq. But what do you expect if you go into the military? A civil career and an opportunity to dispute the orders of your commander in chief? Why doesn't Mr. Moore show us the careers of all those young men and women who have managed to succeed with the skills and opportunities provided by the military?

It is, I agree, a failure of society when the only people who serve in the military are from the poor and politically disenfranchised. But why does that happen? Maybe because of the ill-advised sloganeering by the educated elite that is trying to outlaw war as a policy instrument while, unfortunately, force remains the ultima ratio in world politics? By delegitimizing war, they undermine the military, by sneering at military service, they practically ensure that no member of that educated elite would want to do it. And who, pray, would then defend the freedom to proclaim that war is never just that these people take for granted?

Mr. Moore shares a dangerous illusion with such people. It is historically inaccurate and pretty dumb actually to assert that war is never justified, that war never accomplishes anything good, and that war is to be universally condemned. I, for one, am grateful that we don't live under Nazi rule today, and despite their anti-American vitriol I have no doubt that most South Koreans would not want to return to Japanese rule. War should always be the last resort, it is too grave and dangerous to be fought on a whim. But to say that war never accomplishes anything is, well, a mild overstatement.

War is hell. Mr. Moore's showing of American GIs wounded or dying is valuable in putting a human face on this distant war. But he goes further: he portrays many soldiers as enjoying the violence: bombing Iraqi civilians while singing "Burn, motherfucker, burn!" with a metal song. He shows them conducting a raid at night, snatching an unnamed young Iraqi man from his house while his terrified family is not even told what the charge is. Mr. Moore never bothers to mention that U.S. soldiers are human beings, terrified at being shot at, unwilling to die, and for the most part unwilling to gratuitously kill other human beings. He never shows what the shock of battle can cause, and never discusses how many of these reactions are entirely "normal" in the sense that they serve to allay the enormous stress under which these people operate.

Mr. Moore never really tells us why this Iraqi young man was marked. Maybe there was good reason to treat him that way? I could not help but note that the soldiers had a female interpreter who was soothing the family and that instead of indiscriminately shooting everyone in sight, the Americans risked their lives to find the man and take him into custody. This is not the behavior of an evil occupying force, and it is certainly unlike Mr. Hussein's secret services.

Mr. Moore also piles high emotion about Iraqi civilians. We see a distraught Iraqi woman wailing at the destruction of her relative's house and the deaths of close people. She curses the Americans repeatedly (curiously, her repeated invocation of Allah is subtitled as 'God', presumably so that the American viewers do not get confused in their emotions). Then there's an abrupt cut to Mr. Rumsfeld who praises the precision weapons that spare the lives of innocent civilians. We are, of course, to conclude that this is a farce. But it is most certainly not: the relevant comparison is not with whether civilians get killed but with how many of them get killed in a war without such weapons. I doubt that even Mr. Moore would deny the far-reaching strategies to minimize civilian casualties that mark U.S. Army planning (sometimes even to the detriment of military efficacy), or that these strategies have indeed resulted in dramatic reduction of such casualties. What was the last time a massive invasion force conquered a country like Iraq while killing inadvertently as few as 5,000 civilians? It is disingenuous to assert that Americans are bombing Iraqis indiscriminately.

Mr. Moore also shows peaceful pictures of Mr. Hussein's Iraq: children playing, women smiling, and people going about their business in peaceful and happy ways. This is truly awful for he never bothers to show Kurds gassed by the thousands, the torture chambers, the mass graves, the absolute and total fear of Iraqis who had to abide by the ruthless dictates of that regime. It is almost as if Americans appeared out of nowhere and blasted to hell this paradise of a country. This is dishonest.

Only in "prison cleansing" operations, the regime executed 4,000 political prisoners in 1984 in a single prison, with another 2,500 ten years later. At another prison, another 3,000 were executed in five years. After Saddam's son was shot at, another 2,000 were executed. This does not include about 8,000 Kurds in 1983, or another 100,000 between 1987-88, or another 5,000 murdered in the attack on Halabja. According to U.N. reports, in 1997 the regime killed 1,500 people for political reasons, and in 1999 it was reported that Iraq remained the country with the highest number of disappearances known to the U.N.: over 16,000. It appears that in two decades, Mr. Hussein's paradise managed to exterminate at least 126,000 people, or about 6,300 annually. And this is a conservative estimate. If we estimate that his tenure in office would have continued for another decade, this would have resulted in at least another 63,000 murdered at this rate. We are not including the tens of thousands who died as a result of the regime using the international sanctions to enrich the elite. Between 3 and 4 million Iraqis (15% of the population) fled this paradise rather than risk their lives under the repressive regime. So much for flying kites.

The relevant comparison is as follows. Take the number of Iraqi civilians killed by the Americans. This is difficult, the site Iraq Body Count puts the number of civilians who have died since the start of the war at over 10,000 (as of today). However, this includes deaths inflicted by fellow Iraqis (that arguably now constitute the overwhelming majority). So let's say 8,000 civilians died as a direct result of the invasion. This is a terrible number for it summarizes suffering of innocent people. But compare this to Mr. Hussein's record, and suddenly it appears that if Iraq stabilizes (which this reviewer believes will happen), the Americans appear to have saved 55,000 lives of civilians over the next eight years. This is the comparison one must make instead of counting bodies now as if nobody would have died if it were not for the invasion. And this does not even take into account other debilitating abuses of power. Unlike Mr. Hussein, the U.S. Army does not amputate the tongue of dissidents who utter abusive remarks about their rule.

You would not hear any of this in Mr. Moore's film. But then again, Mr. Moore's purpose is not to present evidence, it is to appeal to emotion in a despicably dishonest fashion. It is to ask pointed questions and present a succession of images deliberately designed to create the answer in the viewer's mind without passing through his brain. The most depressing thing is that the tactic worked, at least at the theater that I went to.

June 27, 2004