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I know this is beating a dead horse into the ground, however I just watched Fahrenheit 9/11 last night for the first time. I wish to say to the people who call it a documentary that it is not a documentary at all. It is an editorial, maybe even a drama. I walked away from the movie having seen some obvious stretches of the truth, a play on emotions, and having a lot of questions. I hopped on Google and have put several of the issues I had at ease. At the very least people, this should be an interesting brief read:

(I used http://www.davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm to answer some of my questions.)

1) Moore claims that Bush spent 42% of the first eight months in office on vacation time. What Moore neglects to mention is that he is counting weekends, which comprise 28% of the 42% figure. (68 of the 240 days estimated)

2) Moore claims that Bush never read the Security Briefing on August 6th 2001 that discussed the possibility of Osama attacking the US with airplanes. Moore is the only one who doesn’t believe that Bush read this briefing – it WAS vague (1 page long) and discussed the possibility of Osama using the plane to escape U.S.-held extremists. Nothing in this article, which is now declassified mentions flying airplanes into buildings.

3) Moore takes a jab at the Secret Service men protecting the Saudi embassy as it not being their jobs, and alledging a special Saudi privilege in our government. Actually, Article 22 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations states that it IS their job to protect any embassy.

4) Moore mentions that we are in Iraq because of a different agenda regarding the Unocal oil pipeline. The Unocal pipeline idea only existed on paper and was scrapped in 1998. The Caspian Sea pipeline has been proposed but construction hasn’t been started yet. Where did he get the oil pipeline footage?

So, the factiod crap aside, other things were a little misleading. There was a whole tangent about how the state of Oregon has one cop to defend the entire coastline. Last I checked, Oregon cops are paid by the state of Oregon, and it sounds like Oregon’s problem. Also, I don’t buy into the whole, “Before we dropped the bombs that killed civilians, children used to fly their kites out in the park” scene. Iraq was a dictatorship, and people were tortured, raped and imprisoned based on race and religious beliefs.

Also, the claim that “[Iraq] had never murdered a single American citizen” is horse shit. What about Saddam funding terrorist’s families to blow themselves apart? Or the assassination attempt on the president’s life? Or the harboring of known terrorists? Guilty by association. Plus the whole, um Gulf War thing. Moore in an interview later differentiates between the words “murdered” and “killed”.

There was a lot of other things that I thought was distasteful like following around the mother with a camera while she is crying her eyes out, and the asking of Senators to sacrifice their son’s lives, but I feel better now that I have gotten this all out of my system so I won’t harp on it. I am happy that Michael Moore is politically motivating people, but if you are going to be opposed to anything, do some research before you jump on the bandwagon. And just one more time, it isn’t a damned documentary.