fareheit 9/11 review - Roger Ebert

[mortal]

oh! lol I see.

I call names because I can and will back it up.

Everyone knows where I train. Come and test me. I look forward to it with great enthusiasm.

I could keep it friendly or just kick ass, it is up to the challenger.

[zachsan]

i don't follow. you claim that steve is, in fact, a backwards hick, and you can back up this claim with the cold hard fact that you could kick his ass. i don't really see how the two are connected.... but that's beside the point.

how about this. given, you, mortal, are not a backwards hick. given, your willingness to submit to a friendly match, that does not necessarily involve ass-kicking, proves both your toughness and super-chic urban savvy. given, a backwards hick usually does not agree to friendly matches, and is more prone to blow off one's balls with a shotgun, or sic his pet alligator on said challenger. so then, your participating in a friendly match with steve - assuming the absence of shotguns or alligators - would effectively disprove your theory that steve is a backwards hick.

that of course, only applies if you agree that backwards hicks only fight with shotguns and alligators. and honestly, if you don't agree on basic truths like that, well, i don't see how you can argue politics.

[mortal]

lolol

I like you Zachsan. I think we could keep our match friendly.

I wasn't targeting anyone person. I here this arrogant kungfu talk from people I know can't back it up on line.

I wasn't targetting steve just a general statement.

[zachsan]

well that's good, considering i have no problem whatsoever with getting my ass kicked, as long as it's done in a friendly way.

[Steve]

Michael Moore Vs. Bill O'Reilly

Michael Moore was on with Bill O'Reilly on Fox News at the Democratic National Convention. It was great, I felt Bill did not really give a chance for Michael to talk... Bill kept cutting Michael off, was not "Fair and Balanced".
Fox News needs to give them more air time again.

[meattosser]

Mortal, I wasn't contesting whether you're a fighter or not. What I was saying is that when it comes to politics, sometimes you can be a bit close-minded. I figured however, that you seem like that only because you strongly believe in what you say. Nothing wrong with that; but you have to be willing to hear the other side out as well. We should have a fair and strong debate at all times. To me, that's what America should be about. Screw all this Republican/Democrat ****. They're just labels. The media always tries to label things black and white. But it's not like that; it's never like that. In real life, things are not black/white, they are shades of grey. People are complex, with a multitude of viewpoints and experiences, and I think we could all learn something from each other. Whether you're Republican, Democrat, Green Party, Independent, fat, skinny, or whatever, we should strive to seek out the truth, and be fair and just as a people, and as a nation. Because every damn nation of world, deserves to have a chance to be free and not oppressed, no matter what their race or color.

[dogchow108]

Originally posted by meattosser Because every damn nation of world, deserves to have a chance to be free and not oppressed, no matter what their race or color

true...very true...

[dogchow108]

Steve, that is complete nonsense. Questions were asked and answered. If anything, it was Moore who playes ridiculous word games with O'Reilly which led the man to have to move on to the next item time after time after time.

read the transcript:

BOSTON — It was a match-up the media and political observers have longed for. No, not George W. Bush against John Kerry. It's Michael Moore (search) against Bill O'Reilly.

Moore, the director who made "Fahrenheit 9/11" (search) and created one of the election season's biggest uproars, said he wouldn't go on "The O'Reilly Factor" until O'Reilly saw the entire movie. And he said any conversation would have to be aired without any editing and with the opportunity for Moore to ask O'Reilly questions.

All of the demands were met and Moore sat down with O'Reilly in the FOX News sky box high about the floor of the Democratic National Convention. Following is the full transcript of their meeting:

MICHAEL MOORE: That’s fair, we’ll just stick to the issues.

BILL O'REILLY: The issues… all right good, now, one of the issues is you because you’ve been calling Bush a liar on weapons of mass destruction, the Senate Intelligence Committee, Lord Butler’s investigation in Britain, and now the 9/11 Commission have all come out and said there was no lying on the part of President Bush. Plus, Vladimir Putin has said his intelligence told Bush there were weapons of mass destruction. Wanna apologize to the president now or later?


MOORE: He didn’t tell the truth, he said there were weapons of mass destruction.

O'REILLY: Yeah, but he didn’t lie, he was misinformed by - all of those investigations come to the same conclusion, that’s not a lie.

MOORE: uh huh, so in other words if I told you right now that nothing was going on down here on the stage…

O'REILLY: That would be a lie because we could see that wasn’t the truth

MOORE: Well, I’d have to turn around to see it, and then I would realize, oh, Bill, I just told you something that wasn’t true… actually it’s president Bush that needs to apologize to the nation for telling an entire country that there were weapons of mass destruction, that they had evidence of this, and that there was some sort of connection between Saddam Hussein and September 11th, and he used that as a –

O'REILLY: OK, He never said that, but back to the other thing, if you, if Michael Moore is president –

MOORE: I thought you said you saw the movie, I show all that in the movie

O'REILLY: Which may happen if Hollywood, yeah, OK, fine –

MOORE: But that was your question –

O'REILLY: Just the issues. You’ve got three separate investigations plus the president of Russia all saying… British intelligence, U.S. intelligence, Russian intelligence, told the president there were weapons of mass destruction, you say, “he lied.” This is not a lie if you believe it to be true, now he may have made a mistake, which is obvious –

MOORE: Well, that’s almost pathological – I mean, many criminals believe what they say is true, they could pass a lie detector test –

O'REILLY: Alright, now you’re dancing around a question –

MOORE: No I’m not, there’s no dancing

O'REILLY: He didn’t lie

MOORE: He said something that wasn’t true

O'REILLY: Based upon bad information given to him by legitimate sources

MOORE: Now you know that they went to the CIA, Cheney went to the CIA, they wanted that information, they wouldn’t listen to anybody

O'REILLY: They wouldn’t go by Russian intelligence and Blair’s intelligence too

MOORE: His own people told him, I mean he went to Richard Clarke the day after September 11th and said “What you got on Iraq?” and Richard Clarke’s going “Oh well this wasn’t Iraq that did this sir, this was Al Qaeda.”

O'REILLY: You’re diverting the issue…did you read Woodward’s book?

MOORE: No, I haven’t read his book.

O'REILLY: Woodward’s a good reporter, right? Good guy, you know who he is right?

MOORE: I know who he is.

O'REILLY: Ok, he says in his book George Tenet looked the president in the eye, like how I am looking you in the eye right now and said “President, weapons of mass destruction are a quote, end quote, “slam dunk” if you’re the president, you ignore all that?

MOORE: Yeah, I would say that the CIA had done a pretty poor job.

O'REILLY: I agree. The lieutenant was fired.

MOORE: Yeah, but not before they took us to war based on his intelligence. This is a man who ran the CIA, a CIA that was so poorly organized and run that it wouldn’t communicate with the FBI before September 11th and as a result in part we didn’t have a very good intelligence system set up before September 11th

O'REILLY: Nobody disputes that...

MOORE: Ok, so he screws up September 11th. Why would you then listen to him, he says this is a “slam dunk” and your going to go to war.

O'REILLY: You’ve got MI-6 and Russian intelligence because they’re all saying the same thing that’s why. You’re not going to apologize to Bush, you are going to continue to call him a liar.

MOORE: Oh, he lied to the nation, Bill, I can’t think of a worse thing to do for a president to lie to a country to take them to war, I mean, I don’t know a worse –

O'REILLY: It wasn’t a lie

MOORE: He did not tell the truth, what do you call that?

O'REILLY: I call that bad information, acting on bad information – not a lie

MOORE: A seven year old can get away with that –

O'REILLY: Alright, your turn to ask me a question—

MOORE: ‘Mom and Dad it was just bad information’—

O'REILLY: I’m not going to get you to admit it wasn’t a lie, go ahead

MOORE: It was a lie, and now, which leads us to my question

O'REILLY: OK

MOORE: Over 900 of our brave soldiers are dead. What do you say to their parents?

O'REILLY: What do I say to their parents? I say what every patriotic American would say. We are proud of your sons and daughters. They answered the call that their country gave them. We respect them and we feel terrible that they were killed.

MOORE: And, but what were they killed for?

O'REILLY: They were removing a brutal dictator who himself killed hundreds of thousands of people

MOORE: Um, but that was not the reason that was given to them to go to war, to remove a brutal dictator

O'REILLY: Well we’re back to the weapons of mass destruction

MOORE: But that was the reason

O'REILLY: The weapons of mass destruction

MOORE: That we were told we were under some sort of imminent threat

O'REILLY: That’s right

MOORE: And there was no threat, was there?

O'REILLY: It was a mistake

MOORE: Oh, just a mistake, and that’s what you tell all the parents with a deceased child, “We’re sorry.” I don’t think that is good enough.

O'REILLY: I don’t think its good enough either for those parents

MOORE: So we agree on that

O'REILLY: but that is the historical nature of what happened

MOORE: Bill, if I made a mistake and I said something or did something as a result of my mistake but it resulted in the death of your child, how would you feel towards me?

O'REILLY: It depends on whether the mistake was unintentional

MOORE: No, not intentional, it was a mistake

O'REILLY: Then if it was an unintentional mistake I cannot hold you morally responsible for that

MOORE: Really, I’m driving down the road and I hit your child and your child is dead

O'REILLY: If it were unintentional and you weren’t impaired or anything like that

MOORE: So that’s all it is, if it was alcohol, even though it was a mistake – how would you feel towards me

O'REILLY: Ok, now we are wandering

MOORE: No, but my point is –

O'REILLY: I saw what your point is and I answered your question

MOORE: But why? What did they die for?

O'REILLY: They died to remove a brutal dictator who had killed hundreds of thousands of people –

MOORE: No, that was not the reason –

O'REILLY: That’s what they died for

MOORE: -they were given –

O'REILLY: The weapons of mass destruction was a mistake

MOORE: Well there were 30 other brutal dictators in this world –

O'REILLY: Alright, I’ve got anther question—

MOORE: Would you sacrifice—just finish on this. Would you sacrifice your child to remove one of the other 30 brutal dictators on this planet?

O'REILLY: Depends what the circumstances were.

MOORE: You would sacrifice your child?

O'REILLY: I would sacrifice myself—I’m not talking for any children—to remove the Taliban. Would you?

MOORE: Uh huh.

O'REILLY: Would you? That’s my next question. Would you sacrifice yourself to remove the Taliban?

MOORE: I would be willing to sacrifice my life to track down the people that killed 3,000 people on our soil.

O'REILLY: Al Qaeda was given refuge by the Taliban.

MOORE: But we didn’t go after them—did we?

O'REILLY: We removed the Taliban and killed three quarters of Al Qaeda.

MOORE: That’s why the Taliban are still killing our soldiers there.

O'REILLY: OK, well look you cant kill everybody. You wouldn’t have invaded Afghanistan—you wouldn’t have invaded Afghanistan, would you?

MOORE: No, I would have gone after the man that killed 3,000 people.

O'REILLY: How?

MOORE: As Richard Clarke says, our special forces were prohibited for two months from going to the area that we believed Usama was—

O'REILLY: Why was that?

MOORE: That’s my question.

O'REILLY: Because Pakistan didn’t want its territory of sovereignty violated.

MOORE: Not his was in Afghanistan, on the border, we didn’t go there. He got a two month head start.

O'REILLY: Alright, you would not have removed the Taliban. You would not have removed that government?

MOORE: No, unless it is a threat to us.

O'REILLY: Any government? Hitler, in Germany, not a threat to us the beginning but over there executing people all day long—you would have let him go?

MOORE: That’s not true. Hitler with Japan, attacked the United States.

O'REILLY: Before—from 33-until 41 he wasn’t an imminent threat to the United States.

MOORE: There’s a lot of things we should have done.

O'REILLY: You wouldn’t have removed him.

MOORE: I wouldn’t have even allowed him to come to power.

O'REILLY: That was a preemption from Michael Moore—you would have invaded.

MOORE: If we’d done our job, you want to get into to talking about what happened before WWI, woah, I’m trying to stop this war right now.

O'REILLY: I know you are but—

MOORE: Are you against that? Stopping this war?

O'REILLY: No we cannot leave Iraq right now, we have to—

MOORE: So you would sacrifice your child to secure Fallujah? I want to hear you say that.

O'REILLY: I would sacrifice myself—

MOORE: Your child—Its Bush sending the children there.

O'REILLY: I would sacrifice myself.

MOORE: You and I don’t go to war, because we’re too old—

O'REILLY: Because if we back down, there will be more deaths and you know it.

MOORE: Say ‘I Bill O’Reilly would sacrifice my child to secure Fallujah’

O'REILLY: I’m not going to say what you say, you’re a, that’s ridiculous

MOORE: You don’t believe that. Why should Bush sacrifice the children of people across America for this?

O'REILLY: Look it’s a worldwide terrorism—I know that escapes you—

MOORE: Wait a minute, terrorism? Iraq?

O'REILLY: Yes. There are terrorist in Iraq.

MOORE: Oh really? So Iraq now is responsible for the terrorism here?

O'REILLY: Iraq aided terrorist—don’t you know anything about any of that?

MOORE: So you’re saying Iraq is responsible for what?

O'REILLY: I’m saying that Saddam Hussein aided all day long.

MOORE: You’re not going to get me to defend Saddam Hussein.

O'REILLY: I’m not? You’re his biggest defender in the media.

MOORE: Now come on.

O'REILLY: Look, if you were running he would still be sitting there.

MOORE: How do you know that?

O'REILLY: If you were running the country, he’d still be sitting there.

MOORE: How do you know that?

O'REILLY: You wouldn’t have removed him.

MOORE: Look let me tell you something in the 1990s look at all the brutal dictators that were removed. Things were done, you take any of a number of countries whether its Eastern Europe, the people rose up. South Africa the whole world boycotted---

O'REILLY: When Reagan was building up the arms, you were against that.

MOORE: And the dictators were gone. Building up the arms did not cause the fall of Eastern Europe.

O'REILLY: Of course it did, it bankrupted the Soviet Union and then it collapsed.

MOORE: The people rose up.

O'REILLY: why? Because they went bankrupt.

MOORE: the same way we did in our country, the way we had our revolution. People rose up—

O'REILLY: Alright alright.

MOORE:--that’s how you, let me ask you this question.

O'REILLY: One more.

MOORE: How do you deliver democracy to a country? You don’t do it down the barrel of a gun. That’s not how you deliver it.

O'REILLY: You give the people some kind of self-determination, which they never would have had under Saddam—

MOORE: Why didn’t they rise up?

O'REILLY: Because they couldn’t, it was a Gestapo-led place where they got their heads cut off—

MOORE: well that’s true in many countries throughout the world__

O'REILLY: It is, it’s a shame—

MOORE:--and you know what people have done, they’ve risen up. You can do it in a number of ways . You can do it our way through a violent revolution, which we won, the French did it that way. You can do it by boycotting South Africa, they overthrew the dictator there. There’s many ways—

O'REILLY: I’m glad we’ve had this discussion because it just shows you that I see the world my way, you see the world your way, alright—and the audience is watching us here and they can decide who is right and who is wrong and that’s the fair way to do it. Right?

MOORE: Right, I would not sacrifice my child to secure Fallujah and you would?

O'REILLY: I would sacrifice myself.

MOORE: You wouldn’t send another child, another parents child to Fallujah, would you? You would sacrifice your life to secure Fallujah?

O'REILLY: I would.

MOORE: Can we sign him up? Can we sign him up right now?

O'REILLY: That’s right.

MOORE: Where’s the recruiter?

O'REILLY: You’d love to get rid of me.

MOORE: No I don’t want—I want you to live. I want you to live.

O'REILLY: I appreciate that. Michael Moore everybody. There he is…



From the very beginning of this interview, Moore is faced with a realistic situation and completely takes a **** on it. you want to tell me that when the top intelligence agencies of the world tell you something, you dont take that seriously? you want to tell me that Saddam Hussein does not aid terrorism? Bull****.

one thing that surprized me is that Moore PUSHES the idea that we went into Iraq SOLELY to find WMD when he knows goddamn well that that is not the only reason. the entire interview was one big embarrassment for Moore, in my opinion, and it was completely the result of his nonsense attitude.

[lester1/2jr]

I saw the interview and disagree with your judgement. O'reilly wouldn't say that he would send one of his own kids to secure fallujah. And if Moore had read the Woodward book, he would know the comment that came before tennet's remark about thhe "slam dunk case" was Bush saying "Is this all you've got?" . He was looking at the WMD info, or lack therof. He knew.

[meattosser]

Sorry dogchow, but I have to disagree with a few things. Of all the dictators of the world at the time, Saddam was pretty much the one with the LEAST terrorism; but he's also the one with the MOST oil. Hmm, I guess that's just a coincidence, right? lol. There are various sources/memos, classified and de-classified, official and unofficial, that are out there that point out that the threat that Saddam posed was "laughable"; his military was crap, his nuclear program was in shambles, etc... Yes, he's evil and blah blah blah, tell me something I DON'T know. But Saudi Arabia is STILL "evil" right now. And they have WAY more to do with terrorism. Still do. Where did the source of the Taliban come from? Not afghanistan. You see, the Afghanis have been victim to foreign sources taking power for a long time now, and Taliban is no exception. Most of the oppresive Taliban comes from PAKISTAN, amazingly enough. What about Kuwait? It still has a dictator too, ya know. Or did you think that country actually had a free and just democracy? Wake up man. If Saddam was a true threat, then our CIA should have never aided him in the 1963 military coup. Then the Iraqi would have never had to deal with the horrific atrocities of Saddam. Noted historian and journalist Said K. Aburish has documented the Western-Middle East relations on how the CIA pretty much masterminded the coup on February 8th, 1963, that brought the brutal ba'athist regime, and good ol' Saddam into power. At the time the leader was Abdul Karim Kassim; he was a "threat" to US Foreign Interests. By 1961, he wanted to nationalize part of the concession of the British-controlled Iraq Petroleum company. He also made sure that Iraq would pull out of the "Baghdad Pact", the US-backed anti-Soviet alliance in the Middle East. In other words, he wanted the Iraqi people to make more independent choices, that affect THEIR OWN country, instead of letting US and Britian take control of oil affairs in their own country. Eventually, in Cairo, Damascus, Tehran, and Baghdad, American Agents organized opponents of the Iraqi regime. Former Ba'athist leader, Hani Fkaiki has confirmed that Saddam Hussein, back then a 25-year-old, who had fled to Cairo after attempting to assassinate Kassim in 1958, was colluding with the CIA at this time. Said K. Aburish even collects together OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS and TESTIMONY showing that the CIA had even supplied the lists of people to be eliminated once power was 'secured'. Pretty much 5,000 people were murdered in the 1963 coup. Iraqi exiles like Saddam assisted in the compilation of the lists in CIA stations throughout the Middle East. Who wrote the longest list though? William McHale, an American intelligence Agent. No one was spared in the brutal butchery, old men, pregnant women, etc.
A few were even tortured in front of their children. Saddam himself (I guess 'cause he's such a nice guy) had "rushed back to Iraq from exile in Cairo to join the victors and was PERSONALLY involved in the torture of leftists in the separate detention centers for "fellaheen" (peasants) and the "Muthaqafeen" (educated classes)".
Hani Fkaiki, the former Ba'ath party leader, also confesses that the PRINCIPAL orchestrator of the coup was none other than William Lakeland, the US Assistant Military attache in Baghdad.
By 1968, another coup granted Ba'athist General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr control of Iraq, bringing to the threshold of power his kinsman, good ol' Saddam Hussein. This violent coup was also supported by the CIA, sadly enough. Roger Morris, formerly of the US National Security Council under Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon in the late 1960's, recalls that he had "...often heard CIA officers, including Archibald Roosevelt, (grandson of Teddy Roosevelt and a ranking CIA official for the Near East and Africa at the time) speak openly about their close relationship with the Iraqi Ba'athists". Going through all of this trouble, and for what? For United States strategic/economic interests. A declassified National Security directive issued by then President Bush Senior, in October 1989, PRIORITIZED the provision of funds and technology to Saddam's brutal regime, described as the "West's policeman in the region". By this time, Saddam Hussein had commited plenty of horrendous atrocities in his country, and our country knew damn well about it.
And this is just a snippet of the brutal details of American/British Foreign Policy. There's still other incidents; (like the support of the "Shah of Iran", supporting Latin-American Dictators, etc.) That's why I find it hilarious when "Dubya" says he wants to "liberate" the Iraqi people. It's like if he's never realized how Saddam came to power in the first place.

Anyway, as always, stay strong and keep an open mind, peace...

[lester1/2jr]

forget the 1963 coup. Does anyone remember "terror" being mentioned in the 91 gulf war?

[dogchow108]

you're both missing my point.

i didnt say that saddam hussein was a major terrorist threat, i said that he aided terrorism, and he did so at often the top echelons of it. the point was that when O'Reilly even MENTIONED terrorism BEING there, not starting there, Moore goes and twists his words. look guys, pull your heads out of your asses and start at least trying to understand what people are telling you. the fact that we have bigger fish to fry than Iraq should be obvious.

Also, why should O'Reilly say he'll sacrifice his children? the united states government has the constitutional right to raise an army should they need to. based on intelligence that they and others had, they felt the need to do so. the fact that the intelligence was "flawed" makes it a mistake, not a lie. this is another thing that Moore dodges continuously in the interview.

BTW what had eventually become the Taliban came about with hep from pakistan, BUT mostly through Saudi money and manpower. people by the thousands came form SA during the soviet's incursion into Afghanistan. but thats a side note.

you guys keep ranting about your government's unholy relationship with a dictator and then when we topple him, you continue ranting. its amazing. its also contradictory. but that's okay. you guys are locked in your "bush is bad and we should all hug trees" paradigm just as much as the far right is a paranoid mass of nutjobs. really, this just creates balance in the end so ultimately, it dosent bother me that much.

Anyway, stay strong and keep an open mind, peace...

but especially keep an open mind.

[lester1/2jr]

saddam was a relic from the past. Bush and Condoleeza Rice and Dick Cheney weren't up on al queda/ modern terrorism. Their big heyday was the cold war. We wanted Bin Laden and they gave us Saddam. and it cost 287 billion and 900 lives. If the occupation had gone as smoothly as the war itself, it would have been worth it. It wasn't worth 900 people and stirring up the hornets nest over there. Who has 2 wars in one presidential term?

[dogchow108]

*sigh*

again, missing the point.

this is not a critique of Bush. i'm talking about Moore.

incidentally, living under Sharia Law (a result of ignoring the threat of the new global terrorism) is going to cost a lot more than 900 lives. and those will not be soldiers.

do you really think we stirred a hornets nest over there? my god im done with this thread.

[lester1/2jr]

weapons of mass destruction was the reason. The argument was that hussein had weapons of mass destruction that he could use against us and this constituted a threat. So weapons of mass destruction and immenent threat are part of the same reason. He had enough doubt about the "intelligence" to turn to Tenet in the Woodward book and say "is this all you've got?" or whatever. and dick cheney going down to the CIA (unprecedented thing for VP to do) and trying to figure out a way to blame Iraq for terrorism by digging out tons of esoteric stuff that has nothing to do with al queda or usama bin laden. Onestly, we were closer to the mark when we were supporting Hussein!! At least he was fighting crazy ayatollah khomenei. He was the one who started this whole muslim threat if you ask me.