Fahrenheit 9/11: Factual or
Saudi-bashing? By Kaveh L
Afrasiabi
Fahrenheit 9/11 is the
"temperature" at which the presidency of George W Bush
burns. While we must delegate to the near future the
question of whether or not it will be "the film that
unseated President Bush", the controversial documentary
by anti-war activist Michael Moore is undoubtedly a
potent missile fired at the White House's regime of
truth, simultaneously unmasking the conformist American
media as well as the capitalist logic of war making. It
is a humorous, compassionate, critical and enlightened
examination of a rather sad chapter in contemporary
American history marked with war, terrorism and
overzealous counter-terrorism trampling on citizens'
rights, invoking the dark memories of McCarthyism and
communist witchhunts.
Moore's timely antidote,
decried by the right wing media and the garden variety
pundits such as Christopher Hitchens, a one time
Marxist-turned White House apologist, delves into the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
connections of the Bush dynasty and in no uncertain
terms accuses the sitting president and his father,
former president George H W Bush, of prioritizing their
own interests and the interests of their Saudi partners
over national interests. Like so many voices in America
- presidential hopeful John Kerry, journalist-cum-author
Bob Woodward, and others, Moore attacks Saudi Arabia, a
country many Americans love to hate these days given the
fact that some 15 of the 19 perpetrators of the
September 11 tragedy were Saudis, never mind that the
Saudi government itself is targeted by the same al-Qaeda
terrorists. Regardless, the post-September 11 Saudi
syndrome that has sunk in the substratum of American
political psychic is so powerful as to unconsciously
serve as a scapegoat, letting others off the hook.
Indeed, one is struck by the peculiar absence of
any reference by Moore to the so-called
neo-conservatives of Bush's inner circle, almost
entirely Jewish, who plotted the invasion of Iraq long
before September 11. Moore's bravery stops at the door
of Israel, and he does not bother even asking if Israel
and its army of influence peddlers in the US capital and
its halls of power and decision-making was a key factor
triggering the present administration into war with
Iraq. At the risk of sounding "anti-Israel", however,
the question needs to be asked and seriously
scrutinized, notwithstanding the commission of inquiry
in Israel now investigating precisely the question of
why the Israeli government and its security apparatuses
exaggerated the weapons of mass destruction threat of
Saddam Hussein.
Sadly, no one in the 9-11
Commission has bothered to raise such a question,
perhaps out of fear of instant excommunication by
colleagues and the media, just as was the case with
Representative James P Moran, who dared to suggest at
one point that the American Jewish community was
pressing the White House to go to war in Iraq. Another
question is, of course, if Moore could realistically
afford to antagonize the Jewish population, not to
mention the pro-Israel Hollywood executives who berated
Mel Gibson openly in the New York Times for his "sin" of
depicting a crucified Christ condemned by his Jewish
community.
But just as Gibson's Passion of
Christ was a sincere attempt to come to terms with
the true message of the Messiah, Moore the "president
slayer" should have ventured on this tricky ground
irrespective of the potential backlash. After all,
Fahrenheit 9/11 invokes close comparison with the
1966 classic, Fahrenheit 451, an Orwellian near
future science fiction depicting a docile population
duped by wall televisions. "We've got to be alike," says
one of the villains of the movie to Montag, the book
burner turned their admirer rebelling against the status
quo. Based on a book by Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit
451's darkly dystopia can be hardly dismissed in the
light of America's largely docile population following
what Noam Chomsky has termed as a sophisticated
"manufacturing consent".
However, there is no
consent "from below" about the Iraq war either, and the
"war for oil" discourse of the anti-war movement
requires substantial qualification in light of several
other intervening variables ranging from the cause
sui generis of the American military industrial
complex, the long-term requirements of uniploar
hegemony, and the dictates of Israel's interests -
superseding the foreign policy interests of the US
according to a recently-published book by an anonymous
Central Intelligence Agency official who has become
disillusioned with the Bush's pro-Israel policy
sacrificing America's relations with the Arab and Muslim
world. In addition to this book, Imperial Hubris,
another book written by general Anthony Zinni, called
Battle Ready, bravely raises the issue of
Israel's interests playing a paramount role on the part
of various Jewish policy-makers within the Bush
administration; in late May, 2004, Zinni, the former
head of Central Command, relayed the same concerns about
the Jewish neo-conservatives in an interview on CBS's
60 Minutes program.
To pause on the role
of America's "warmongering Jews" for a moment, we must
take account of the pro-war "liberal" Jews such as the
Washington Post's Bob Woodward, whose book Plan of
Attack deftly rationalizes Bush's war plan, and
Thomas Friedman, a New York Times columnist, who
similarly backed the invasion. Yet another name worth
mentioning is Kenneth Polllack, whose book
Threatening Storm: The Case for the invasion of
Iraq, presented only a fleeting reference to the
legality of such an invasion from the point of view of
international law. Pollack, a former scholar at the
pro-Israel think-tank in Washington DC, the Institute
for Near East Studies, is now wearing a critical hat in
the light of the post-war developments disproving his
prediction of an easy and relatively cost-free war,
using Bush as a scapegoat, whom he criticizes for
misleading him and others into thinking Saddam possessed
weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, how convenient.
Moore's obliviousness to the question of Israel
notwithstanding, another flaw of Fahrenheit 911
has to do with Moore playing loose and fast with facts
throughout the documentary. Case in point, the narrator,
Moore, states at one point that the regime of Saddam had
"never killed a single American". This is factually
incorrect, since in 1987 some 37 US sailors were killed
by an Iraqi missile fired from one of Saddam's jet
fighters, ostensibly to draw the US superpower into the
Iran-Iraq war.
None of the above criticisms
should detract us, however, from the cortical vacuum
that is filled by Fahrenheit 9/11, the vacuum of
critical reflection based on in-depth connecting facts
bespeaking of American power run amok.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author
of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign
Policy (Westview Press) and "Iran's Foreign Policy
Since 9/11", Brown's Journal of World Affairs,
co-authored with former deputy foreign minister Abbas
Maleki, No 2, 2003. He is also the founder and director
of a NGO, Global Interfaith Peace.
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