For almost the entirety of the 1990s, the RAM (Republican Attack Machine) spewed lies the way Old Faithful blasts water. Now “Fahrenheit 9/11” comes out and suddenly the RAM aggressively embraces the concept of truth and accuracy with such zeal that you’re almost waiting for them to complain because Michael Moore didn’t define the word “is.”
Everyone howls about inaccuracy? Here’s an inaccuracy that no one really wants to cop to:
“Iraq is better off now than it was.”
That’s not necessarily true. Why? Because it depends on what your definition of “is” is.
See, we don’t know for sure what the impact of Saddam’s fall will be. Not for sure. Not remotely for sure. No one can know. Why? Because once upon a time, the US had no problem with Saddam. He seemed much better than The Other Guys in other countries that we had problems with. So top GOP officials were photographed shaking his hand, and I seem to recall we sold him weapons.
And one thing led to another, and then we didn’t like him because he was a brutal dictator and was killing innocent Iraqis, and so we got him out of power…while killing innocent Iraqis. Iraq IS better off? Iraq has civil unrest, water and electrical power are dodgy, buildings are bombed out, prisoners were tortured (and for all we know, still are but we just haven’t found out yet) and thousands of innocents were killed, while young American soldiers went in and died for a cause that was questionable at best. And Michael Moore showed all that, not just as evening headlines, but on the most human level imaginable, and that terrifies the RAM because they don’t want Americans seeing that.
Furthermore, it may well be that the result of this endeavor will be that a new generation of terrorists is spawned by America’s invasion, the resulting Iraqi government may be no better or even worse than what they had before (especially if a new dictator seizes power, and then what? We invade again?), oil prices are skyrocketing, we’ve lost tons of worldwide goodwill that 9/11 handed us, and by the way, America is so much safer with Saddam gone that we get terror alerts every six weeks or so and we’re discussing suspending elections. Is martial law next?
And that’s the point that “F9/11” is making, and the RAM is terrified that the message is going to take hold, and they’re trying to nitpick it to death while protecting the big lie that is the Bush Administration. To quote Edith Ann, “And that’s the truth *pbthhhh *.”
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