Rick Ingrasci is cooking this week — this piece, from The Nation, is the second post I'm making from mailings to his list. I hope this gets wide circulation!!!

My First (and Last) Time With Bill O'Reilly

by DAVID COLE

It started innocuously enough. o­n Monday, June 21, a producer from Fox News's The O'Reilly Factor called to ask me to appear as a guest that evening to comment o­n a front-page story in the New York Times claiming that the Bush Administration had overstated the value of intelligence gained at Guantánamo and the dangers posed by the men detained there. I'm generally not a fan of shout-television, and I had declined several prior invitations to appear o­n O'Reilly's show, but this time I said yes. Little did I know it would not o­nly be my first time, but also my last.

I sat in the Washington studio as the taping of the show began in New York with a rant from Bill O'Reilly. He claimed that “the Factor” had established the link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, and then played a clip from Thomas Kean, head of the Senate's 9/11 Commission, in which Kean said, “There is no evidence that we can find whatsoever that Iraq or Saddam Hussein participated in any way in attacks o­n the United States, in other words, o­n 9/11. What we do say, however, is there were contacts between Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Iraq, Saddam–excuse me. Al Qaeda.”

I was impressed. O'Reilly, who had announced his show as the “No Spin Zone,” was actually playing a balanced soundbite, o­ne that accurately reported the commission's findings both that there was no evidence linking Saddam and 9/11, and that there was some evidence of contacts (if no “collaborative relationship”) between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Maybe all those nasty things Al Franken had said about O'Reilly weren't true after all.

But suddenly O'Reilly interrupted, plainly angry, and said, “We can't use that…. We need to redo the whole thing.” Three minutes of silence later, the show began again, with O'Reilly re-recording the introduction verbatim. Except this time, when he got to the part about Kean, he played no tape, and simply paraphrased Kean as confirming that “definitely there was a connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda.” The part about no link to 9/11 was left o­n the cutting-room floor.

Now it was my turn. O'Reilly introduced the segment by complaining that we are at war and need to be united, but that newspapers like the New York Times are running biased stories, dividing the country and aiding the enemy. “The spin must stop–our lives depend o­n it,” O'Reilly gravely intoned. He then characterized the Times story that day as claiming that the Guantánamo detainees were “innocent people” and “harmless.” He said the paper's article “questions holding the detainees at Guantánamo.”

I noted that the Times had said nothing of the sort. And I pointed out that the article relied o­n a CIA study finding that the detainees seemed to be low-level and had provided little valuable intelligence.

That didn't convince O'Reilly, however, who again criticized the Times for misleading its readers by terming the detainees innocent and not dangerous. I replied that he was misleading his own viewers, by exaggerating what the Times had said. “No, I'm not,” he retorted. So far, the usual fare o­n newstalk television.

But then I decided to go o­ne step further: “It seems to me like the pot calling the kettle black, Bill, because I just sat here five minutes ago as you re-recorded the introduction to this show to take out a statement from the head of the 9/11 commission stating that there was no evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.”

Apparently O'Reilly does not like being called “the pot.” He exploded, repeatedly called me an “S.O.B.” and assured me that he would cut my accusation from the interview when the show aired. He also said I would “never ever” be o­n his show again. At this point, I wasn't sure whether to take that as a threat or a promise.

Sure enough, when The O'Reilly Factor aired later that night, both Thomas Kean's statement about 9/11 and my charge about O'Reilly deleting it were missing. All that was left was Bill O'Reilly, fuming at the liberal media's lack of objectivity and balance, and ruing the divisive effect “spin” has o­n our national unity.

David Cole (cole@law.georgetown.edu), The Nation's legal affairs correspondent and a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, is the author of No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System (New Press), co-author, with James X. Dempsey, of Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties for National Security (New Press) and author of Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War o­n Terrorism (New Press). 

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These pieces, by Charley Reese, made me feel sooooo good. I got them from Rick Ingrasci (he sends excellent things to his list — rick@bigmindmedia.com). They were sent to him by Norie Huddle, an old friend of mine. Norie says, “For those of you who may not know Charley Reese, he is o­ne of the most far right writers around. He used to be o­ne of the Orlando Sentinel's favorite neoconservatives. The fact that he is openly opposing Bush and endorsing Kerry points to a major energetic shift in this country!”

Vote For A Man, Not A Puppet

May 21, 2004

Americans should realize that if they vote for President Bush's re-election, they are really voting for the architects of war — Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of that cabal of neoconservative ideologues and their corporate backers.

I have sadly come to the conclusion that President Bush is merely a frontman, an empty suit, who is manipulated by the people in his administration. Bush has the most dangerously simplistic view of the world of any president in my memory.

It's no wonder the president avoids press conferences like the plague. Take away his cue cards and he can barely talk. Americans should be embarrassed that an Arab king (Abdullah of Jordan) spoke more fluently and articulately in English than our own president at their joint press conference recently.

John Kerry is at least an educated man, well-read, who knows how to think and who knows that the world is a great deal more complex than Bush's comic-book world of American heroes and foreign evildoers. It's unfortunate that in our poorly educated country, Kerry's very intelligence and refusal to adopt simplistic slogans might doom his presidential election efforts.

But Thomas Jefferson said it well, as he did so often, when he observed that people who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never was and never will be.

People who think of themselves as conservatives will really display their stupidity, as I did in the last election, by voting for Bush. Bush is as far from being a conservative as you can get. Well, he fooled me o­nce, but he won't fool me twice.

It is not at all conservative to balloon government spending, to vastly increase the power of government, to show contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law, or to tell people that foreign outsourcing of American jobs is good for them, that giant fiscal and trade deficits don't matter, and that people should not know what their government is doing. Bush is the most prone-to-classify, the most secretive president in the 20th century. His administration leans dangerously toward the authoritarian.

It's no wonder that the Justice Department has convicted a few Arab-Americans of supporting terrorism. What would you do if you found yourself arrested and a federal prosecutor whispers in your ear that either you can plea-bargain this or the president will designate you an enemy combatant and you'll be held incommunicado for the duration?

This election really is important, not o­nly for domestic reasons, but because Bush's foreign policy has been a dangerous disaster. He's almost restarted the Cold War with Russia and the nuclear arms race. America is not o­nly hated in the Middle East, but it has few friends anywhere in the world thanks to the arrogance and ineptness of the Bush administration. Don't forget, a scientific poll of Europeans found us, Israel, North Korea and Iran as the greatest threats to world peace.

I will swallow a lot of petty policy differences with Kerry to get a man in the White House with brains enough not to blow up the world and us with it. Go to Kerry's Web site (

www.johnkerry.com) and read some of the magazine profiles o­n him. You'll find that there is a great deal more to Kerry than the GOP attack dogs would have you believe.

Besides, it would be fun to have a president who plays hockey, windsurfs, ride motorcycles, plays the guitar, writes poetry and speaks French. It would be good to have a man in the White House who has killed people face to face. Killing people has a sobering effect o­n a man and dispels all illusions about war.

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Hypocrisy: The US Government's Biggest Single Problem

June 12, 2004

The biggest single problem the federal government has is its hypocrisy. It talks o­ne way and acts another. It talks of spreading democracy while supporting dictators; it blathers about human rights while violating them; and it claims to promote the rule of law while scoffing at laws it considers inconvenient.

If the basis of our foreign policy is going to be American security and American economic gains, then we ought to say so and shut up about spreading democracy and promoting human rights. Instead, we steadily destroy our credibility in the world by talking o­ne way and acting another.

We more or less invented war crimes by staging the show trials at Nuremberg, Germany, at the end of World War II. We happily hanged German and Japanese officials. Now, however, the world wants to establish a permanent international tribunal to try people for war crimes. Our reply is, “No way.” Not o­nly are we not supporting the international tribunal, but we are exacting agreements from individual countries to never offer up Americans to their jurisdiction. War crimes, applied to us, are “just politics.”

This example is really funny. Who are our closest allies in the Islamic world? Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. There's not a democracy in the bunch. The insanity of the neoconservative scheme to impose democracy o­n the Middle East is obvious. If today there were truly free elections in every Middle Eastern country, every o­ne of them would elect an anti-American government.

This is because of our greatest hypocrisy in the foreign field. We made the Iraqi people pay a horrific price in the name of enforcing United Nations resolutions. We killed tens of thousands of Iraqis with bombs and sanctions and destroyed their economy. In the boastful words of o­ne of our generals, we bombed Iraq “back into the preindustrial age.”

But when the United Nations refused to pass a resolution authorizing us to launch a new war against Iraq, we told the United Nations to go stick it in its ear. And more to the point, from the point of view in the Arab world, Israel is in violation of more than 60 U.N. resolutions, and that's counting o­nly the o­nes we didn't veto. We have prevented the United Nations from imposing even the mildest sanctions o­n Israel to force it to comply with international law.

It was not OK for Iraq to occupy Kuwait, but it is OK, from our point of view, for Israel to occupy parts of Syria, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It was, for a long time, even OK for Israel to occupy a huge section of Egypt and a slice of Lebanon.

In the current war, we have not o­nly abused Iraqi prisoners, but we handed over some suspected terrorists to countries we know will torture the dickens out of them. It is irrelevant to say that Saddam Hussein would have abused them worse than we did. Saddam never proclaimed himself a democrat and human-rights advocate. We do. No criminal defense lawyer would ever ask for mercy o­n the basis that his client o­nly beat and raped the victim, but spared her life.

To put it plainly, our federal government does not live up to American ideals. Americans citizens, rather than acting like sheep, should vigorously insist that it do so. We must replace an unjust policy with a just policy and substitute sincerity for hypocrisy and propaganda.

That is the o­nly way to make America secure. That is the o­nly way to win the war against terrorists. Terrorists have never attacked us out of the blue for no rational reason. To paraphrase an old Bill Clinton slogan, “It's the foreign policy, stupid.”

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Legal Nonsense

July 10, 2004

I love the sharp tongue of the British. A former legal adviser to the British Foreign Office has said George Bush's war o­n terrorism is “legal nonsense” and confers no more power o­n the United States to detain people than the war against obesity.

That's true. The British lady, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, is quite correct, too, that the war against Iraq was illegal and thus the occupation of Iraq was/is illegal. I say “was/is” because that depends o­n whether you believe the fairy tale of Iraqi sovereignty.

So it turns out old Saddam Hussein was correct. He is still the legal president of Iraq; the new Iraqi government is illegal and has no right to try him. That, of course, will not prevent him from being tried and eventually hanged. o­ne of the things I hope Americans are learning, besides the fact that the war wasn't worth it, is that the rule of law is a farce. Like language, the law is twisted to justify what the Bush administration wants to do. This administration is bound by neither law nor truth.

I'm no lawyer, but I pointed out some time ago that you can't declare war o­n a tactic, and that's all terrorism is – a tactic. Real terrorists, as opposed to people resisting occupation of their country or guerrillas fighting to overthrow a government, are criminals, and as criminals deserve to be hunted down. That, however, is not a war.

For all time, when bad governments wanted to increase their power, they spread fear and claimed the new power would allow them to “protect” the people. If there were no real enemies at the gate, they would invent them. The threat of terrorism has been enormously exaggerated by this administration to justify a very un-American lust for power. It has spread fear like a glutton spreads butter o­n hot pancakes.

Some local law-enforcement officers also fearmonger to get bigger budgets. Some in burgs no international terrorist could find with a satellite are warning the local folks to suspect everybody they see.

Another word that is vastly abused in this crazy time is “intelligence.” Do you know what intelligence is? It's just knowledge, and knowledge must be factual. Assertions are not knowledge. Beliefs are not knowledge. Fears are not knowledge. Regardless of what so-called “intelligence” said, the facts are that Iraq had no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, had no programs to produce them and had no cooperative arrangements with al-Qaeda.

Vice President Dick Cheney, who probably should see a psychologist as well as a cardiologist, continues to claim a connection, but what he calls a connection is o­ne or two meetings in a period of years from which nothing ever came. If a mere meeting is a “connection,” then all of us have connections with every human being we've ever met, however briefly. This is another example of language abuse.

Another architect of the illegal war, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, still coyly claims that just because we haven't found the weapons doesn't mean they don't exist. That's true. We haven't found any Martians, either, but perhaps they do exist, perhaps even in the offices of the Pentagon. It's always been hard to prove a negative.

This is an administration of sick puppies whose minds are haunted by lust for power, ideological phantoms and a profound contempt for the American people. A willingness to deceive is always proof of contempt.

Hopefully, in November, a majority of Americans will decide that this administration, like its illegal war, isn't worth reelecting.

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It's been a long time since I've posted anything from the world press. Although progressive writers skillfully skewer the perpetrations of this Administration, nobody has said anything lately that's been unique enough for me to draw attention to it. Until now.

Robert Jensen is a giant whom I have posted before. (If you search o­n http://theconversation.org/archive/fivestar.html

 you'll find three of his pieces.) I'd love to see him help Michael Moore make his next film — to show how the Bush Administration's policies are the latest chapter in a larger drama concerning American empire building with which we urgently need to be grappling.  In the meantime, we must not be lolled into the false confidence Michael Moore is giving us that we've got a bead o­n the enemy.

This Moore frenzy is scary in that it is so impelling. A reaction I got to saying I found the film disappointing was a suggestion that I needed to deal with my “fear, judgment, and anger”:

“If you let some of this go and just be grateful that Moore has done a piece that gets the gist across and has the 'charisma' the guts to walk in the face of fierce resistance, you can give up o­n the 'facts' part. You already have the facts. This is for 'energizing our base.'”

I don't think so. Let's not be a non-discriminating cult in our zeal to right the horrors that Bush is so culpable for.

Here's a little sampling from “Stupid White Movie,” below:

“…if we beat Bush and go back to 'normal,' we're all in trouble. Normal is empire building. Normal is U.S. domination, economic and military, and the suffering that vulnerable people around the world experience as a result…the film's analysis, unfortunately, doesn't go much beyond the feeling: It's all Bush's fault. That may be appealing to people, but it's wrong. And it is hard to imagine how a successful anti-empire movement can be built o­n this film's analysis unless it is challenged. Hence, the reason for this essay. The potential value of Moore's film will be realized o­nly if it is discussed and critiqued, honestly…The focus of debate should be o­n the issues raised, with an eye toward the question of how to build an anti-empire movement. Rallying around the film can too easily lead to rallying around bad analysis. Let's instead rally around the struggle for a better world, the struggle to dismantle the American empire.”

Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore Misses About the Empire

By ROBERT JENSEN

I have been defending Michael Moore's “Fahrenheit 9/11” from the criticism in mainstream and conservative circles that the film is leftist propaganda. Nothing could be further from the truth; there is very little left critique in the movie. In fact, it's hard to find any coherent critique in the movie at all.

The sad truth is that “Fahrenheit 9/11” is a bad movie, but not for the reasons it is being attacked in the dominant culture. It's at times a racist movie. And the analysis that underlies the film's main political points is either dangerously incomplete or virtually incoherent.

But, most important, it's a conservative movie that ends with an endorsement of o­ne of the central lies of the United States, which should warm the hearts of the right-wingers who condemn Moore. And the real problem is that many left/liberal/progressive people are singing the film's praises, which should tell us something about the impoverished nature of the left in this country.

I say all this not to pick at small points or harp o­n minor flaws. These aren't minor points of disagreement but fundamental questions of analysis and integrity. But before elaborating o­n that, I want to talk about what the film does well.

The good stuff

First, Moore highlights the disenfranchisement of primarily black voters in Florida in the 2000 election, a political scandal that the mainstream commercial news media in the United States has largely ignored. The footage of a joint session of Congress in which Congressional Black Caucus members can't get a senator to sign their letter to allow floor debate about the issue (a procedural requirement) is a powerful indictment not o­nly of the Republicans who perpetrated the fraud but the Democratic leadership that refused to challenge it.

Moore also provides a sharp critique of U.S. military recruiting practices, with some amazing footage of recruiters cynically at work scouring low-income areas for targets, whom are disproportionately non-white. The film also effectively takes apart the Bush administration's use of fear tactics after 9/11 to drive the public to accept its war policies.

“Fahrenheit 9/11” also does a good job of showing war's effects o­n U.S. soldiers; we see soldiers dead and maimed, and we see how contemporary warfare deforms many of them psychologically as well. And the film pays attention to the victims of U.S. wars, showing Iraqis both before the U.S. invasion and after in a way that humanizes them rather than uses them as props.

The problem is that these positive elements don't add up to a good film. It's a shame that Moore's talent and flair for the dramatic aren't put in the service of a principled, clear analysis that could potentially be effective at something beyond defeating George W. Bush in 2004.

Subtle racism

How dare I describe as racist a movie that highlights the disenfranchisement of black voters and goes after the way in which military recruiters chase low-income minority youth? My claim is not that Moore is an overt racist, but that the movie unconsciously replicates a more subtle racism, o­ne that we all have to struggle to resist.

First, there is o­ne segment that invokes the worst kind of ugly-American nativism, in which Moore mocks the Bush administration's “coalition of the willing,” the nations it lined up to support the invasion of Iraq. Aside from Great Britain there was no significant military support from other nations and no real coalition, which Moore is right to point out. But when he lists the countries in the so-called coalition, he uses images that have racist undertones. To depict the Republic of Palau (a small Pacific island nation), Moore chooses an image of stereotypical “native” dancers, while a man riding o­n an animal-drawn cart represents Costa Rica. Pictures of monkeys running are o­n the screen during a discussion of Morocco's apparent offer to send monkeys to clear landmines. To ridicule the Bush propaganda o­n this issue, Moore uses these images and an exaggerated voice-over in a fashion that says, in essence, “What kind of coalition is it that has these backward countries?” Moore might argue that is not his intention, but intention is not the o­nly question; we all are responsible for how we tap into these kinds of stereotypes.

More subtle and important is Moore's invocation of a racism in which solidarity between dominant whites and non-white groups domestically can be forged by demonizing the foreign “enemy,” which these days has an Arab and South Asian face. For example, in the segment about law-enforcement infiltration of peace groups, the camera pans the almost exclusively white faces (I noticed o­ne Asian man in the scene) in the group Peace Fresno and asks how anyone could imagine these folks could be terrorists. There is no consideration of the fact that Arab and Muslim groups that are equally dedicated to peace have to endure routine harassment and constantly prove that they weren't terrorists, precisely because they weren't white.

The other example of political repression that “Fahrenheit 9/11” offers is the story of Barry Reingold, who was visited by FBI agents after making critical remarks about Bush and the war while working out at a gym in Oakland. Reingold, a white retired phone worker, was not detained or charged with a crime; the agents questioned him and left. This is the poster child for repression? In a country where hundreds of Arab, South Asian and Muslim men were thrown into secret detention after 9/11, this is the case Moore chooses to highlight? The o­nly reference in the film to those detentions post-9/11 is in an interview with a former FBI agent about Saudis who were allowed to leave the United States shortly after 9/11, in which it appears that Moore mentions those detentions o­nly to contrast the kid-gloves treatment that privileged Saudi nationals allegedly received.

When I made this point to a friend, he defended Moore by saying the filmmaker was trying to reach a wide audience that likely is mostly white and probably wanted to use examples that those people could connect with. So, it's acceptable to pander to the white audience members and over-dramatize their limited risks while ignoring the actual serious harm done to non-white people? Could not a skilled filmmaker tell the story of the people being seriously persecuted in a way that non-Arab, non-South Asian, non-Muslims could empathize with?

Bad analysis

“Fahrenheit 9/11” is strong o­n tapping into emotions and raising questions about why the United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11, but it is extremely weak o­n answering those questions in even marginally coherent fashion. To the degree the film has a thesis, it appears to be that the wars were a product of the personal politics of a corrupt Bush dynasty. I agree the Bush dynasty is corrupt, but the analysis the film offers is both internally inconsistent, extremely limited in historical understanding and, hence, misguided.

Is the administration of George W. Bush full of ideological fanatics? Yes. Have its actions since 9/11 been reckless and put the world at risk? Yes. In the course of pursuing those policies, has it enriched fat-cat friends? Yes.

But it is a serious mistake to believe that these wars can be explained by focusing so exclusively o­n the Bush administration and ignoring clear trends in U.S. foreign and military policy. In short, these wars are not a sharp departure from the past but instead should be seen as an intensification of longstanding policies, affected by the confluence of this particular administration's ideology and the opportunities created by the events of 9/11.

Look first at Moore's treatment of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. He uses a clip of former counterterrorism official Richard Clarke complaining that the Bush administration's response to 9/11 in Afghanistan was “slow and small,” implying that we should have attacked faster and bigger. The film does nothing to question that assessment, leaving viewers to assume that Moore agrees. Does he think that a bombing campaign that killed at least as many innocent Afghans as Americans who died o­n 9/11 was justified? Does he think that a military response was appropriate, and simply should have been more intense, which would have guaranteed even more civilian casualties? Does he think that a military strategy, which many experts believe made it difficult to pursue more routine and productive counterterrorism law-enforcement methods, was a smart move?

Moore also suggests that the real motivation of the Bush administration in attacking Afghanistan was to secure a gas pipeline route from the Caspian Basin to the sea. It's true that Unocal had sought such a pipeline, and at o­ne point Taliban officials were courted by the United States when it looked as if they could make such a deal happen. Moore points out that Taliban officials traveled to Texas in 1997 when Bush was governor. He fails to point out that all this happened with the Clinton administration at the negotiating table. It is highly unlikely that policymakers would go to war for a single pipeline, but even if that were plausible it is clear that both Democrats and Republicans alike have been mixed up in that particular scheme.

The centerpiece of Moore's analysis of U.S. policy in the Middle East is the relationship of the Bush family to the Saudis and the bin Laden family. The film appears to argue that those business interests, primarily through the Carlyle Group, led the administration to favor the Saudis to the point of ignoring potential Saudi complicity in the attacks of 9/11. After laying out the nature of those business dealings, Moore implies that the Bushes are literally o­n the take.

It is certainly true that the Bush family and its cronies have a relationship with Saudi Arabia that has led officials to overlook Saudi human-rights abuses and the support that many Saudis give to movements such as al Qaeda. That is true of the Bushes, just as it was of the Clinton administration and, in fact, every post-World War II president. Ever since FDR cut a deal with the House of Saud giving U.S. support in exchange for cooperation o­n the flow of oil and oil profits, U.S. administrations have been playing ball with the Saudis. The relationship is sometimes tense but has continued through ups and downs, with both sides getting at least part of what they need from the other. Concentrating o­n Bush family business connections ignores that history and encourages viewers to see the problem as specific to Bush. Would a Gore administration have treated the Saudis differently after 9/11? There's no reason to think so, and Moore offers no evidence or argument why it would have.

But that's o­nly part of the story of U.S. policy in the Middle East, in which the Saudis play a role but are not the o­nly players. The United States cuts deals with other governments in the region that are willing to support the U.S. aim of control over those energy resources. The Saudis are crucial in that system, but not alone. Egypt, Jordan and the other Gulf emirates have played a role, as did Iran under the Shah. As does, crucially, Israel. But there is no mention of Israel in the film. To raise questions about U.S. policy in the Middle East without addressing the role of Israel as a U.S. proxy is, to say the least, a significant omission. It's unclear whether Moore actually backs Israeli crimes and U.S. support for them, or simply doesn't understand the issue.

And what of the analysis of Iraq? Moore is correct in pointing out that U.S. support for Iraq during the 1980s, when Saddam Hussein's war o­n Iran was looked upon favorably by U.S. policymakers, was a central part of Reagan and Bush I policy up to the Gulf War. And he's correct in pointing out that Bush II's invasion and occupation have caused great suffering in Iraq. What is missing is the intervening eight years in which the Clinton administration used the harshest economic embargo in modern history and regular bombing to further devastate an already devastated country. He fails to point out that Clinton killed more Iraqis through that policy than either of the Bush presidents. He fails to mention the 1998 Clinton cruise missile attack o­n Iraq, which was every bit as illegal as the 2003 invasion.

It's not difficult to articulate what much of the rest of the world understands about U.S. policy in Iraq and the Middle East: Since the end of WWII, the United States has been the dominant power in the Middle East, constructing a system that tries to keep the Arab states weak and controllable (and, as a result, undemocratic) and undermine any pan-Arab nationalism, and uses allies as platforms and surrogates for U.S. power (such as Israel and Iran under the Shah). The goal is control over (not ownership of, but control over) the strategically crucial energy resources of the region and the profits that flow from them, which in an industrial world that runs o­n oil is a source of incredible leverage over competitors such as the European Union, Japan and China.

The Iraq invasion, however incompetently planned and executed by the Bush administration, is consistent with that policy. That's the most plausible explanation for the war (by this time, we need no longer bother with the long-ago forgotten rationalizations of weapons of mass destruction and the alleged threat Iraq posed to the United States). The war was a gamble o­n the part of the Bush gang. Many in the foreign-policy establishment, including Bush I stalwarts such as Brent Scowcroft, spoke out publicly against war plans they thought were reckless. Whether Bush's gamble, in pure power terms, will pay off or not is yet to be determined.

When the film addresses this question directly, what analysis does Moore offer of the reasons for the Iraq war? A family member of a soldier who died asks, “for what?” and Moore cuts to the subject of war profiteering. That segment appropriately highlights the vulture-like nature of businesses that benefit from war. But does Moore really want us to believe that a major war was launched so that Halliburton and other companies could increase its profits for a few years? Yes, war profiteering happens, but it is not the reason nations go to war. This kind of distorted analysis helps keep viewers' attention focused o­n the Bush administration, by noting the close ties between Bush officials and these companies, not the routine way in which corporate America makes money off the misnamed Department of Defense, no matter who is in the White House.

All this is summed up when Lila Lipscomb, the mother of a son killed in the war, visits the White House in a final, emotional scene and says that she now has somewhere to put all her pain and anger. This is the message of the film: It's all about the Bush administration. If that's the case, the obvious conclusion is to get Bush out of the White House so that things can get back to to what? I'll return to questions of political strategy at the end, but for now it's important to realize how this attempt to construct Bush as pursuing some radically different policy is bad analysis and leads to a misunderstanding of the threat the United States poses to the world. Yes, Moore throws in a couple of jabs at the Democrats in Congress for not stopping the mad rush to war in Iraq, but the focus is always o­n the singular crimes of George W. Bush and his gang.

A conservative movie

The claim that “Fahrenheit 9/11” is a conservative movie may strike some as ludicrous. But the film endorses o­ne of the central lies that Americans tell themselves, that the U.S. military fights for our freedom. This construction of the military as a defensive force obscures the harsh reality that the military is used to project U.S. power around the world to ensure dominance, not to defend anyone's freedom, at home or abroad.

Instead of confronting this mythology, Moore ends the film with it. He points out, accurately, the irony that those who benefit the least from the U.S. system — the chronically poor and members of minority groups — are the very people who sign up for the military. “They offer to give up their lives so we can be free,” Moore says, and all they ask in return is that we not send them in harm's way unless it's necessary. After the Iraq War, he wonders, “Will they ever trust us again?”

It is no doubt true that many who join the military believe they will be fighting for freedom. But we must distinguish between the mythology that many internalize and may truly believe, from the reality of the role of the U.S. military. The film includes some comments by soldiers questioning that very claim, but Moore's narration implies that somehow a glorious tradition of U.S. military endeavors to protect freedom has now been sullied by the Iraq War.

The problem is not just that the Iraq War was fundamentally illegal and immoral. The whole rotten project of empire building has been illegal and immoral — and every bit as much a Democratic as a Republican project. The millions of dead around the world — in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia — as a result of U.S. military actions and proxy wars don't care which U.S. party was pulling the strings and pulling the trigger when they were killed. It's true that much of the world hates Bush. It's also true that much of the world has hated every post-WWII U.S. president. And for good reasons.

It is o­ne thing to express solidarity for people forced into the military by economic conditions. It is quite another to pander to the lies this country tells itself about the military. It is not disrespectful to those who join up to tell the truth. It is our obligation to try to prevent future wars in which people are sent to die not for freedom but for power and profit. It's hard to understand how we can do that by repeating the lies of the people who plan, and benefit from, those wars.

Political strategy

The most common defense I have heard from liberals and progressives to these criticisms of “Fahrenheit 9/11” is that, whatever its flaws, the movie sparks people to political action. o­ne response is obvious: There is no reason a film can't spark people to political action with intelligent and defensible analysis, and without subtle racism.

But beyond that, it's not entirely clear the political action that this film will spark goes much beyond voting against Bush. The “what can I do now?” link o­n Moore's website suggests four actions, all of which are about turning out the vote. These resources about voting are well organized and helpful. But there are no links to grassroots groups organizing against not o­nly the Bush regime but the American empire more generally.

I agree that Bush should be kicked out of the White House, and if I lived in a swing state I would consider voting Democratic. But I don't believe that will be meaningful unless there emerges in the United States a significant anti-empire movement. In other words, if we beat Bush and go back to “normal,” we're all in trouble. Normal is empire building. Normal is U.S. domination, economic and military, and the suffering that vulnerable people around the world experience as a result. This doesn't mean voters can't judge o­ne particular empire-building politician more dangerous than another. It doesn't mean we shouldn't sometimes make strategic choices to vote for o­ne over the other. It simply means we should make such choices with eyes open and no illusions. This seems particularly important when the likely Democratic presidential candidate tries to out-hawk Bush o­n support for Israel, pledges to continue the occupation of Iraq, and says nothing about reversing the basic trends in foreign policy.

In this sentiment, I am not alone. Ironically, Barry Reingold — the Oakland man who was visited by the FBI — is critical of what he sees as the main message of the film. He was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle saying: “I think Michael Moore's agenda is to get Bush out, but I think it (should be) about more than Bush. I think it's about the capitalist system, which is inequitable.” He went o­n to critique Bush and Kerry: “I think both of them are bad. I think Kerry is actually worse because he gives the illusion that he's going to do a lot more. Bush has never given that illusion. People know that he's a friend of big business.”

Nothing I have said here is an argument against reaching out to a wider audience and trying to politicize more people. That's what I try to do in my own writing and local organizing work, as do countless other activists. The question isn't whether to reach out, but with what kind of analysis and arguments. Emotional appeals and humor have their place; the activists I work with use them. The question is, where do such appeals lead people?

It is obvious that “Fahrenheit 9/11” taps into many Americans' fear and/or hatred of Bush and his gang of thugs. Such feelings are understandable, and I share them. But feelings are not analysis, and the film's analysis, unfortunately, doesn't go much beyond the feeling: It's all Bush's fault. That may be appealing to people, but it's wrong. And it is hard to imagine how a successful anti-empire movement can be built o­n this film's analysis unless it is challenged. Hence, the reason for this essay.

The potential value of Moore's film will be realized o­nly if it is discussed and critiqued, honestly. Yes, the film is under attack from the right, for very different reasons than I have raised. But those attacks shouldn't stop those who consider themselves left, progressive, liberal, anti-war, anti-empire or just plain pissed-off from criticizing the film's flaws and limitations. I think my critique of the film is accurate and relevant. Others may disagree. The focus of debate should be o­n the issues raised, with an eye toward the question of how to build an anti-empire movement. Rallying around the film can too easily lead to rallying around bad analysis. Let's instead rally around the struggle for a better world, the struggle to dismantle the American empire.

Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of “Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity” from City Lights Books. He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.

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