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Yoshie Furuhashi, "Why Does 'Fahrenheit 9/11' Pursue Conspiracy Theory?"Yoshie Furuhashi writes:
As Saudi Arabia's longtime chief of intelligence, Prince Turki al Faisal helped nurture the Afghan resistance movement that begot the country's Taliban leadership. . . Saudis trace their policy to the early days of the anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan after the 1979 invasion. The call to fight with the Afghan mujaheddin rang loud here in the 1980s, echoing from mosques, government offices and local charities, through upper-class homes and rural villages, and prompting an estimated 15,000 Saudis to join the resistance against Soviet occupation of Muslim Afghanistan. Among them was bin Laden, who joined fundraising activities in Pakistan and later fought in Afghanistan. Money flowed from the coffers of the oil-rich kingdom -- by some accounts, as much as $1 billion -- to supply and arm fighters gathering under the tutelage of U.S. and Pakistani intelligence services. Volunteers simply signed up for "relief work," one Saudi recalled, and flew off on deeply discounted air tickets, courtesy of Saudi Arabian Airlines. National guard members could even take paid leave to join the fight. "We helped them with everything," said a high-ranking Saudi intelligence official. "They thought it was Islamic war, and Muslims wanted to help." (Howard Schneider, "Saudi Missteps Helped Bin Laden Gain Power: Kingdom Funded Taliban, Predecessors," Washington Post, October 15, 2001, p. A1) That, by the say, is a fact that Prince Bandar does not hide (because he doesn't need to, as there is no American consensus about the evil of having teamed up with Riyadh, Islamabad, etc. to fight against the Soviets), frankly discussing it on Larry King Live:
Moore includes this clip in Fahrenheit 9/11, but he doesn't follow it up, because he cannot afford to. In order to analyze the problem of decades of collaboration between Washington and Riyadh as well as other unsavory allies, fighting against the Communists, nationalists, and other official enemies of Washington during and after the Cold War, he would have to go beyond the crimes of the George W. Bush administration, but doing so would implicate Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (as well as all presidents of the United States, especially the ones who came into power after the US decidedly replaced Britain and France as the hegemonic imperial power) in the violent project of repression inside and outside Saudi Arabia. Instead, Michael Moore turns to conspiracy theory based upon the weakest contentions made by Dan Briody, Jack Cloonan (a former senior agent on the joint FBI-CIA Al-Qaeda task force), Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota), James Moore, and Craig Unger, making suggestions and insinuations that lead the audience to suspect that George W. Bush is guilty of protecting — because of his business ties — the other bin Ladens and Saudi royals who are implicated in aiding Osama bin Laden's terrorism, including the 9/11 terrorist attacks. If it may be said that there is an "argument" in the part of the film that concerns Riyadh and Washington at all, it goes something like this:
Now, the Bushes have had business ties with some of the bin Ladens and political ties with the Saudi royals, but the "experts" to whom Moore turns don't have the goods, so to speak, to make a solid case that any of the bin Ladens other than Osama was implicated in the 9/11 terrorist attacks and that Bush nevertheless protected them, knowing that they were really guilty. In short, Moore refuses to build his case on the known facts about the long historical relation between Riyadh and Washington to which Prince Bandar admits publicly and instead goes after speculations about Bush's secret conspiracy to protect the guilty bin Ladens and Saudi royals — and perhaps also himself — from the FBI's scrutiny concerning the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in the process indulging feverish imaginations of 9/11 conspiracy theorists among the audience. Why? Because Moore of Fahrenheit 9/11, in contrast to Moore of Roger and Me and Bowling for Columbine, is interested in protecting the Democratic Party from responsibility — especially its responsibility for the consequences of decades of collaboration between Riyadh and Washington in particular and US foreign policy in general: the decline of secular left-wing movements and governments, the rise of extreme Islamist organizations, and increased dangers of lethal terrorist attacks everywhere. That said, let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that all the allegations mentioned in Fahrenheit 9/11 concerning the ties among the Bushes, the Saudi royals, the other bin Ladens, and Osama bin Laden are 100% true, and that John Kerry will indeed take a much tougher stance on the rich and powerful in Saudi Arabia than Bush would. Still, I don't think that Kerry can solve the problem of terrorism at all, as terrorists do not need big money to commit mass murders, as Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma proved to us. All they need is brains and discipline. Besides, for the reasons that Ashraf Fahim mentions in his article "John Kerry's Sucker Saudi Punch" (Asia Times, June 10, 2004), I believe that Kerry's anti-Saudi posturing will remain just that — posturing in an election year. As long as Washington, be it under the Republican or Democratic White House, is committed to keeping its status as empire, running on deficits to police the capitalist world order fueled by oil, it cannot countenance democracy in the Middle East, least of all in Saudi Arabia, as there is no guarantee that democracy will bring about even more pro-American allies than the existing pro-American regimes in the predominantly Arab states. More likely than not, more democracy in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East would create new governments less cooperative with Washington. Moreover, destabilization of the existing regimes — especially the one in Saudi Arabia — may even endanger not only the US but also the world economy, which Washington under any administration can ill afford. To conclude, Fahrenheit 9/11 , a fascinating populist work of art, at times falls for conspiracy theory, not because Moore doesn't know any better, but because he has skeletons in the closet — not his own skeletons, but the Democratic Party's. |
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