posted July 10, 2004 06:40 AM            

Bin Laden: "I have told the Swiss attorney general. I have told him listen, I have 20 years of accounting. You are welcome to look, to go through it."

Lauer: "Are you cooperating with the United States authorities?"

Bin Laden: "I have never been asked."

That surprising statement leads to a much bigger question. Did the United States, after Sept. 11, fail to properly investigate members of the bin Laden family before letting them leave the country? It's a point made strongly in Michael Moore's hit documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Moore tells how 140 Saudi nationals, including 23 members of the bin Laden family, were allowed to leave the United States on private jets just a few days after the Sept. 11 attacks. The way the filmmaker depicts it, the Saudis got special treatment because of their close ties to the Bush family, and were never properly questioned before they left.

Michael Moore: "When they were interviewed they were already on the plane. They were sitting on the plane and the FBI goes, Okay who are you? Okay. Any problems here? Okay. Okay. Okay. And then that's it. That's not how the police do it when there's a murder."

Yeslam says his family did not ask for special treatment after Sept. 11. He told us his story of the so-called bin Laden flights.

Lauer: "At one point, Yeslam, you traveled, I understand, to the south of France to meet with two of your brothers."

Bin Laden: "Yes, this was on a Saturday or Sunday right, the weekend after. I met with my older brother and there we discussed the possibility of bringing everybody back to Saudi Arabia."

Lauer: "So at no time did you discuss evacuating bin Laden family members from the United States while the U.S. airspace was still closed down?"

Bin Laden: "It was impossible. U.S. airspace was closed. Nobody could move."

Lauer: "Michael Moore leaves the impression that 23 members of the bin Laden family were given special treatment, at the very least, by U.S. officials, to leave the United States in the days immediately following Sept. 11."

Bin Laden: "That is not true. The airplane landed in Geneva. I went to the airport."

Lauer: "What day?"

Bin Laden: "It was Thursday the 20th of September."

That was seven days after U.S. airspace had re-opened. NBC News analyst Roger Cressey worked on the National Security Council at the time and says the NSC approved the Saudi flights.

cressey: "We had asked the FBI, did they have any reason to keep these planes and prevent these individuals from leaving. The Bureau told us they did not. So we said, well, if you're ok with it, we're going to let them go."

In a preliminary report, the independent, bipartisan Commission investigating the 9/11 attacks found the FBI adequately checked out the bin Laden relatives before letting them go.

Lauer: "So you never picked up the phone and called anyone in the Bush administration, nor did anyone in your family?"

Bin Laden: "No. And this was done by the Saudi government, I think, through its embassy in Washington."

Yeslam says there was one simple reason to get his relatives out of the country.

Lauer: "Were the members of your family worried for their safety?"

Bin Laden: "Would you if you are in that position?"

He decided to speak now in part to rebut "Fahrenheit 9/11." Ironically, he himself wants to be a film producer. Even as Michael Moore was accepting the Best Picture award at Cannes this year, Yeslam was meeting with potential investors in a new project. But many say his last name makes it tough for him to find business partners.

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Where and when did Michael Moore lie? In the movie, MM said that the bin Laden Family was free to leave the country after September 13th 2001,whether they actually left the country or not,was solely up to them! They just happen to leave the US on 9/13/01. And this means that US air space was closed for only 48 hours after the event that 9/11 took place, but Yeslam was in Geneva during the time of the Septemeber 11th attacks, so was it that he was trying to get his family out of the US two days later when the US air space was closed 48 hours prior to that? OHHH,but this gets even better! So, he was in Geneva,flying to Geneva on a private plane,while he was in South of France(discussing with his two other brothers how to get they're 23 family members out of the US),while they(Yeslam and his two brothers) were being detained and question by the Swiss and French authorities for seven days??!! And this happened before September 20th 2001,when Yeslam met his family at the airport in Geneva,am I missing something here, or was the 23 members of the bin Laden family flying the "Friendly Skys" for seven straight days before meeting up with Yeslam bin Laden in Geneva on the 20th of September 2001??!!

Next thing that we'll know is that we'll find out the meaning of the word Al-quaida,only to find out that it is a Muslum word for "Stupid Americans"!

WHERE AND WHEN DID MICHAEL MOORE LIE?!

posted July 10, 2004 11:22 AM              

quote:

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Sen. Byron Dorgan (on camera): We had some airplanes authorized at the highest levels of our government to fly to pick up Osama Bin Laden's family members and others from Saudi Arabia and transport them out of this country.

Narration (voice only): It turns out that the White House approved planes to pick up the bin Ladens and numerous other Saudis. At least six private jets and nearly two dozen commercial planes carried the Saudis and the Bin ladens out of the U.S. after September 13th. In all, 142 Saudis, including 24 members of the bin Laden family, were allowed to leave the country.

---

The actual points Moore is making here is that 1) the departure was authorized by the White house, and 2) that the departing family members and relatewd Saudi nationals were only "briefly interviewed" before they were allowed to leave.

Are these lies? Well, here's the testimony of former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, who approved the flights:

quote:

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"it was a conscious decision with complete review at the highest levels of the State Department and the FBI and the White House."

- Testimony of Richard Clarke, Former Counterterrorism Chief, National Security Council, before The Senate Judiciary Committee, September 3, 2003.

---

The other point raised was that these family members were not subjected to signifcant interrogation before being allowed to leave the country ... as for example, you would expect the family of a bank robber to be thoroughly interrogated before being allowed to leave the country. Jack Cloonan, a former senior agent on the joint FBI-CIA Al-Qaeda task force, was interviewed in Fahrenheit 9/11, and raised questions about the type of investigation to which these individuals were subjected, finding it highly unusual that in light of the seriousness of the attack on 9/11, bin Laden family members were allowed to leave the country and escape without anyone getting their statements on record in any kind of formal proceeding, and with little more than a brief interview.

Is this a lie? Well here's what the congressional 9/11 investigation found:

quote:

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Thirty of the 142 people on these flights were interviewed by the FBI, including 22 of the 26 people (23 passengers and 3 private security guards) on the Bin Ladin flight. Many were asked detailed questions. None of the passengers stated that they had any recent contact with Usama Bin Ladin or knew anything about terrorist activity.

- National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Threats and Responses in 2001, Staff Statement No. 10, The Saudi Flights, p. 12

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posted July 10, 2004 05:21 PM              

Yet when one turns to the sources of this "factual" reporting, what one finds is either arguments that disagree with Moore's opinions (which is perfectly fine, but it's not "exposing lies"), OR valid arguments debunking facts that Moore never said! Innocent people are taken in by this trickery, and go on to tell others with sincere conviction that the film is full of lies, and thus it goes ... before long, such disinformation is circulating as "known fact."

IMHO, the real war going on today is an information war, and it's being fought with some very powerful, but deceitful, tactics. And that goes for both sides. In my case, I am well aware that a LOT of the anti-Bush rhetoric is peppered with error, omissions and outright fabrications. I wish it weren't so, but it is. And the same is true of the pro-Bush rhetoric. I think the lesson we all need to learn is that, sad as it is, we cannot rely on "journalists" to tell the truth. When assertions are made that are important, we need to check the sources ourselves, and take everything with a grain of salt that can't be established independently from first sources. Otherwise, we end up being sources of disinformation ourselves, as we repeat what we have been told is fact and those who trust our integrity therefore accept it as fact also.

This puts a huge - and in many ways unfair - burden on all of us, to be our own fact-checkers. It's only natural to turn to journalists and commentators whose viewpoints are similar to our own, and we should be able to rely on those sources to present us with information that is factually accurate (even if presented in a context that supports their own point of view). But unfortunately, in this fierce battle for control of minds and opinions, we CAN'T rely on that. Too often, commentators say whatever they think will sway others to their viewpoint. It's a precept of advertising that if you repeat something often enough it will come to be perceived as "a known fact." Too many journalists these days work by the rules of advertising rather than journalism. Sad but true.

posted July 10, 2004 05:32 PM              

"One does not make wars less likely by formulationg rules of warfare...
war cannot be humanized. It can only be eliminated..."
Albert Einstein

"Politics is a pendulum whose swings between anarchy and tyranny are fueled by perpetually rejuvenated illusions."
Albert Einstein
____________________________________________
Violent means will give violent freedom.
What kind of victory is it when someone is left defeated?

You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil.

A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul.

Ghandi

"An Eye for an Eye makes the whole world blind."
...Mahatma Gandhi
____________________________________________

"You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked;
For they stand together before the face of the sun even as the black thread and the
white are woven together.
And when the black thread breaks, the weaver shall look into the whole cloth,
and he shall examine the loom also."
...Kahlil Gibran,The Prophet

posted July 10, 2004 07:02 PM              

Among all of the crimes that Saddam will be judged, there are NO reference to terrorism or to connections with Al-Qaeda...

As Tony Blair said this week about WMD in Iraq: "I have to accept we haven't found them and we may never find them, We don't know what has happened to them...They could have been removed. They could have been hidden. They could have been destroyed."

""He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

Jackie

posted July 12, 2004 02:33 PM              

quote:

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I refuse to support that anti-American drivel.

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Many people in Europe actually see Moore as an example of what is thought here as the best of America. Willingness to fight what matters, determination, etc...

quote:

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Saddam's crimes against humanity are substantiation enough to justify removing him from power--just as we should have done to Hitler when we had the chance.

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posted July 13, 2004 12:38 AM              

The movie lauds an anti-Bush riot that took place in Washington, D.C., on the day of Bush’s inauguration. Moore continues:

“No President had ever witnessed such a thing on his inauguration day. And for the next eight months it didn’t get any better for George W. Bush. He couldn’t get his judges appointed; he had trouble getting his legislation passed; and he lost Republican control of the Senate. His approval ratings in the polls began to sink.”

Part of this is true. Once Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords left the Republican party, Democrats controlled the Senate, and stalled the confirmation (not “appointment”) of some of the judges whom Bush had nominated for the federal courts.

Congress did enact the top item on Bush’s agenda: a large tax cut. During the summer, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives easily passed many of Bush’s other agenda items, including the bill whose numbering reflected the President’s top priority: H.R. 1, the Bush “No Child Left Behind” education bill. The fate of the Bush bills in the Democratic-controlled Senate, as of August 2001, was uncertain. The Senate later did pass No Child Left Behind, but some other Bush proposals did not pass.

Did Bush’s approval ratings begin to sink? Not really. Moore shows a screen displaying Bush with 53% job approval on May 3, and 45% on September 5. Strangely, the screen shot includes no source for this alleged poll.

University of Minnesota History Professor Steven Ruggles has compiled a chart showing Bush’s approval ratings in 13 major polls throughout his Presidency. According the chart, never during 2001 did Bush’s approval rating fall as low as 45% in any of the polls.

Nor did Bush’s approval ratings really “sink” after inauguration day. Bush’s popularity ratings rose significantly in April (when his tax cut was the main issue in Congress), and then returned to more normal levels in June. From Bush’s inaugural until September 10, almost all of his approval ratings were in the 50-60% range, with only a few results from an occasional poll either higher or lower.

Lee from Moorewatch picks each issue apart:
Comment @ Moorewatch

About eight minutes into the film we have Michael Moore’s thumbnail look at Bush’s first eight months in office. Let’s take a look at the accuracy of his portrayal.

He couldn’t get his judges appointed.

Absolutely not true. While there was indeed some issues where Democrats obstructed some of Bush’s judicial nominees, Bush did indeed get a number of judges appointed and confirmed by Congress. This DOJ page shows the judicial confirmations that took place during the 107th Congress. Every one of these was a Bush appointee.

He had trouble getting his legislation passed.

At this point Moore shows a clip of an unfurling Greenpeace banner protesting drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve. However, what Moore fails to mention is that during this time period Bush got a massive tax cut passed, the Economic Growth and Tax Reform Reconciliation Act of 2001. Even if this was the only thing Bush accomplished during this time period (it wasn’t) it would show Moore’s assertion to be patently untrue.

And he lost Republican control of the Senate.

Here Moore shows a clip of Sen. Jim Jeffords, who defected from the GOP to become an independent who caucused with the Democrats. While this is factually accurate, it is worthwhile to note that the first election cycle after the defection saw the American people return control of the Senate to Republican hands, and Jim Jeffords making overtures to his former party to keep his committee chairmanship.

Bush's August Vacation

From paratrooper, caught by JimK (Discuss @ Moorewatch):

Here’s the first actual lie I found in the movie transcript. Not only is it factually untrue, but it’s also wrong in spirit. The Presidency travels with the President. He had daily security briefings ( except Sunday). His staff was with him, along with a bunch of reporters. He did work most days, and TRAVELED away from the ranch.

He did not stay at the ranch for the rest of August. He was in and out.

FROM THE MOVIE:

George Bush spent the rest of August at the ranch where life was less complicated.

This is said to give the impression that Bush wasn’t working for a whole month, and never traveled away from the ranch.

BUT.............

From the Official White House Press Briefing for August travel arrangements;

While in Texas, he will have a working vacation there. I was going to do this at the end of the briefing. Let me give you some information now. But the President will travel for approximately two days a week each week during his visit to Texas. The upcoming week, he will travel one day to build a house in nearby Waco, Texas, to participate in a Habitat for Humanity event.

The following week, the President will travel to Colorado and New Mexico. The week following that, the President will travel roughly three days to Wisconsin and other locations TBD. He’ll also travel to Pennsylvania that week.

The following week, the President will have an event in nearby San Antonio, and you can also anticipate travel over Labor Day weekend to some unnamed cities as of this point.

Now, before you asshats say “Is that the best you can do?”

I must say , yes.

That’s the best I can do with the first 4 minutes of the movie.

Now.............to minute 5.

Arguing both sides again

Christopher Hitchens points out the inconsistency of this phony criticism as well as another misrepresentation by Moore's sneaky camera tricks:

A film that bases itself on a big lie and a big misrepresentation can only sustain itself by a dizzying succession of smaller falsehoods, beefed up by wilder and (if possible) yet more-contradictory claims. President Bush is accused of taking too many lazy vacations. (What is that about, by the way? Isn't he supposed to be an unceasing planner for future aggressive wars?) But the shot of him "relaxing at Camp David" shows him side by side with Tony Blair. I say "shows," even though this photograph is on-screen so briefly that if you sneeze or blink, you won't recognize the other figure. A meeting with the prime minister of the United Kingdom, or at least with this prime minister, is not a goof-off.

Hitchens also comments on my absolute favorite Bush line ever: the "Now watch this drive" line.

The president is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, on a golf course, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and then asking the reporters to watch his drive. Well, that's what you get if you catch the president on a golf course. If Eisenhower had done this, as he often did, it would have been presented as calm statesmanship. If Clinton had done it, as he often did, it would have shown his charm.

posted July 13, 2004 12:04 PM            

At least, that's what the Repukes want!

Why don't they just declare a major war on the world, then they can really have some peace and they never have to die or get they're kids to die for it?!

posted July 13, 2004 02:03 PM            

Interesting how people just ignore what Lioneye posted, since it refutes some of the drivel alleged in the movie, instead being wise-***** about where he chooses to live. Yet when attacked (back) you all cry wolf. The hypocrisy is sickening. Talk about double standards.

You claim to have love in your hearts, but the venom with which you address conservatives speaks otherwise. The venom and hatred with which you speak of Bush says otherwise. The sheer joy taken in anything disparaging about Bush says otherwise. You claim to have love and peace in your heart, but your words say otherwise.

If you truly enshrined those beliefs of love and peace that you espouse, you would not have such venom to pour on your supposed 'enemies'.

I'm out for the day, so while you're on the offensive attacking and disparaging me for saying so, don't expect a response until this evening. I won't be around.

posted July 13, 2004 06:02 PM            

Isis for all you say about people talking down to others,it's like you of all people should be the one that would talk,like you never talk down to anybody,you've done it a number of times to me and others!

Lioneye, I know that it wasn't too hard to find that dude's post,concidering that he has pretty much has post that same message on every website that he could think of,like as if going to the movies was a first time experiance for him and he wanted the WHOLE WORLD to know it! I'm surprised that this Vomit nugget,vacuum even knew how to count to five(in the first place),first of all,the "Now watch this drive part,wasn't in the first five minute of the film,it was like it was 1/3 through the movie,before that scene of the movie came up.

Education Week Commentary
November 6, 2002
Page 36

Proficiency Is Not Enough
By Carol Ann Tomlinson

The 'No Child Left Behind' Act fails to balance equity and excellence.

Throughout our history, Americans have stood strong for two bedrock values: equity and excellence. Defining equity in terms of access to opportunity, we remain a country that values the possibility that every child—even those born into poverty—can achieve eminence through effort. We are a better and stronger people, we continue to remind ourselves, to the degree that we support this journey. At the same time, we hold fast to the value of excellence. Americans want to be the best—in science, engineering, movie-making, athletics, and countless other endeavors. If something matters to us, we want, as a nation, to push the envelope of possibilities in that area.

Balancing these twin commitments, to equity and to excellence, is a challenge. But it is a nonnegotiable one if we are to become who we wish to be. Nowhere is the challenge greater than in public education. Yet, nowhere else do we find the means to achieve the balance that we seek. Schools are the primary pathway in our society to equality of opportunity. They also are the mechanism through which we train individual human minds to function at peak levels—and, thus, to collectively scale new heights as a nation.

Yet, one of the reasons it is so devilishly difficult to balance equity and excellence in our schools is that, despite the political rhetoric to the contrary, we simply don't provide adequate economic support to nurture both goals. We have a substantial history in education, in fact, of supporting one to the detriment of the other. There have been few examples of our simultaneously giving attention to both goals. At times, we have come close to setting the fulcrum at a point of balance, but rarely have we done so. The "No Child Left Behind" Act of 2001 appears to be another missed opportunity.

This federal legislation is a laudable advance toward equity. Its impetus to ensure that all children achieve proficiency in the foundational skills of learning is clear, and some financial support for doing so is forthcoming. It would not take much to adjust the legislation so that it also supported excellence. But for now, it does not.

At present, the No Child Left Behind Act aims the nation's attention and resources at ensuring that nonproficient students move systematically toward proficiency. There is no incentive for schools to attend to the growth of students once they attain proficiency, or to spur students who are already proficient to greater achievement, and certainly not to inspire those who far exceed proficiency. To provide encouragement—even the impetus—to ensure that schools plan for the growth of every child, thus attending to both equity and excellence, would not require a great deal.

In most classrooms, there are students who can score at a level far beyond proficiency in that grade before each school year begins. Our educational history demonstrates clearly that teachers are prone to ignore these students in favor of learners in academic difficulty. Few, if any, provisions are made in general classrooms to ensure continuing challenge for advanced learners. In some cases, programs outside the general classroom, often meeting once a week for less than an hour, are designated as places that should provide this academic challenge.

Many other students in general classrooms, of course, have achieved proficiency, or will achieve it, prior to designated testing dates. The No Child Left Behind Act, with its focus on proficiency rather than academic growth, enhances the likelihood that this broad swath of learners will be all but irrelevant in daily classroom planning.

The act does nothing to focus our national conversation, teacher training, or classroom planning on what would be necessary to teach young people to be truly literate.

That we as a nation have elected to "raise educational standards" through a remediation-focused initiative is a familiar irony. Yes, decoding and encoding are clearly invaluable tools for opening access to educational opportunity. But we have known for a long time that true readers are born when young people discover meaning in literature; writers are born when children discover the potential of the written word for sharing stories and probing issues in their own lives and in the larger world.

Readers and writers are also thinkers, askers of questions that defy easy answers. One wonders what the differences for learners, and for the nation, might be if the power of the federal government lined up behind a curriculum designed to ensure reasoning and a passion to communicate. Wouldn't this serve our young people better than defining success largely in terms of decoding and encoding?

Making sure children have the ability to decipher and record words is certainly a step in the direction of ensuring equity in education. The problem, however, is that by setting the bar of achievement at a level lower than what we ought to expect of any of our children, the No Child Left Behind Act does nothing to focus our national conversation, teacher training, or classroom planning on what would be necessary to teach young people to be truly literate. Once again we seem to forget that excellence and equity are required of a nation that wills itself to excel in the world.

Perhaps most regrettable is that this new legislation repeats a past pattern of approaching a group of largely poor and minority students with minimal expectations for achievement. That these students are often poorly served in school (and in society) is both evident and tragic. The question is whether they will be better served by an educational initiative that emphasizes baseline performance or one that is directed at ensuring their growth well beyond proficiency.

If the No Child Left Behind Act put its considerable force behind continuous growth for every learner, outcomes for students we seldom identify with excellence might be remarkably improved. Students who are currently nonproficient might well be better served (as would many other students) by a systematic plan to move the maximum number of learners toward excellence, rather than limiting the focus to something significantly less robust.

As it is now, No Child Left Behind supports the proposition that proficiency is good enough.

If the language of the federal legislation were amended, and the necessary funding provided to require planning for monitoring and ensuring the growth of every child, we would be far closer to an educational system primed to maximize the capacity of each learner. As it is now, No Child Left Behind supports the proposition that proficiency (which can be defined at somewhat minimal levels) is good enough.

An equity initiative that discourages attention to excellence—no matter how laudable its goals may seem—cannot take us the full distance we need to go as a nation. While it is a critical time in our history to ensure that vulnerable students are fully supported in growth, it is not a good time to tacitly post a sign on the schoolhouse door that says, "We have no serious plans for you once you are beyond proficiency." At this moment in history, it would seem more essential than at most other times to make a clear statement of will and policy to ensure that we raise ceilings of performance as fervently as we raise floors.

How much more promising the No Child Left Behind Act would be if it genuinely ensured that no child would be left behind in terms of developing his or her possibilities—if it unreservedly supported both equity and excellence.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Carol Ann Tomlinson is a professor of educational leadership, foundations, and policy at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, Va., and the president of the National Association for Gifted Children, whose headquarters are in Washington.

© Reprinted with permission of the author from the November 6, 2002, issue of Education Week, Volume 22, Number 10, Page 36,38

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So much from a president that doesn't know how to spell his name,he must be the child that was left behind!