If I were President Obama, and I read an open letter from Michael Moore telling me how to honor the memories of my dead mother and dead grandmother, I’d be pretty offended.
As I’ve said, I’m deeply ambivalent about a ramped-up Afghanistan deployment. So is nearly every serious commentator on the issue. Moore is far from serious. He describes Afghanistan as “a nation that doesn’t even function as a nation and never, ever has” (my emphasis), which is flatly untrue. (Go look it up.) As I wrote not long ago for Democratiya, this is the thing with Moore: an appalling incuriosity about and condescension toward other countries, coupled with a hollow profession of moral concern for the people in them.
For Moore, this is about Obama “send[ing] more poor people to kill other poor people who pose no threat to them….” There is literally not a single mention — none at all — of the Taliban in Moore’s letter. The word does not appear. I hardly need to point out that the Taliban’s violence, responsible for the majority of Afghan civilian deaths in the current phase of the conflict, is not on Moore’s radar screen. For shame.
Moore also contends that Obama is about to “destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you,” but as I’ve also said, this could only be true of those who steadfastly ignored Obama’s position on Afghanistan during the campaign. From the Denver nomination speech:
“I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.” [My emphasis.]
Wake up! You didn’t hear it, my fellow Obamaniacs? You thought he was just saying it to get elected? Well, wrong.
Now Michael Moore accuses Obama of bowing to pressure from the generals, as if that’s all there is to it. What a fundamental lack of respect. And what a rewriting of history.
5 Comments
I often find Moore as simplistic as Palin. This reductionist world view may bring on a following both left and right but it does nothing to further public dialogue on highly important issues.
I often have my own issues with Obama but ultimately I'm grateful to have the first adult in the White House since … Kennedy? Maybe not even then because Kennedy had his hidden juvenile side too, so even before my rather long-toothed time.
Obama is far from perfect (who is?) but until he proves otherwise he's the best we've had in many decades.
Moore's letter is beneath contempt.
Once again David, you captured my sentiment about another issue–
I too wondered why Moore didn't mention the Taliban. In particular how could Moore not mention the Taliban's systemic and ruthless violence against women?–i.e. Taliban spokesman stated, "the face of a woman is a source of corruption" for men not related to them. Under Taliban rule, women were not allowed to work, they were not allowed to be educated after the age of eight, and women seeking an education were forced to attend underground schools such as the Golden Needle Sewing School where they and their teachers risked execution if caught, they faced public flogging and execution for violations of the Taliban's law and the horrid list goes on and on—-
Yet I too am deeply troubled by going to war and I have to ask myself, what would I have thought if I were around when our country finally invaded and liberated Europe from the Nazi horrors in 1945? Would I and us progressive types protest and write shaming letters to FDR? While I recognize my question is not on point with the current Afghanistan war, and do not mean to make cheap analogies to the Holocaust, I do see some painful parallels with the Taliban's treatment of women to how the Nazi's treated non Aryans in the early stages of their terror.
Glory be the day when 3 cups of teas work throughout our world and believe that we can and should use this approach in most situations.
In the meantime, I will listen to our President's speech tomorrow and continue to think, ask questions and read your blog! Thank you for your thoughtful and important writing David.
Yes, thank you David. Michael Moore is a demagogue from the left.
And Sunnyschwartz – the U.S. entered WWII in 1941, not 1945. There were those who opposed our entry into the war, also on isolationist grounds.
thanks for the correction susan