Michael Moore's New Book On Bush

His new book looks good, seems Mr Moore is starting to wake up a bit more, he said in one interview that he believed with one or two more 9/11's America could be turned into a police state.

www.guardian.co.uk...

"I have seven questions for you, Mr Bush. I ask them on behalf of the 3,000 who died that September day, and I ask them on behalf of the American people. We seek no revenge against you. We want only to know what happened, and what can be done to bring the murderers to justice, so we can prevent any future attacks on our citizens.
1. Is it true that the Bin Ladens have had business relations with you and your family off and on for the past 25 years?

Most Americans might be surprised to learn that you and your father have known the Bin Ladens for a long time. What, exactly, is the extent of this relationship, Mr Bush? Are you close personal friends, or simply on-again, off-again business associates? Salem bin Laden - Osama's brother - first started coming to Texas in 1973 and later bought some land, built himself a house, and created Bin Laden Aviation at the San Antonio airfield.

The Bin Ladens are one of the wealthiest families in Saudi Arabia. Their huge construction firm virtually built the country, from the roads and power plants to the skyscrapers and government buildings. They built some of the airstrips America used in your dad's Gulf war. Billionaires many times over, they soon began investing in other ventures around the world, including the US. They have extensive business dealings with Citigroup, General Electric, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and the Fremont Group.

According to the New Yorker, the bin Laden family also owns a part of Microsoft and the airline and defence giant Boeing. They have donated $2m to your alma mater, Harvard University, and tens of thousands to the Middle East Policy Council, a think-tank headed by a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Charles Freeman. In addition to the property they own in Texas, they also have real estate in Florida and Massachusetts. In short, they have their hands deep in our pants.

Unfortunately, as you know, Mr Bush, Salem bin Laden died in a plane crash in Texas in 1988. Salem's brothers - there are around 50 of them, including Osama - continued to run the family companies and investments.

After leaving office, your father became a highly paid consultant for a company known as the Carlyle Group - one of the nation's largest defence contractors. One of the investors in the Carlyle Group - to the tune of at least $2m - was none other than the Bin Laden family. Until 1994, you headed a company called CaterAir, which was owned by the Carlyle Group.

After September 11, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal both ran stories pointing out this connection. Your first response, Mr Bush, was to ignore it. Then your army of pundits went into spin control. They said, we can't paint these Bin Ladens with the same brush we use for Osama. They have disowned Osama! They have nothing to do with him! These are the good Bin Ladens.

And then the video footage came out. It showed a number of these "good" Bin Ladens - including Osama's mother, a sister and two brothers - with Osama at his son's wedding just six and a half months before September 11. It was no secret to the CIA that Osama bin Laden had access to his family fortune (his share is estimated to be at least $30m), and the Bin Ladens, as well as other Saudis, kept Osama and his group, al-Qaida, well funded.

You've gotten a free ride from the media, though they know everything I have just written to be the truth. They seem unwilling or afraid to ask you a simple question, Mr Bush: WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

In case you don't understand just how bizarre the media's silence is regarding the Bush-Bin Laden connections, let me draw an analogy to how the press or Congress might have handled something like this if the same shoe had been on the Clinton foot. If, after the terrorist attack on the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, it had been revealed that President Bill Clinton and his family had financial dealings with Timothy McVeigh's family, what do you think your Republican party and the media would have done with that one?

Do you think at least a couple of questions might have been asked, such as, "What is that all about?" Be honest, you know the answer. They would have asked more than a couple of questions. They would have skinned Clinton alive and thrown what was left of his carcass in Guantanamo Bay."

How much will Moore add to his $10Million dollar fortune with this new book?

Sorry Michael but you ain't one of us anymore.

Oh # of Neo. This guy writes some of the best political commentary I have read. He is accurate, critical and witty as he tears apart the bush administration and all the republican idiots surrounded it. Just because he has got a load of cash for his excellent books you are hating...? Get a life man.

Originally posted by earthtone

He is accurate, critical and witty as he tears apart the bush administration and all the republican idiots surrounded it.

Accurate?
He categorically states that Saudi Arabia is the major supplier of US oil and uses that as a basis for a large chunk of his argument.

The last time I looked, Canada was the No1 oil supplier to the US.

www.ott.doe.gov...

If he can't even get a simple fact like that right, then what credibility does the rest of his argument have?

Leveller

In accounting terms, I think you are focused on a timing difference.

Like if I said that my local pizza parlor was my major food provider on the basis of a snapshot picture of two Sundays ago.

Originally posted by MaskedAvatar
Leveller

In accounting terms, I think you are focused on a timing difference.

Like if I said that my local pizza parlor was my major food provider on the basis of a snapshot picture of two Sundays ago.

I don't understand your comment.
The graph takes into account the last 3 years up to the present year.
The figures actually show that supplies from OPEC have dropped in those 3 years. As Moore is talking about a president whose term of office covers the pertinent years in the graph and bases his argument on how friendly Bush is with Saudi Arabia, whilst stating that it is the US No1 supplier when clearly it is not, I don't see what you are getting at.

Leveller

I haven't read Moore categorically making the statement that US oil imports from Saudi Arabia exceed US oil imports from Canada fro the period 2000-2002, so this is by necessity inconclusive from me.

However, I appreciate the point you are making entirely. Moore is one who will use material selectively to best demonstrate his point. To the critical observer this should not make his point any more or less valid, but it is extremely important to deal in facts. I see nothing in the facts as stated in the Guardian excerpts that I violently disagree with, yet.

My point on oil is simple. Look at the whole picture, not the past year or three years.

www.eia.doe.gov...

The graph here clearly shows the points at which non-OPEC imports have exceeded OPEC imports, and continues to point to the dominance of three countries for OPEC imports (including Saudi Arabia of course).

www.scaruffi.com...

This is an interesting historical account (from 2001) of reported oil reserves and consumption by nation. It's good to see those things tabulated in scale, and enables you to see who the power brokers are.

If Moore was highlighting the nature of the US-Saudi relationship (especially the bin Laden - Bush ties) and if he has written something that could be misconstrued to say that during 2000-2002 the US imported more oil from Saudi Arabia than Canada (sorry I have missed it), then I for one would forgive him for his sloppiness on that. But I haven't seen it.

If you've read the book, I would be interested in further deconstruction of what Moore has put forward. The kind that comes from your willingness to view the material, and not the "He is a leftist liar that no-one cares about" that can crop up at times.

Originally posted by MaskedAvatar
Leveller

I haven't read Moore categorically making the statement that US oil imports from Saudi Arabia exceed US oil imports from Canada fro the period 2000-2002, so this is by necessity inconclusive from me.

The graph here clearly shows the points at which non-OPEC imports have exceeded OPEC imports, and continues to point to the dominance of three countries for OPEC imports (including Saudi Arabia of course).

Here you go dude. It was in the first link posted by the topic starter:

"Mr Bush, the Bin Ladens are not the only Saudis with whom you and your family have a close personal relationship. The entire royal family seems to be indebted to you - or is it the other way round?

The number one supplier of oil to the US is the nation of Saudi Arabia, possessor of the largest known reserves of oil in the world. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, it was really the Saudis next door who felt threatened, and it was your father, George Bush I, who came to their rescue. The Saudis have never forgotten this. Haifa, wife of Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the US, says that your mother and father "are like my mother and father. I know if ever I needed anything I could go to them".

With regards to your second comment above:

"In 1977, 70 percent of U.S. petroleum imports came from OPEC countries. After 1992, most petroleum imports came from non-OPEC countries."

That was in the link you posted.

Leveller

Yep, got it, the second time.

Moore should be quizzed on this, indeed. His answer could be a simple as "anyone knows Saudi Arabia has been the biggest source of US oil imports of all time".

But if Canada has topped the list, then it is misleading to use "is" in this way. Unless he is going to break up his oil supply in some other way to show Saudi at the top. Who knows, till you've read the book and the footnotes.

On a scale of mendacity, Moore 1.5/10, Bush admin 11/10.

Hang on here a second before plunging into minutae of oil revenue figures. Bush's family knew the Bin Ladens - big deal. The Bin Laden family have been players in the international Oil and construction scene for decades.

Prove a positive link between one DISOWNED son of the Bin Laden family and i will start to believe Mr "grab an opportunity" Moores comentary.

The man is a tabloids dream.

Originally posted by Silk
Prove a positive link between one DISOWNED son of the Bin Laden family and i will start to believe Mr "grab an opportunity" Moores comentary.

Good point, to be looking for substance.

Prove a link between one DISOWNED son of the Bin Laden family and WHAT, exactly?

My heckles go up when I learn the only people immediately allowed to fly following the morning of 9/11 were Bin Ladens, on safe passage back to Saudi Arabia, scot free, before Bush sent his cynical and useless posse after OBL. That's an interesting policy, generally counter to the interviewing of family members that takes place in cases of mass homicide...

Bush is turning our country into a police state. Anyeone that cant see that is blind.

Dood where's my country?

[Edited on 7-10-2003 by websuspect]

Where did MA's posts go? Tee Hee

A police state - well maybe
A country defending its borders more likely - but still a country where you are free to say things like this and free to own weapons for your own protection. Not my view of a police state - perhaps you have a passport - again not something alowed in a police state or the right of free association - not a police state.

Perhaps some on here claiming that the state is taking over their lives would do well to actually look at what a police state would do to them. East Germany before the wall came down would be a good starting point.

"Prove a positive link between one DISOWNED son of the Bin Laden family"

that has to be the dumbest question I have ever heard of in my life. WAKE UP. The rest of his family are certainly not the angels they appear to be.

www.rediff.com...

"A BBC programme aired on Tuesday made a startling revelation that Federal Bureau of Investigation agents probing relatives of the Saudi-born terrorist Osama bin Laden were told to go slow soon after George W Bush became the president of the United States.

The BBC's Newsnight said Bush at one point had a number of connections with Saudi Arabia's prominent bin Laden family.

Newsnight quoting from several purportedly secret documents said the FBI probe into the September 11 terror attacks unearthed terrorist links of at least two member of the bin Laden family."

Some of you are forgetting that Moore writes SATIRICAL political comments and books, as he himself has said many times in the past. It is supposed to be based on truth but exaggarated to be FUNNY.
Have you read Downsize This? Chapters like "Steve Forbes is an Alien" because he never blinks? Funny, very very funny.
His books are deffinitely in the category of best books in the past few years. Briliant

to skew ones view is not the trait of one who has a soul...
heres this for a hypothesis...

in todays world most of the political figures in positions holding office are rich millionares, would one conclude that those in office are choosing the wrong decesion for those in which the candidate was voted in or are their opinions being dictated by capitolism...

Michael Moore rocks just for the fact that, with his new book, he's set out to violate The PAtriot Act on every page.

Go Michael

YEH! exactely. Everything he talks about is good. It's excellent that his books are selling and he is making money becuase more people are reading the message. The message of how terrible our leaders actually are and how their laws/actions/wars are all bollocks.

Hooray for Moore!!!

It doesn't matter if he tells lies or fabricates his evidence!!!!!

[Edited on 8-10-2003 by Leveller]