There are the young and impressionable soldiers, like those who joined the Army right out of high school. They aren't familiar w/ the college-type political debate environment, and they haven't been schooled in the full range of issues involved. They are vulnerable to being hurt by a vicious film like Moore's.It's depressing stuff.
There are others who joined for reasons of money and other benefits, and never gave full thought to the issues. For them, seeing this film has jolted them grievously because they never even knew where some of these countries were that we have been serving in. Imagine the impact this film has on them.
And there are those who are hurting from being away from family and loved ones. They are burnt out, already hurting inside from 15 months of duty out here, and now to be hit w/ this film.. it is devastating.
Lastly, there are those like me, who want to explode in anger and rage at this abuse of the First Amendment and the way Moore has twisted reality so harshly.
Specialist Janecek, who is feeling depressed because a close family member is nearing the end of her life, just saw the film today. I saw him in the DFAC. He is devastated. "I feel shitty, ashamed, like this was all a lie." Not only is he looking at going straight to a funeral when he returns home, but now whatever pride he felt for serving here has been crushed by Moore's film. Specialist Everett earlier after seeing the film: "You'll be mad at shit for ever having come here."
And there are others. Mostly the comments are absolute shock at the close connections Moore makes between the Bush family and the Bin Laden family in Saudi Arabia. "Bush looks really really REALLY corrupt in this film. I just don't know what to think anymore," is a common comment to hear. Some of these soldiers are darn right ashamed tonight to be American soldiers, to have been apart of this whole mission in Iraq, and are angry over all that Moore has presented in his film.
We know this is all based on Moore's lies and deceptions. But we, I'm afraid, are a minority. Right now, just days away from what should be a proud and happy return from 15 months of duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom, your U.S. soldiers are coming back ashamed and hurt because of Moore's work.
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Monday, July 26, 2004
One soldier has written about the impact of Fahrenheit 9/11 is having on soldiers serving in the field.
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3 comments:
Betsy,
Not to criticize or call a soldier who is serving over there a liar, but I'm a bit suprised that AAFES (Army Air Force Exchange Service), who runs the movie theaters on Army and Air Force bases is showing Farenheit 9/11 at all.
As you may recall, I'm at Yokota Air Force Base in Japan (though right now I'm stateside for a summer vacation). We usually get movies 1 to 2 weeks after they open in the states. From what I can tell looking at the AAFES movie theater page, Moore's movie hasn't shown at all at Yokota. They don't even offer a synopsis of the movie on their webpage.
Currently they're showing "Troy", and this Saturday they'll be showing "I Robot".
So, like I said, not to call this guy a liar, but if you look at some of the bases in the area (Turkey for example), they're playing movies from a month ago or so. And we're supposed to believe that the soldiers in Iraq are seeing first run movies there?
Plus, my father-in-law is serving over there with the Army Corps of Engineers (he's in one of Sadam's ex-wifes palaces), and he's coming back first part of August, so I'll be asking him about it too.
Flint
I'm the blogger who posted Joe's comments. If you take a look at the first paragraph of his comments you'll see that he says "some soldiers have received it already and are passing it around." That's in Kuwait. Clearly, they have DVDs or some kind of copy for personal players.
Joe wrote me this morning (he's now in Germany, where the 1st AD is based) and said that after the soldiers had gone through customs and were waiting for their flight to germany, Fahrenheit 9/11 was put on a big screen TV in front of them. Hundreds watched. Clearly, the film is available there.
Iraq had no copyright laws, I don't know if that has changed or not, but per several Iraqi bloggers, pirated copies of movies and games were sold openly on the streets.
My husband is in Afghanistan, he mentioned that at a local bazaar they had copies of Shrek 2 for sale, it hadn't yet shown in our hometown. They had tons of first run movies on dvd available for sale at 2 and 3 dollars apiece.
Add to this, Michael Moore's statements that he doesn't believe in copyrights, and that his movie is being downloaded on a regular basis thru P2P services..and..well, I don't doubt for a minute that the movie is in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tink
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