Re: Truce, please

From: Steve Catanzaro (stevencatanzaro@sprintmail.com)
Date: Thu Sep 13 2001 - 18:26:35 CEST

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    Michael Moore? A man who has made substantial income in America for
    criticizing the American way of life?

    In the first place, yes, we trained troops in Nicaragua, Contras, to fight
    against communist, Soviet-funded expansionism. Does Moore miss communism or
    something? Unfortunately, in war, civilians get killed. But, doesn't the
    Soviet Union bear at least some of the responsibility for trying to expand
    its communist, totalitarian vision across the world? Why is it only
    AMERICA'S fault that civilians die in a war against communist dictators?
    Because American companies make money, unlike Soviet companies? Does Moore
    want everyone poor (except him, of course.)

    Yes we trained Afghan rebels to fight the Soviet expansionism. Does Moore
    wish the Soviets won the cold war? I wonder how much money he'd make poking
    fun at government officials if we lived in a Soviet dominated world.

    As for airport security, I agree it has become laughable. But Moore will get
    his wish. Security will be heigthened; unfortunately, costs will skyrocket,
    but that's fine for Moore, who makes substantial money poking fun at
    America's leaders... there will be less instances of the "comman man"
    fighting for space with him on the armrests. More room for him to stretch
    out his gilded legs. He'll still be able to afford to fly, no matter what
    the cost. But, he won't have to share pressurized air with the average,
    Nike-wearing American citizen he despises.

    As for Moore's unability to believe that Osama bin Laden trained pilots
    could be solely responsible (again, in Moore's world, anything bad that
    happens *has* to have been caused by the US and its *booga booga*
    corporations); flight experts have said that anyone with 100 hours training
    could steer a 767, once it was airborne, into a large upright target like
    the WTC.

    So, it's "Baby Bush's" fault? The world hates us because of him? Oh, if only
    we could have Clinton back; then Osama Bin Laden would be nice again... but
    wait, didn't he bomb US embassies when Clinton was President, when the
    Isreali-Palestinian peace process was in full swing?

    It is really unbelievable that a rich "filmmaker" like Michael Moore, even
    at a time like this, blames America and Americanism for the actions of a
    small cadre of international outlaws. (The last part is particularly
    chilling... would Moore have been happier if bin Laden struck a state that
    voted for Bush in the last election? Better that Republicans die than
    Democrats? What sort of a sick, twisted mind would even insinuate such a
    thing, even bring it up at a time like this?)

    May the public find this man and his views thoroughly discredited.

    ************************************************************************

    Too harsh, you say? Well, chew on this: a first-year pilot on
    American Eagle (the commuter arm of
    American Airlines) receives around $15,000 a year in annual pay.

    That's right -- $15,000 for the person who has your life in his
    hands. Until recently, Continental
    Express paid a little over $13,000 a year. There was one guy, an
    American Eagle pilot, who had four
    kids so he went down to the welfare office and applied for food
    stamps -- and he was eligible!

    Someone on welfare is flying my plane? Is this for real? Yes, it is.

    So spare me the talk about all the precautions the airlines and the
    FAA is taking. They, like all
    businesses, are concerned about one thing -- the bottom line and the
    profit margin.

    Four teams of 3-5 people were all able to penetrate airport security
    on the same morning at 3 different
    airports and pull off this heinous act? My only response is -- that's all?

    Well, the pundits are in full diarrhea mode, gushing on about the
    "terrorist threat" and today's
    scariest dude on planet earth -- Osama bin Laden. Hey, who knows,
    maybe he did it. But, something just
    doesn't add up.

    Am I being asked to believe that this guy who sleeps in a tent in a
    desert has been training pilots to
    fly our most modern, sophisticated jumbo jets with such pinpoint
    accuracy that they are able to hit
    these three targets without anyone wondering why these planes were so
    far off path?

    Or am I being asked to believe that there were four
    religious/political fanatics who JUST HAPPENED to
    be skilled airline pilots who JUST HAPPENED to want to kill themselves
    today?

    Maybe you can find one jumbo jet pilot willing to die for the cause
    -- but FOUR? Ok, maybe you can -- I
    don't know.

    What I do know is that all day long I have heard everything about
    this bin Laden guy except this one
    fact -- WE created the monster known as Osama bin Laden!

    Where did he go to terrorist school? At the CIA!

    Don't take my word for it -- I saw a piece on MSNBC last year that
    laid it all out. When the Soviet
    Union occupied Afghanistan, the CIA trained him and his buddies in
    how to commits acts of terrorism
    against the Soviet forces. It worked! The Soviets turned and ran. Bin
    Laden was grateful for what we
    taught him and thought it might be fun to use those same techniques against
    us.

    We abhor terrorism -- unless we're the ones doing the terrorizing.

    We paid and trained and armed a group of terrorists in Nicaragua in
    the 1980s who killed over 30,000
    civilians. That was OUR work. You and me. Thirty thousand murdered
    civilians and who the hell even
    remembers!

    We fund a lot of oppressive regimes that have killed a lot of
    innocent people, and we never let the
    human suffering THAT causes to interrupt our day one single bit.

    We have orphaned so many children, tens of thousands around the
    world, with our taxpayer-funded
    terrorism (in Chile, in Vietnam, in Gaza, in Salvador) that I suppose
    we shouldn't be too surprised
    when those orphans grow up and are a little whacked in the head from
    the horror we have helped cause.

    Yet, our recent domestic terrorism bombings have not been conducted
    by a guy from the desert but rather
    by our own citizens: a couple of ex-military guys who hated the
    federal government.

    From the first minutes of today's events, I never heard that
    possibility suggested. Why is that?

    Maybe it's because the A-rabs are much better foils. A key ingredient
    in getting Americans whipped into
    a frenzy against a new enemy is the all-important race card. It's
    much easier to get us to hate when
    the object of our hatred doesn't look like us.

    Congressmen and Senators spent the day calling for more money for the
    military; one Senator on CNN even
    said he didn't want to hear any more talk about more money for
    education or health care -- we should
    have only one priority: our self-defense.

    Will we ever get to the point that we realize we will be more secure
    when the rest of the world isn't
    living in poverty so we can have nice running shoes?

    In just 8 months, Bush gets the whole world back to hating us again.
    He withdraws from the Kyoto
    agreement, walks us out of the Durban conference on racism, insists
    on restarting the arms race -- you
    name it, and Baby Bush has blown it all.

    The Senators and Congressmen tonight broke out in a spontaneous
    version of "God Bless America." They're
    not a bad group of singers!

    Yes, God, please do bless us.

    Many families have been devastated tonight. This just is not right.
    They did not deserve to die. If
    someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing
    thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE
    for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes' destination of
    California -- these were places that
    voted AGAINST Bush!

    Why kill them? Why kill anyone? Such insanity.

    Let's mourn, let's grieve, and when it's appropriate let's examine
    our contribution to the unsafe world
    we live in.

    It doesn't have to be like this.

    Yours,

    Michael Moore
    mmflint@aol.com



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