See For Yourself

Having recently commented on the comments (here)I did the right thing and went to see for myself.

I stand by what I said earlier, Hitchens, O'Reilly and Isikoff do a pretty good job of nitpicking the facts and ignoring the truths. Fahrenheit 911 is not perfect. Parts are over the top, parts are a bit slow, parts may hit below the belt. But what is important about this movie is not that Moore peppers the audience with a list of facts, some slightly out of context, and then draws his own conclusions. Some of those conclusions are reasonable, some are fair questions, others are a stretch that border on conspiracy theories.

The important part of the movie comes in the second half of the film when Moore stops drawing conclusions and switches tactics by simply showing the results of war on human beings. This is the stuff that the nightly news ought to be showing us. I grew up during Vietnam and I remember Walter Cronkite, and body bags coming home, and Life Magazine showing a picture of a naked child running in fear and panic. F911, at its best, is in that category. It does not blink or turn away from shattered limbs and shattered lives.

America needs to see this. And if the evening news won't do it, I'm glad Michael Moore will. There are times that war is necessary, and there are just causes that are worth dying for. I don't believe that the Iraq war is one of those, I believe that it is an unjust war fought for the wrong reasons. But even if it were a war of necessity, the American people should be able to see the truth of war. That is the truth that Moore presents.

So who you gonna believe? Me or your own lying eyes. Go see for yourself.