I don’t give many bad reviews. As a matter of fact, in the 4
and a half years in which I have been doing this, there have only been three
books which I have reviewed negatively. It is no coincidence that these 3 books
were all written with an agenda to misinform. One was written by an Islamic,
one was written by a Conservative, and now this one written by Michael Moore;
no explanation of his agenda necessary. I offer this as proof on my consistency in reasoning.
As he takes us on a whirlwind tour of our American
misadventures, concluding that we have met the “Evil Empire” and it is us, he
neglects to position his arguments against the backdrop of history as he
deplores, page after page, our imperialistic designs. His take on the
acquisition of Hawaii is that we were bent on world domination. Completely
ignored is the fact that Russia and Japan were already rattling sabers at one
another, and would fight a horrific war between them over domination of the Pacific;
its resources; and of course Hawaii. Had we not gained possession of Hawaii
when we did, then Japan would have been able to launch her planes from carriers
based there against San Francisco. But details have never bothered Mr. Moore
before, so why was I expecting something different from this book?
Our domination of the Philippine Islands is fairly accurate,
though he does seem to gloss over the fact that we did grant them Independence
after helping them to defeat the Japanese. And although there have been
problems with our still having troops and ships stationed there, for the most
part, the people and government of the Philippines seem to regard our presence
in the area as more of a positive than a negative.
This is likewise in just about every one of the 132
countries which Mr. Moore laments about, where we have troops stationed. His thinking
seems parallel to that of most Conservatives, who continually lament that we
cannot be the “world’s policeman.” This is odd reasoning for an avowed liberal
such as Mr. Moore claims to be. It gives one pause to think about just why he
writes what he does. Is it how he really feels, or just the lure of easy money?
By the way, the lure of easy money is one of the things Mr. Moore complains
about the most, blaming many of the world’s ills upon it.
Like a reverse image of Rush Limbaugh, Mr. Moore goes
charging through the history of America with an agenda. Where Mr. Limbaugh
would have you think us Gods; Mr. Moore paints us as devils. He even takes our
country to task over the Cuban Missile Crisis, labeling us as the reckless
aggressors, even while acknowledging the massive buildup of tactical nuclear
weapons which we did not know about at the time. Had we invaded, we would have
been wiped out. The policy Of Mutual Assured Destruction, often derided as MAD,
is also something which Mr. Moore fails to realize actually saved us from
coming to actual nuclear war. Had one side only been able to launch a first
strike, there would have been a nuclear war.
Only the fact that neither side could afford to pull the
nuclear trigger on the other saved us from catastrophe. Contrast that against
today’s post-Cold War world, with rogue nations; and terrorists ones such as
Pakistan; in possession of nuclear unarms. Do you feel safer now? Under the
policy of M.A.D., there was never a nuclear confrontation after the bombing of
Japan at the conclusion of the Second World War. This is something which the
author fails to acknowledge, or even mention.
While taking careful and deliberate aim at the policies of
the United States in the 1950’s, Mr. Moore paints a bleak picture of the hare
brained schemes being considered by the scientific community. Some of these
plans were outright wacky; such as the plan to use nuclear weaponry to hasten
the melting of the Polar Ice Caps, raising the world’s temperature by 10
degrees; or the scheme to use the atomic bomb to change the course of
hurricanes, regardless of the fallout which would occur. There was also thought
given to Project Chariot, which would have had the United States military blast
holes in Alaska to harvest the shale oil beneath the frozen surface. What he
never tells you is that these plans were never implemented, just tossed about.
In Mr. Moore’s world, even ideas are prohibited.
The book is not all negative. But even where his facts are
correct, he never gives America the credit it is due for the good things she
has done. For instance, what other nation in the world would go to the lengths
which we did during the Bosnia-Serbian War, when we helped Islamic people from
genocide at the hands of their Christian neighbors? And, we did that at a time
when tensions were reaching an all-time high between America, which was being
billed as the Great Satan, and most of the other Islamic nations of the world.
Where was their help in the aftermath of 9/11, when they danced in the streets,
while hiding Bin Laden for 10 years?
When it comes time to examine the Second World War, once
again we are the evil ones who firebombed cities, which was even worse than the
atomic bomb, notwithstanding that had we not done so, the world today would be
desolate place as far as freedom is concerned.
In typical fashion, Mr. Moore laments that the bomb was
built without necessity, since we already knew that the Germans had abandoned
their efforts at gaining such a weapon in favor of further developing the V1
and V2 rockets which they were using to kill civilians in Britain. He seems not
to realize that once the tide of the war had changed back in favor of the
Germans, they would have continued the experiments towards obtaining a nuclear
weapon, if only to subjugate the Soviets.
As a matter of fact; Mr. Moore inadvertently tips his hand
here; as it was only the pressure exerted on Roosevelt by the 3 main scientists
who had fled Germany, including Einstein, that the bomb was an absolute
necessity if we were to win the war. They even corroborated the fact that
Germany was then, indeed, working on such a weapon herself, thus fueling the
Roosevelt administration’s decision to go ahead with the bomb. It was only
Oppenheimer and Davis who slowed the pace down enough to ascertain that the
bomb would not ignite the earth’s atmosphere and destroy all life on the planet
before proceeding with the experiments. So, one might conclude that the German
scientists on both sides were pushing their respective governments to obtain
this new weapons technology. Therefore, it is absurd to place the blame for the
resultant Cold War on any one leader’s shoulders. This whole section had me
wondering about Mr. Moore squares this view of Roosevelt with his hero of the
New Deal? Me, I don’t have that problem; I think he was right on both occasions.
As far as the decision to drop the bomb which ushered in the
Cold War, without it we would have lost at least 100,000 more Americans in
order to take the island fortress of Japan.
By page 392 it becomes apparent that this book will never
cease to amaze me. The author blames the policies of Henry Kissinger for the
ruin of America’s stature in the world, and uses that as a pretext for the
failed Presidency of Jimmy Carter. He uses the logic that the same people were
still calling the shots for the White House. Jimmy was a well-intentioned, but
un-involved bystander. By this logic, Reagan was innocent of any wrongdoing
during the Iran-Contra affair, and Bush was misled into the war in Iraq by
faulty advisers with agendas of their own.
This is an interesting book, with a lot of information in it.
As such, it needs to be read carefully. Facts are funny things, and in the hands of professional
writers and movie makers such as Mr. Moore, can
be bent to support whatever conclusion you care to make them support. But, in
the end, this book is mainly an apology for being American, and though my
government may be temporarily in the hands of idiots, being born American is
one thing for which I will never apologize.
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