Mapping the social impact of Fahrenheit 9/11

“Take This Blog and Shove It!” happens to be the title of an interesting article in the August 16, 2010, issue of Newsweek magazine (pp. 42-44), “…and about 95 percent of blogs are launched and quickly abandoned. A recent Pew study found that blogging has withered as a pastime, with the number of 18- to 24-year olds who identify themselves as active bloggers dropping by half between 2006 and 2009.”

So, to anyone actually reading my very late postings, I apologize for being so behind in my blog and forum comments (I have no good excuses, but plenty of complicated explanations, from gargantuan computer hardware and software problems, to an abysmally embarrassing ignorance of WEB 2.0 technologies…)

While I was doing my recommended navigating [www.slate.com/id/2102723/], was amused by Christopher Hitchens’ lengthy 2004 derisive characterization of Moore’s documentary as “a sophomoric celluloid rewriting of recent history” (“Unfairenheit 9/11;The lies of Michael Moore, by Christopher Hitchens). However, I have to admit that he was not entirely wrong. The movie clearly was a re-writing of the war-mongering, jingoistic, and über-patriotic half-truths and outright lies being shoved down our throats at the time. And it was obviously thought provoking for millions of audiences worldwide, including both the sophomoric and the sophisticated.

The Telegraph of London found it to be the Number 1 film of the decade and explained, “It may not have been the best film of the decade. It may not have been the best film Moore has made (that honor still belongs to 1989’s “Roger and Me”). Nevertheless, it’s hard to overstate the importance of this film, a modestly funded political documentary that was shunned by its Disney backers but went on to, coin more than $220 million around the world…” [http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/]

As for Hitchens’ charge that it was “propagandistic,” it is clearly not “propaganda” in the strictest sense, at least not in the terms Patricia Aufderheide defines the subgenre in her book on Documentary Film: A very Short Introduction. Propaganda is most often associated with government films, and Michael “Moore is not a minion of the powerful as propagandists are… Further, he was encouraging viewers to look critically at their government’s words and actions….” [Aufderheide, p. 7 & pp. 65-67]

I think most people would agree that Michael Moore’s take on the events leading up to the horrendous and unnecessary political and military blunder in Iraq has stood the test of time far better than Hitchens’ apologia for the Bush administration. Thanks to Moore’s documentary, many courageous journalists, and many thousands of citizen peace activists around the world, public support for the war in Iraq eventually waned and paved the way for President Obama’s removal of combat troops—not, however, before more than 4,400 US soldiers lost their lives, over 30,000 were wounded, 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and at a cost of $1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion dollars)…

[http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g6yZX1Zjrr7k_qgkYBRbqTFybzqAD9HUMLUG0]

Facts, figures related to the Iraq war

(AP) 14:00 PDT August 31, 2010

Facts related to the Iraq war and the nation's economy as the U.S. combat role ends:

U.S. TROOP LEVELS:

· _ March 31, 2003: 90,000 (beginning of war)

· _ October 2007: 170,000 (peak of troop buildup)

· _ Aug. 31, 2010: Approximately 49,700

COALITION TROOP LEVELS:

· _ Number of countries that participated in "Coalition for the Immediate Disarmament of Iraq" at the start of the war: 31, including the United States

· _ As of August 2009, all non-U.S. coalition members had withdrawn from Iraq.

CASUALTIES:

· _ Confirmed U.S. military deaths as of Aug. 31, 2010: At least 4,416

· _ Confirmed U.S. military wounded (hostile) as of Aug. 31, 2010: 31,929

· _ Confirmed U.S. military wounded (non-hostile, using medical air transport) as of July 31, 2010: 40,166

· _ Iraqi deaths since the 2003 invasion: More than 97,461, according to the Iraq Body Count database.

COST:

· _ More than $744 billion, according to the National Priorities Project. To date, $747.3 billion has been allocated to the war since 2003. In January 2010, the Congressional Budget Office projected that additional war costs for the next 10 years could range from $274 billion to $588 billion.

INTERNAL REFUGEES:

· _ 2003: 1.02 million

· _ 2010: An estimated 1.55 million people are currently displaced inside Iraq.

EMIGRANTS:

· _ 2003: 500,000 Iraqis living abroad

· _ 2010: Approximately 2 million Iraqis, mainly in Syria and Jordan

· _ June 2010: At least 275,350 refugees and internally displaced persons have returned to Iraq.

NOTE: All figures are the most recent available.

Sources: The Associated Press, State Department, Defense Department, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, International Organization for Migration (IOM), The Brookings Institution, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, National Priorities Project, Department of Labor, Congressional Budget Office, Iraq Body Count, Energy Information Administration.

AP researcher Julie Reed Bell compiled this report.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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