I have said in print before that I am singularly unimpressed when the Left offers us some Hollywood celebrity or group of celebrities advocating for or against some issue. I'm sure we all remember actors like Sean Penn, Alex Baldwin, Eric Roberts, Susan Sarandon and Janeane Garofalo making the rounds of talk shows arguing against the war in Iraq. I'm sure we've all seen comedian Jon Stewart's faux-news show, The Daily Show, and been dismayed when we heard that it was the primary news source for a depressingly large percentage of young people of high school through college age.
Of course celebrities have every right to express their opinions. Too many of America's soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines - not to mention merchant marine and Coast Guard - have bled and died on battlefields ranging from the frozen North Atlantic to the burning deserts of Iraq to preserve our Constitutionally recognized freedoms. Even the freedom of stupid people to express idiotic opinions about things that they clearly know nothing about.
Which brings us to this weird screed from movie maker Michael Moore (who is known on this blog as Fatboy Dim). Moore posted this open letter to President Obama on his blog yesterday:
Dear President Obama,
Do you really want to be the new "war president"? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do -- destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they've always heard is true -- that all politicians are alike. I simply can't believe you're about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn't so.
It is not your job to do what the generals tell you to do. We are a civilian-run government. WE tell the Joint Chiefs what to do, not the other way around. That's the way General Washington insisted it must be. That's what President Truman told General MacArthur when MacArthur wanted to invade China. "You're fired!," said Truman, and that was that. And you should have fired Gen. McChrystal when he went to the press to preempt you, telling the press what YOU had to do. Let me be blunt: We love our kids in the armed services, but we f*#&in' hate these generals, from Westmoreland in Vietnam to, yes, even Colin Powell for lying to the UN with his made-up drawings of WMD (he has since sought redemption).
[. . .]
All of us that voted and prayed for you and cried the night of your victory have endured an Orwellian hell of eight years of crimes committed in our name: torture, rendition, suspension of the bill of rights, invading nations who had not attacked us, blowing up neighborhoods that Saddam "might" be in (but never was), slaughtering wedding parties in Afghanistan. We watched as hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were slaughtered and tens of thousands of our brave young men and women were killed, maimed, or endured mental anguish -- the full terror of which we scarcely know.
When we elected you we didn't expect miracles. We didn't even expect much change. But we expected some. We thought you would stop the madness. Stop the killing. Stop the insane idea that men with guns can reorganize a nation that doesn't even function as a nation and never, ever has.
Stop, stop, stop! For the sake of the lives of young Americans and Afghan civilians, stop. For the sake of your presidency, hope, and the future of our nation, stop. For God's sake, stop.
Tonight we still have hope.
Tomorrow, we shall see. The ball is in your court. You DON'T have to do this. You can be a profile in courage. You can be your mother's son.
We're counting on you.
Yours,Michael Moore
The thing that occurs first to anyone with a functioning memory is the question, didn't Fatboy listen to Obama during the campaign?
Obama said that the war in Iraq was a waste of time and resources which should be devoted to Afghanistan! Afghanistan was - according to Obama- the "war of necessity", the "war which must be won".
Obama promised the American people that he would provide VICTORY in Afghanistan after Bush's "mishandling" of the war there.
Fatboy, are you so delusional that you simply tuned out Obama's pounding the war drum on Afghanistan all through his campaign or is it that you thought that he was lying?
Ann Coulter thought he was lying. She pointed out in her writings that Obama's rhetoric on the Afghan war matched past Democrat policy of always supporting the war that we were not fighting and never the war that we were fighting.
Mr. Dim, poll the American people issue by issue and you will find that the socialist agenda that you support gets the support of only about 20% of the American people. In order to gain enough support from the other 80% Obama had to pretend to be something that he wasn't. He was successful enough at this to fool a narrow majority of the electorate (a few percentage points dose not a "landslide" make) and so became president.
Obama has shown average Americans over and over again that he is not the man that they thought they were electing.
The question that he must face now is whether to pander to the 20% by surrendering in the war that he said we absolutely had to win or whether he is going to show us one of those rare moments when he manages to rise above the narrow leftism of his inner nature and puts the nation first.
Also Fatboy, do you really want to consign the 25 million people of Afghanistan to the unspeakably cruel rule of the Taliban? Are you utterly lacking compassion for the vast majority of those people who do not wish to see the likes of Mullah Omar returning to torment them?
Is it your attitude that their lives and freedom are worth less than ours because they are not - what - white, Christian, don't speak English? If so have the courage to say so and proudly take your place around the burning cross with others who think like you.
After all one cannot plausibly claim that the war against the Taliban is not morally and legally justified. They invited al Qaeda into Afghanistan. They provided them with land to set up training camps. They provided part of their funding and they used their military to protect them. Osama bin Laden was a part of the Taliban government in everything but name.
So what is the basis of your opposition to the war in Afghanistan, Fatboy? If it isn't racism then what is it? Could it be that you simply hate the United States so much that you don't think we have the right to defend ourselves when attacked?
If that is the case, and I suspect it is, then you should have the courage to come out and say so. But good luck getting anyone other than that 20% who are your and Obama's true soul-mates to go along with you.
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