Nothing like it

Last Sunday night, I saw Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. What I learned from the documentary was beyond my wildest expectations that it sent me rolling over on the bed the entire night unable to sleep.

9/11 is a must-see. It certainly burst whatever bubble I have of everything beautiful and to die for American. That Sunday night I realized that I am not willing to trade anything I have or don’t have now just to be a greencard or even greenback holder.

When you believed your entire life that your country is the only remaining superpower in the world who went out of its way to supposedly teach democracy to countries ruled by tyrants, 9/11 will shatter all that. I’m pretty sure all Americans who went to see the film will wallow in self-pity and frustration. They were duped big time. They were made to live in constant fear of nothing all in the name of the almighty dollar. One will actually believe that the war in Afghanistan and Iraq were waged as a purely business venture and not for any other conspiracy theory or other reasons such as further world domination. The movie just made perfect sense and was flawlessly logical that people would perhaps wonder how something as apparent as Bush’s (father and son) Unical and Dick Cheney’s Halliburton slip through their minds. Talk about corporate corruption…

What made the movie all the more engaging was how George W. was portrayed. My mom would often say that some forces actually secured Bush’s presidency because he is the only man for the job. And that job is the stupid decision to wage war in a country that has not lifted a finger against the States but is very rich with oil. He is the only US President who can pull something like saying one thing now and saying something totally opposite the next time or who can speak with sheer conviction about something as vague and baseless as launching an offensive in this age of sovereignty and regional cooperation, not to mention death of barbarism.

But what made the movie really appalling is how families lost sons, brothers, fathers, husbands. No amount of recognition will compensate for this kind of loss especially if it was all done in vain. I actually began to think that who would want to be an American now when they had to send their sons, husbands and brothers to war not for any national interest or patriotic reason but just for a few people’s gain. One Iraq veteran said that he would rather be punished and serve jailtime than go back to Iraq. It was not worth anything. Another soldier said that whenever they kill people, they lose a part of themselves. Michael Moore also said in his narration that he couldn’t blame the members of the US Congress for not having their sons enlisted in the US army because he himself wouldn’t want to and no one else would really want to.

All of us, people from the developing world, were abused and taken advantage of by the United States. Their presence and influence can be felt in everything be it music, culture, taxes, trade policies, elections, contraception. They have played big brother to all subservient nations and America’s deception and exploitation of these countries is really nothing to be surprised of. But how Washington, the bastion of freedom and democracy, led its country to be the largest and most vulnerable terrorist target is definitely unfathomable.