Afghanistan

...the right of the people peaceably to assemble… On Friday Jenny and I went to see Michael Moore on his book tour. He wrote Stupid White Men, which was nearly pulped, if not for the action of some stalwart librarians. Read about that on his site. There was an amazing turnout for conservative Navy town San Diego. The Middle School (auditorium? hall?) was filled, and Jenny and I were left outside. We got there maybe half an hour before his scheduled to speak, and they were already full. I’m not sure what the numbers were, but it was hundreds. Luckily, Mike took the time to speak to us (the slacking latecomers) before he went inside. He was inspiring, and charismatic, and funny. The book looks to be worth a look. Mike has a new round of acerbic satirical comment. He spoke about the process of getting the book to the public, and the state of the world, and had some intriguing questions he left us with about events related to 9/11.

Michael Moore’s Five Questions about 9/11 for George W Bush:
1. When domestic aviation was shut down after 9/11, there was one private airliner that was allowed to fly, a private jet, picking up members of the Bin Laden family, and taking them out of the USA. (ref: November 2001 / New Yorker / House of Bin Laden / by Jane Mayer url: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?011112fa_FACT3 Why was this special permission allowed?

2. Your former oil company, Arbusto, was financed in part by the Bin Laden family, can you tell us more about this connection?

3. In this bbc article, it is mentioned that Afghanistan might be the location of an oil pipeline. At the time Dick Cheney was the chairman of Halliburton, an oil and pipeline services company which had many dealings with UNOCAL. What is this about?

4. Why did the USA give the Taleban government $43 million in May of 2001in humanitarian aid and in part to support the Afghani poppy industry?

5. Several outlets have reported that Osama bin Laden needs, and gets Dialysis, why don’t we hear more about this fact given that it may tend to impact how well he may or not be surviving our current offensives?

I’m paraphrasing, but these are nice food for thought. Moore said he would be sending these questions along to his newsletter and would be posting them to his site.

I don’t like Year-In-Review / Top 10 of 2001 / A Look Back at 2001 pieces in any media. Why aren’t there pieces on “the last 7 years in music” or “15 years in journalism.” Longer time spans would help us learn more about larger trends. We might even gain a better sense of time. If we’re looking back 12 months, how will we, particularly the young, get a sense of the past? I’d be happy with “the last 3 recessions in American history” or “150 years of the history of Afghanistan” or even “the use of electronics in pop music since the 60’s.” I f I want a high-level view of the past year, I can look at 12 months of magazine covers. However, I would prefer to learn something about history.

But then, few have a gift for putting events and time into perspective. Perhaps the reason we don’t see more of what I want is because few can actually do the kind of research and thinking to put them together. Maybe I need to watch C-SPAN more. Booknotes, for example. often has smart people with something to say about history. And why? Because ideally, authors spend time and energy to compile lots of information, and sift through all of it to get a sense of what happened. I’d like more news outlets to act like historians. If they did, perhaps we’d all be better prepared for unexpected events.

CNN has the news that Allied Forces are attacking Afghanistan. Dystopia indeed.