"What Does a 99-cent Bic Lighter Tell Us About the Bush War on
Terrorism?"
by Michael Moore
On September 22, 2001, just 11 days after the terrorist attacks in New
York and
Arlington, I had to fly. I had been scheduled to give a talk in San
Antonio, and
so off I went on an American flight out of Newark. At the airport there
was a
newly, hastily put-together list of all the items that I could NOT bring
aboard
the plane. The list was long and bizarre. The list of banned items
included:
No guns. (Obviously)
No knives. (Ditto)
No boxcutters. (Certainly now
justified)
No toenail clippers. (What?)
No knitting needles. (Huh?)
No crotchet hooks. (Now, wait
a minute!)
No sewing needles.
No mace.
No leaf blowers. (OK, now it's
personal)
No corkscrews.
No letter openers.
No dry ice.
Frankly, I was a little freaked-out about flying so soon after 9-11 and
I guess
there was just no way I was going to fly without a weapon for my
protection. So
I took the New York Yankees-signed baseball that Mayor Giuliani had
given me on
"TV Nation," put it in a sock, and ? presto! Whip that baby
upside somebody's
head, and they're going to take a little nap. Note to budding
terrorfuckers: If
you try something on a flight I'm on, I'll Clemens ya. That, or the
smell from
my ratty sock, is going to do you in.
Though I now felt "safe" with my makeshift weapon, as I
continued to fly through
the fall and winter, I did NOT feel safe being greeted at airport
security by
weekend warriors from the National Guard holding empty M-16s and looking
like
they shop in the same "special needs" department at K-Mart
which I visit from
time to time.
More importantly, though, I kept noticing something strange. The guy in
front of
me, while emptying his pockets into the little plastic tray to run
through the
x-ray machine, would take out his butane lighter or matchbook, toss them
into
the tray, then pick them up on the other side -- in full view of
security. At
first I thought this was a mistake until I looked at the list of banned
items
again -- and saww that butane lighters and matchbooks were NOT on the
forbidden
list.
Then came December 22, 2001. Richard Reid, on an American Airlines
flight from
Paris to Miami, attempted to light his shoes on fire, using matches. His
shoes,
the police said, contained a plastic explosive and, had some passengers
and
flight attendants not taken quick action to restrain him, he would have
been
able to blow the entire plane out of the sky. But his lighter would not
light
the shoes fast enough, and everyone survived.
I was sure after this freakish incident that the lighters and matches
would
surely be banned. But, as my book tour began in February, there they
were, the
passengers with their Bic lighters and their books of matches. I asked
one
security person after another why these people were allowed to bring
devices
which could start a fire on board the plane, especially after the Reid
incident.
No one, not a single person in authority or holding an unloaded
automatic
weapon, could or would give me answer.
My simple question was this: If all smoking is prohibited on all
flights, then
why does ANYONE need their lighters and matches at 30,000 feet -- while
I am up
there with them?!
And why is the one device that has been used to try and blow up a plane
since
9-11 NOT on the banned list? No one has used toenail clippers to kill
anyone on
Jet Blue, and no one has been blowing away the leaves in the aisle of
the Delta
Connection flight to Tupelo.
BUT SOME FRUITCAKE DID USE A BUTANE LIGHTER TO TRY AND KILL 200 PEOPLE
ON
AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHT #63. And this did nothing to force the Bush
Administration to do something about it.
I began asking this question in front of audiences on my book tour. And
it was
on a dark and rainy night in Arlington, Virginia, at the Ollsson's
Bookstore a
couple miles from the Pentagon that I got my answer. After asking my Bic
lighter
question in my talk to the audience, I sat down to sign the books for
the people
in line. A young man walks up to the table, introduces himself, and
lowering his
voice so no one can hear, tells me the following:
"I work on the Hill. The butane lighters were on the original list
prepared by
the FAA and sent to the White House for approval. The tobacco industry
lobbied
the Bush administration to have the lighters and matches removed from
the banned
list. Their customers (addicts) naturally are desperate to light up as
soon as
they land, and why should they be punished just so the skies can be
safe?
The lighters and matches were removed from the forbidden list.
I was stunned. I knew there had to be some strange reason why this most
obvious
of items had not been banned. Could the Bush mob be so blatant in their
contempt
for the public's safety? How could they do this, and at the same time,
issue
weekly warnings about the "next terrorist threat"? Would they
really put Big
Tobacco's demands ahead of people's lives?
Yes, of course, the answer has always been YES but not now, not in a
time of
national crisis, not NOW, so soon after the worst domestic mass murder
in U.S.
history!
Unless there was no real threat at all.
The hard and difficult questions must be asked: Is the "War on
Terrorism" a
ruse, a concoction to divert the citizens' attention?
Accept, if you will for just a moment, that George W. Bush would not be
so evil
as to help out his buddies in tobacco land that that would be worth
suffering
through another 9-11. Once you give the man that ? and for once I am
asking you
to do just that ? once you admit that not even he would allow the murder
of
hundreds or thousands more just so Marlboro addicts can light up outside
the
terminal, then a whole other door opens ? and that door, my friends,
leads to
the Pandora's Box of 9-11, a rotten can of worms that many in the media
are
afraid to open for fear of where it might lead, of just how deep the
stench
goes.
What if there is no "terrorist threat?" What if Bush and Co.
need, desperately
need, that "terrorist threat" more than anything in order to
conduct the
systematic destruction they have launched against the U.S. constitution
and the
good people of this country who believe in the freedoms and liberties it
guarantees?
Do you want to go there?
I do. I have filed a Freedom of Information Act demand to the FAA,
asking that
they give to me all documents pertaining to the decisions that were made
to
allow deadly butane lighters and books of matches on board passenger
planes. I
am not optimistic about what the results of this will be.
And let's face it ? it's just one small piece of the puzzle. It is,
after all,
just a 99-cent Bic lighter. But, friends, I have to tell you, over the
years I
have found that it is PRECISELY the "little stories" and the
"minor details"
that contain within them the LARGER truths. Perhaps my quest to find out
why the
freedom to be able to start a fire on board a plane-full of citizens is
more
important than yours or my life will be in vain. Or maybe, just maybe,
it will
be the beginning of the end of this corrupt, banal administration of con
artists
who shamelessly use the dead of that day in September as the cover to
get away
with anything.
I think it's time we all stood up and started asking some questions of
these
individuals. The bottom line: Anyone who would brazenly steal an
election and
insert themselves into OUR White House with zero mandate from The People
is,
frankly ? sadly ? capable of anything...