Moore Award Nominee, Ctd

Andrew Sullivan —  May 4 2011 @ 1:05pm

Many readers are echoing this one:

I'm not a big fan of Michael Moore, but can you actually argue that his statements about bin Laden are factually wrong?  His timing and emphasis may be bad, and we kinda know where he's coming from that's not included in his statement, but what he said is actually true.  We did arm him. We short-sightedly thought bin Laden's only gripe was with the Soviets and that he and the Mujahideen could be controllable, bought off, or would at least turn off the heat once they got what they wanted – ousting the Soviets.

Yes, it is factually wrong. Here's Doug Mataconis:

The evidence, in fact, is fairly clear that the “Afghan Arabs” like bin Laden didn’t interact with the Americans at all. The allegations, on the other hand are based on little more than circumstantial evidence and exaggerations. This idea that the CIA trained Osama bin Laden back in 1980 is simply a myth that needs to die along with bin Laden himself. Moore was wrong, and Sullivan was, it seems to me, entirely correct to call him out for it. This is a myth that has taken hold on both the far left and the far right and it’s time that people stopped lying.

Joyner adds nuance:

I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “lying,” since people are just repeating what they’ve heard. The confusion comes from the Western conflation of the generic “mujahadeen” into a coherent Mujahadeen, much as we’ve done with the various Taliban groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan.