Michael Moore, War Profiteer

As of September 5th, Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 has brought in about $118 million. The film cost approximately $6 million to make. Those revenues don’t include the profits Moore will make from the DVD release of F 9/11 in early October, or the two companion books Moore will release will the DVD. This is essentially blood money, Michael Moore is profiting from the death of U.S. service men in Iraq.

I don’t know exactly how revenue breaks down for movies and moviemakers, but if we assume that 40-60% of revenues may stay with the theaters and distributors that show the film to consumers, that leaves about $47 million coming back to Moore and the Weinstein brothers, who bought the film from Disney. If Moore only gets 10% of that money, he takes home $4.7 million dollars in pure profit. I think Moore probably has a better deal than that, so I would guess he took home something like $24 million.

Regardless of the exact breakdown, Michael Moore made at a minimum of $4.7 million off of the war in Iraq, and possibly much more.

Let me put this in context. Moore has been a rabid critic of Halliburton, the gigantic oil field services firm whose Brown & Root subsidy provides logistical support for U.S. troops. Halliburton’s military services are some of their lowest margin business, they make a lot more money on oil services, and Iraq makes up a small portion of their oil revenue. Vice-President Cheney was CEO of Halliburton and has a fixed deferred income package that is not affected by Halliburton’s profits. David Lesar, Chairman, President and CEO is the most highly compensated employee at Halliburton, he made $4.59 million last year, and Iraq profits were a very, very small part of that. The second highest compensated person at Halliburton was Christopher Gaut, CFO and Exec. VP who made $1.27 million last year.

Since Moore doesn’t work for a publicly traded company, he does not have to follow the strict disclosure standards corporate executives and companies like Halliburton must follow. Moore’s secrecy makes comparisons difficult, but back of the envelope calculations show that Moore may have made as more from the war in Iraq as Cheney and the top employees of Halliburton combined. Iraq war profits make up a small portion of the execs’ compensation, but almost 100% of Moore’s profit.

In short, Michael Moore has made more money off of the war in Iraq, in fact ten or twenty times as much as anyone else in the world.

So, has Moore given this money to the wounded soldiers he exploited in his film? No. Has Moore given the money to the families of soldiers who died liberating Iraq? No. Families of 9/11 victims? No. Ray Bradbury? No.

Moore has kept almost every penny for him self. Despite his criticism of uncaring companies, Moore didn’t help the families of Columbine when he made $20 million off of their suffering. Moore didn’t help unemployed autoworkers when he profited from “Rodger and Me” in fact the only person Michael Moore seems interested in helping is himself.

Moore has made a fortune by exploiting the suffering of others. Moore has made approximately $24,000 from each and every American death in Iraq. When there is death, Moore is on TV promoting his movie, when there is suffering Moore is out promoting.

Michael Moore is a war profiteer of the first class, a traitor to our nation, and a coward.

Timothy Burger