US: Award-winning director and campaigner Michael Moore has called on Irish people to protest the "destruction" of their neutrality during President Bush's visit to Ireland, writes Seán O'Driscoll in New York
In an interview with The Irish Times, Mr Moore said Shannon Airport was being used by the Bush administration "to let poor Americans go and kill poor Iraqis" for the sake of Texas oil billionaires.
Mr Moore is expected to break box office records this weekend for his film Fahrenheit 9/11, a searing criticism of the Bush administration's actions before and after the September 11th attacks.
The film opened across the US last night through two independent distributors after the Disney Corporation declined to distribute the film because of protests from conservative groups. Mr Moore said it was now completely clear that Ireland did not want any more involvement in the "madness and lies" of the Iraq war.
"The problem here is that the protesters are going to be kept well back from Bush and the American media following his tail. Everywhere he goes, the object is to make the media have to travel if they want to meet the protesters, and they are not going to do that," he said.
Mr Moore said that his family are originally from Cork, Tipperary and Waterford, and like many Irish-Americans, he did not want to see Ireland being used to launch an attack on people who are just as desperate as those who left Ireland for the US in the 19th century.
Mr Moore also said it was very telling that he was on the front cover of Newsweek in Europe, but not in the US.
"The whole thing is so ironic. Spiderman is on the front cover of Newsweek in the US. Now I'm an American and Spiderman is clearly a foreigner. Shouldn't he be on the international cover? Somebody got it mixed up," he said.
Mr Moore said he is popular in Europe because Europeans want to believe that all of America has not gone crazy.
"I think I have a lot of support in Europe because, in part, Europe desperately wants to believe that all of America has not gone to the loony bin.
"I don't want Europeans to think that I'm the only sane American though. There are millions like me. We believe in the same things.
"Always keep in mind that the majority of people in this country did not vote for George W. Bush, the majority wanted the other guy."
Mr Moore said that Ireland is lucky that its citizens can find Iraq on a map, whereas surveys have shown that the majority of Americans cannot point out Iraq or Britain.
"National Geographic did a study two years ago, they wanted to find out what adults between the ages of 18 and 25 know about geography.
"This is what they found - 85 per cent of Americans could not find Iraq on a map, 60 per cent could not find Great Britain, and my personal favourite, 11 per cent could not find the United States in the globe. When you have a people with so little awareness of their place in the world, what you have is a system of enforced ignorance.
"We are a people who are kept ignorant and stupid about the rest of the world," he said.
He rejects suggestions that he now has more power of public opinion than most US senators, despite his claims that he is outside the political establishment. "That's just another crazy right-wing statement they throw out there. I barely have enough power to pull myself across the room," he said.
There are many websites solely dedicated to exposing Moore and questioning the accuracy of his films. One website, "Bowling For The Truth", offers a scene-by-scene analysis of the "distortions" Moore has used to get people to talk on camera.
Does he read such websites and is he aware of their criticisms? "I know of them but I don't read them," he said. "They are run by right-wing lunatics," he said.
Asked if he had seen criticisms of Fahrenheit 9/11 on the US TV networks, he said that the networks have been "deeply frustrated" because they have not been able to find inaccuracies.
"They are trying to trip me up and they are frustrated because they haven't been able to do it.
"The New York Times ran a story on Sunday saying that they have checked out the whole film and basically, it's true.
"They seemed so disappointed when they wrote that," he said.