Where Is Bin Laden?
I recently watched Morgan Spurlock’s documentary entitled: “Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden.” Unfortunately the title is too long hence I could not fit it in the title of the blog but it is a rare documentary combining humor with solid facts. Morgan Spurlock for those who do not know him became famous for his documentary Super Size Me released on May 7, 2004 which was later nominated for an Academy Award for best Documentary. I have never watched Spurlock’s Super Size Me but became a fan of his TV Show 30 days after watching the first episode of season one entitled: “Minimum Wage.“
Morgan Spurlock and his fiancée Alex leave their fabulous New York lifestyles behind for the heart of the Midwest, Columbus, Ohio. Morgan and Alex work at multiple minimum wage jobs for 30 days earning $5.15 per hour. They get to experience first hand the struggles minimum wage earning families face as Morgan’s niece and nephew come to live with them
His latest documentary emerged because his wife was pregnant and he wanted to make the world a safer place by finding Osama Bin Laden, the worlds most wanted man. He does this by flying to Egypt, Afghanistan, Jordan, Saudia Arabia and Pakistan talking to regular people as well as those with ties to terrorism about Bin Laden as well as the “War on Terror.” A few facts from the documentary:
- Some Muslims believe that America wants to eradicate Islam
- There were 13720 terrorist attacks in 2007, a significant increase since America invaded Iraq
- The majority of Muslim people do not support Al-Qaeda
I really enjoyed this documentary because it was enlightening while mixing up those serious moments with moments of humor. It can be purchased from Amazon.com for $16.99 if you haven’t seen it in the theater’s otherwise alternatively you can buy the book. If you have enough to read, the documentary is just over 90 minutes which flies by quite quickly, an 8/10 on my personal ten point scale.
August 19 2008 11:05 am | American Politics
August 20th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
interesting. wonder how he intends on making the world safer once he comes face to face with bin laden, if he ever does?
as for his “facts”,
1. “Some Muslims believe that America wants to eradicate Islam”
ok, i’ll accept this in the same manner that a whole lot of people also believe that the arab nations wants to eradicate Isreal. the more important question is, do you believe that america wishes to eradicate Islam?
2.”There were 13720 terrorist attacks in 2007, a significant increase since America invaded Iraq”
i’d have to see how he came by this statistical figure first before accepting this as a fact. i would also have to ask how many of those attacks have been against Americans, other than the troops in Iraq or Afghanistan and make that comparison.
3.”The majority of Muslim people do not support Al-Qaeda”
wonder how he determined this? whenever i see this statement or statements similar to this, it is always made by a non-Muslim, never by the Muslim people themselves. Wonder why that is? a just as important question would be if they do not now was there ever a time the majority supported Al-Qaeda?
August 20th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
I don’t want to ruin the ending in case you ever decide to watch this Griper. To you first question, no I don’t believe America wants to eradicate Islam though to be honest in my travels I have met a few people who believe that exact statement.
On your second question, you would need to watch that part of the movie. Basically that includes terrorist attacks worldwide and he doesn’t state how he collected the data but then again I may have missed that part.
3. Well he didn’t make the statement, during his trips to the various muslim countries, he asked people how they felt about America and within that 1.5 hour documentary. I heard two people say “I hope Allah brings down America…” or something to that effect.
The majority of Muslim people I know do not support Al-Qaeda but in the documentary, Morgan interviewed the cousin of one of the 9-11 hijackers living in Saudi Arabia and he said the reason so many people want to fight America is because they feel that American culture dominates the world and they have no choice about it…
You should watch it when it comes out on DVD Griper, I am sure you could tear holds in the Documentary but it is very well done and Morgan does speak to a lot of regular people.
August 20th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
the reason i askeed if you believed it is because since you do not believe it then you know that those muslims that do were fed a line of crap from someone. and that someone only wishes to stir up trouble. right?
the second question was because that many results in around 36 attacks a day for the whole year. that sounds pretty high even if Iraqi attacks were added in. the second part of that question dealt with how many times were we attacked prior to the invasion as opposed to after the invasion.
as for the culture, the dominant culture has always does influence the culture of others and has done so throughout history. so did the muslim culture at one time when they were a dominant culture. how does he think the religion is so wide spread? the roman culture did at the time of the roman empire. the english during its time of domination. you can still see the effects of domination even today. nations were built upon this effect. look at ireland. how much of the culture there was effected by the english? we are a nation effected by the english culture. so is canada and australia. look at so. america and you can see the spanish and french influence as well as english.
look at the US. you will see numerous cultures as influenced by a dominant power in that area.
so, that muslim that made that complaint is just using culture as an excuse not a reason to fight. no one forces cultural change it just occurs as a result of intermingling of different cultures.
is it wrong? i don’t know but with each generation that passes it is accepted more readily.
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:22 am
The answer is yes to your first question Griper, on the second question, I am too sure of this but they included 73 countries to come up with the 13720 which is roughly 187 terrorist attacks a year per country. In some countries like Israel I would imagine they had quite a few terorrist attacks some years and less others.
The dominant culture does spread its influence and I have no problems with the spread of American culture especially when I travel, again it wasn’t Morgan Spurlock that made the statement about American culture, it was the opions of some of the people in the streets of Egypt, Saudi Arabia etc…
Ireland is still hugely influenced by England today as much as people would like to deny it, from the sports to the way business operates. Not to mention a few English companies keep their North American HQ’s here because Ireland is considered the ‘gateway’ to America.
I don’t have a problem with cultures mingling, personally I hope it occurs more but I understand why people are angry about it, some people feel they have no choice and maybe they don’t realize how the giving and taking of cultures and can result in a better world, that’s just my personal opinion anyway.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:41 pm
ohh i can understand the anger also about one cculture causing change in another culture. there is a loss of identity when it happens. but it appears that it isn’t a matter of choice just something that occurs when it happens.
yet it isn’t forced either just a case of trying to fit in. or, as i like to put it a case where the subordinant group is attempting to be among the dominant group. and those groups that don’t succeed suffer the consequences.
as for the number of terrorists attacks any number that a person comes up with is determined by the methodology used to count them. and one problem there is how to define terrorism.
also from my research the author is implying something that may be very well be untrue. he is implying that the “war on terror” is being lost. but half of those attacks occurred in Iraq and afghanistan. then if you count in the attacks against Isreal, world wide the figure drops even more. so, his figure is a very misleading one. he is using what i call a statistical exaggeration to influence thought not inform.
here is a site that shows that. the figures are different but i don’t think the percentages would be much different.
http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2007/103716.htm
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Hey Griper, thanks for the links, I see what you mean by statistical exaggeration. Beyond that part of the documentary, it is still a pretty good 1.5 hours.
On the cultural front, to branch of this discussion. Culture is a big interest to me since I have absorbed a lot of different cultures in my life. My favorite is the American culture and the reason I always argue is that it is the biggest umbrella in terms of people being readily able to celebrate thanks giving, the 4th of july, become an individual etc… (become part of American culture)
The big problem in Ireland that I have noticed over the last 2 years is that there is no give and take culturally speaking. The two largest minorities are polish and chinese yet they stick very much together with neither side integrating into the Irish culture to any extent.
The world is also changing in this way, people mixing more, I guess my question to you is whether you would agree that if the world became more American, would it be such a bad idea? People would still retain the vestiges of their various cultures but wouldn’t people get along more?
August 23rd, 2008 at 1:15 am
the chinese do not mix very much here either. i think that has a lot to do with the fact that China, at one time, was a very closed community and still is to a large extent. in fact, the whole of the orient was like this. in reality it only began opening up after WW2 when the US occupied japan.
then smiles… you could say that when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor it was the beginning of the americanization of the japanese culture.
as to whether or not it is a good thing, i don’t know. each culture has a lot to offer the people and becomes a part of their individual identity as a person. thus, when their particular culture appears lost a person will have a sense of loss also in regards to their own being and identity.
you can see this within a family of immigrants where the kids easily become influenced by a particular culture but the parents try to keep their identity and pass it along to their kids but have a sense of loss when they fail.
this is one factor that is behind all of these honor killings we hear about.
would people get along better? i have no idea. there are times i feel that fighting among ourselves is nature, a means of population control since we have no natural enemy other than ourselves.
August 24th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
That’s an interesting take on Pearl Harbor and from what I know, that would hold fairly true.
On a sense of loss, Griper, I can talk from the Irish perspective here, a lot of my friends here my age understand some Gaelic but cannot speak it anymore even though their parents can. When I asked them one day at work whether they would force their children to learn Irish at school, they say yes because it is important.
To me that doesn’t make sense but maybe this is a sense of guilt being passed on from generation to generation until it is not passed on anymore because the need to transmit that part of a culture is gone.
An old geograpghy teacher of mine in high school said that wars, disease are a form of population control and I guess that is true, we as human beings will always be fighting an enemy in one form or another for the rest of existence.