World Famous Comics: Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?
Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?
By: Morgan Spurlock Publisher: Random House Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: Random House Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 320 Publication Date: April 15, 2008 Release Date: April 15, 2008
Product Description: Academy Award-nominated filmmaker and director Morgan Spurlock, who volunteered his body as a guinea pig for the fast food industry in the hit documentary Super Size Me, now sets his sights even higher in Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?
Spurlock is a jittery father-to-be with a simple question: If OBL is behind 9/11 and all the ensuing worldwide chaos, then why can’t we just catch him? And furthermore, why is his message so compelling to so many people? So the intrepid Spurlock kisses his anxious wife goodbye and–armed with a complete lack of knowledge, experience, or expertise–sets out to make the world safe for infantkind and find the most wanted man on earth.
After boning up on his basic knowledge of OBL, Islam, and the Global War on Terror–and learning how to treat “sucking chest wounds” in a “Surviving Hostile Regions” training course–he hits the Osama trail. He zigzags the globe, drawing ever closer to the heart of darkness near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where OBL is rumored to be hiding. Along the way he interviews imams and princes, refugees and soldiers, academics and terrorists. He visits European ghettos where youth aspire to global jihad, breaks the Ramadan fast with Muslims in Cairo, rides in the bomb squad van in Tel Aviv, and writes his blood type on his Kevlar vest at a U.S. base outside of Kandahar. And then the fun really starts.
Companion to the acclaimed documentary, Where in the World is Osama bin Laden? delves even deeper. What readers come away with is possibly the first-ever funny book about terrorism, as well as a greater understanding of a conflict that has cast a shadow across America and the world.
Funny, Facinating Documentary Okay, I'll start with listing my prejudice: I think Morgan Spurlock is a genuis. I like everything I've seen from him, including "Sper-Size Me," "30 days" and "What Would Jesus Buy?" He is funny, but educational at the same time.
This book documents his search for Osama Bin Laden, the supposed most wanted man on earth. Through interviews in many different countries, he documents what people believe about jihad - from Muslims of differing varieties, as well as others. He uncovers both truth and lies. He visits people in their homes, oftening sharing meals with them at their insistence.
Morgan Spurlock, the genuis (no, this is NOT being written by his mother or other relative,) does his best to entertwine his personal story of his sometimes dangerous and always thrilling travels, with the views of people from many different backgrounds - people that do and do not believe in the War on Terror. His interviews include those that hate bin Laden and want him dead to those who think bin Laden is just about the best person who ever lived. Spurlock's own opinions are buried so that the results of the interviews are what gets presented.
This book asks whether or not there really is an American campaign to capture bin Laden and bring him to "justice." What would it mean if he ever was arrested? Would it make any difference in the world? Would it make us safer? He also examines the War on Terror by visiting the countries and the people involved on both sides - civillian and military. It asks whether these operations are in anybody's best interest.
He documents bin Ladin's history and visits the places where bin Laden had spent the most time.
I wish I could convey his sense of humor in this review, but to do so, I would have to quote the book itself, which I would rather not do. After all, ripped out of context, the funny stuff might not be that funny.
Spurlock documents his search for the truth about bin Laden in this War on Terror. We all get to ask whether anyone is safer now that America has gotten involved in these conflicts. Are our allies better off? Have we actually helped any Arab nations?
Finally, this book is a good read. As far as I can tell, it is not pro-Muslim or anti-Muslim, pro-war or anti-war, pro-American or anti-American, although it is VERY American to ask tough questions on controversial issues and confront what our country does and says.
Buy it, read it or the terrorists win.
just kidding....lighten up
This is the book Donald Rumsfeld should have read Spurlock has always been intelligent, funny, witty and humane, both in Super Size Me and on 30 Days, where for one episode he spent a month living as a devout Muslim. I therefore expected his take on the Global War of Terror (as Borat puts it...) would be well-informed, insightful, fair, and probably very funny.
It is all of those, but what I did not expect was the wealth of really well-researched history of the Middle East. This book is as good a primer on the lingering injustices that fuel the region as any you'll find, and the presentation is readable and comprehensible (not easy with that subject matter!) You'll learn both sides of each issue, or more accurately, the myriad of sides seemingly to every issue. There are no easy answers, no trite moralizing, no assigning unilateral blame. Spurlock explains how decades -- centuries, even millennia -- of tribal rivalries led up to today's powerkeg situation, and how the events of the past 40 years have inflamed them. He does not lay all of the blame on current leadership (ours or theirs), although the disastrous consequences of recent blunders on both sides are made evident. Clinton's failures in the region are profiled, as well as Bush 1st and Reagan. Although not specifically name-checked, Spurlock traces a lot of the escalation back to the early 1980s when Charlie Wilson, himself the subject of a recent book and movie, arranged to supply high-tech weapons to the Mujahideen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. What once were sword encounters from the backs of camels suddenly became missiles and tanks, and these weapons have torn the region apart and are now used against the new occupiers of Afghanistan.
He traces the origin of Al Qaeda and explains how fundamentalists and terrorists came to be intertwined. He draws the inevitable parallels between fundamentalists in any of the three Abrahamic apocalyptic religions, and shows us how over-zealous adherence to principles and so-called morality can lead ordinary people to violate their innate humanity.
In all this is a fabulously-informative (and sobering) book while still being laugh-out-loud funny in many places. Morgan Spurlock has done a great service by informing Americans (and hopefully everyone else!) about the realities on the ground.
Save the $25 BORING. If Spurlock had been even a little novel, not quite so NYC smug,---like telling us that GW Bush is a genius and 20 years from now, we will all be wishing for another President like him, he might have actually sold more books.
Makes me wonder if Spurlock doesn't realize that the real problem in the Middle East isn't an overgrowth of people--thanks to a culture that somehow prefers to live half in the 21st century and 1/2 in the 6th century CE and allows multiple wives and copious children, but expects the rest of the world to pay for that practice. Religious wars are the nastiest, longest and bloodiest. Try as he might, he does not convince that the GWOT is a political struggle. He provides way too many inconsistent and uneven observations to wear that political war mantle. Take Islam out of the picture, and the problems get solved easily.
And also I would like to know if all those 'good folks' he met along the way knew about his own personal life style choices (impregnating first, marriage saved till later), what their reaction would have been? Off with his head??? Or you go-- you cute, humorous yankee, you?
This book falls short of good satire and is a little too preachy to be serious journalism. It can be ranked right up there with SOUTHPARK, though. So if you like that, feel free to spend $25. Or if you really want to know about Bin Laden, just Google his name---A much greener solution to your thirst for knowledge.
A GWOT "Must Read" Kudos to Morgan Spurlock!
This is a timely, well written, clever approach to where the global war on terrorism came from and is headed unless we change directions in a positive and proactive manner.
The interviews the author collects along his journey are thought-provoking. Spurlock raises serious questions as to why we in America don't hear more from those who would truly like to work with the United States to bring about a peaceful resolution of those challenges we face than we do from those whose mantra has thus far proven a calamity of immense proportions.
A soundly written, well researched, oblique approach to where in the world the Global War on Terrorism is headed unless we seek the answers we may not like to hear, and enact new policies and adopt new attitudes in order to bring this particular global war to a meaningful and honorable end.
The final chapter of this book is the most powerful and the most human. In and of itself it reveals how important good choices and right priorities are in this life.
Don't let his liberal leanings... ...dissuade you from reading (or finishing) this book. It is quite well-written, with a lot of the humor you expect from Spurlock, and he does try to show a balanced view.
Now I want to see the movie--I wish it was showing here in my area. Guess I have to wait until it comes out on DVD...
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