SaqibSaab

Iraqi Journalist Throws A Shoe At George W. Bush, Misses

An angry Iraqi journalist gains worldwide attention with the toss of a shoe. Or rather, with the toss of two. Muntadar al-Zeidi turned his frustration into action and launched two of what seems to be his own shoes straight at Geroge W. Bush as he was about to shake hands with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki during a news conference in Iraq.

Now, based on the fact that he was using shoes, one may ask what exactly was he trying to accomplish? Read more »

Standard Operating Procedure – New Documentary on Abu Ghraib

Did you know that if you search the top rated documentaries of all time at the Internet Movie Database, you’ll find that the majority of those listed in the past five or six years are about the Iraq war or the blunders of the US and its foreign activities? That’s something of interest, that there’s so much push from this subset of filmmakers, the documentary makers, to inform the masses about the mistakes our country has made. Since these mistakes directly affects us Muslims, particularly those in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, and (indirectly) here in the US, it would bring us benefit for us to get informed on the topics that have made it to the top rated lists.

So with that in mind, has anybody seen or know anything about this film on the Abu Ghuraib scandals, Standard Operating Procedure? It looks interesting, and reminds me of the excellent must see documentary, Road To Guantanamo.It’s gotten pretty good reviews, like the 80% on Rotten Tomatoes and four starts from Roger Ebert. People who gave positive reviews said director Errol Morris did a good job of taking the scandal and turning it into an emotional documentary, focusing on the story through the accounts of former soldiers by way of interviews. However there’s some interesting rebuttal against the documentary I found on amazon.com’s DVD listing for the film written by a former US solider.

The self-proclaimed soldier criticized Morris because the film only gives the “tip of the iceberg” on this issue, namely because the soldiers are given the most attention and, thus, the most scrutiny. The soldier argues, instead, that Read more »