My Trip to Al-Qaeda is a 2010 documentary by Alex Gibney.
2 out of 10 stars. I’ve come to respect Alex Gibney’s documentaries, but this is something different. Definitely not my cup of tea.
This is a one-man play/monologue performed by Lawrence Wright in front of a small live audience that is filmed like a documentary. Occasionally he shows film on the small screen so you see the audience, him sitting at a table, and the screen in the background. And occasionally clips are inserted in the film. It’s somewhat jarring.
The only pertinent information I took from this was 14 minutes in when he talks about Zawahiri, the man behind Osama bin Laden who orchestrated 9-1-1 and several other terrorists attacks. Zawahiri was a doctor in Egypt when he was arrested for protesting, jailed, and tortured. Part of his torture, along with all other Muslim men in the Egyptian jail, was being bent over a chair and tied in that position then the guards released wild dogs to have sex with him and the other Muslim men to shame them. In this country, pedophiles in prison are often raped by other inmates. They are never raped by dogs. That this is a regular practice in Egyptian prisons is why they breed terrorists. When Zawahiri left prison, after being raped and debased by dogs for years, he was filled with rage and hate. He turned that hate toward the United States and Israel.
2 out of 10 stars. Fifteen minutes before the end, he talks about the Taliban massacring the animals in the Afghanistan zoo. They tortured them to death mercilessly. It was heartwrenching. The acts committed by the Taliban make the Nazis look tame in comparison.
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