Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West

The Movie Designed to be an Expose Against Radical Islam Has Flaws

Sep 12, 2008 Shawn Landis

The Clarion Fund sent out copies of this movie shortly before the Republican National Convention, stating that it had been advertised on Fox News and CNN.

Note: The Clarion Fund that produced this movie is not the same Clarion Fund that supports science fiction and fantasy writers.

If the reader has not yet checked his or her mailbox, he might want to do so or wonder why he has not received a DVD in the mail for Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West. This movie, produced by the Clarion fund, claims to be a documentary detailing the dangers of Islamo-Fascism.

The hour long presentation has been sent out to many homes and has been advertised on twenty-four hour news channels. The one thing the video suffers the most from though, is a lack of balance throughout most of the film. While Fundamentalist Islam does produce terrorists, Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West does not do enough to differentiate between Muslim extremists and moderates who abhor extremist practices.

The Timing of the Mailing

The Clarion Fund is not affiliated with the party, but the film has received high praise from the producer of 24 and conservative radio-talk show host and CNN news personality, Glenn Beck. The mailings were sent out late in August and early in September to coincide with the Seventh anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 and the author received a copy of Obsession shortly before the Republican National convention.

With a war against terror being fought on two fronts, the producers might have felt that it was necessary after the war had gone into its sixth year to remind the American population why American soldiers are currently fighting abroad, but the film seems to go out of its way to compare Radical Islam's propaganda to similar materials produced by the Nazi party in World War II.

Obsession the Movie: Not for Children

The film uses disturbing images from Arabic television and media and lyrics from songs popular in Iran, a country noted for its hatred of the West and Israel. The most disturbing scene is where an Arabic show, according to the film, portrayed a Jewish rabbi cutting a Christian child's throat to make matzo balls. This anti-semitic superstition originated with Christians in the Middle Ages.

Obsession's producers should have spent more on trying to show moderate Islamic groups who speak out against terrorism, but the film only spends a few minutes towards the end of the documentary doing so. The final segment almost seems as if it was added in an effort to appear to be politically correct. Bias can be acceptable in such a presentation and it may have been more accurate than Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, but that does mean that Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West is not a propaganda piece.

The copyright of the article Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West in American Affairs is owned by Shawn Landis. Permission to republish Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.