Our Own Private Bin Laden

In Our Own Private Bin Laden, Osama Bin Laden is unmasked as a phenomenon that was brought about and fed by historical, political, economic and journalistic decisions. The terrorist threat that the world currently fears is a by-product of this history. The originally Iranian Samira Goetschel exposes painful connections between Cold War events and recent terrorist attacks. What would have happened if the Americans had not armed the Afghans to avert the communist Russian peril? Was ex-president Jimmy Carter used by the dubious BCCI Bank because of his good intentions for developing countries? With her personal questions and doubts, Goetschel seemingly effortlessly penetrates a bastion of small and large correlations, economic "secrets" and political hush-ups. She speaks with former CIA bosses, American former security advisers, Arab top dogs and critical journalists. According to Goetschel, the war on terror is only a disguise for the real war: the one that is going on between the Western and the rapidly expanding Islamic economies. And that is where hundreds of thousands of people perish, so that a few well-to-do people can make towering profits. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)