Big, Bad Muslims: Part Four—24: Season Six

"Yes, I have dark skin...Okay, of course I can play a Muslim."

Another Muslim character suffers a narrative fate similar to Ahmed Amar.

At 7am, we meet Walid Al-Rezani, head of the Washington D.C. Islamic-American Alliance (a thinly-veiled pastiche on the CAIR), and boyfriend of Sandra Palmer, the President’s sister. Harry Lennix, a Chicago-born American of Creole ancestry, plays Walid with sympathetic calm.

The FBI arrives at the IAA to background check its workers. Sandra tells them, “You’re in the wrong place. There’re no terrorists here.”

Walid wants to cooperate. “We can’t pretend we’re not under attack,” he tells her.

Sandra calls her brother, outraged. “I’m not some idealistic flag-burner and I understand you’re going through a very complicated situation, but once you start ethnic profiling it’s a slippery slope.”

            Later, the FBI returns to the IAA with a warrant and Sandra erases the IAA employee computer records. Instead of arresting her, the FBI detains Walid and takes him to one of Tom Lennox’s secret detainee camps.

While being registered, Walid prevents an American soldier from harassing a Muslim who refuses a cavity search. As a result, the soldier beats Walid. Later, as he walks the detainee common area, Walid meets the man he saved, Salhib.

“Have you talked?” Salhib asks.

Walid replies, “I have nothing to tell them.”

Salhib mutters, “I’ll tell you something, brother. Before this day is over they will all pay.”

With Salhib exposed as a potential threat, Walid turns informant.   

"Hey, guys. What's happening? So, hey, are any of you, like, terrorists?"

            Here, 24 misses a crucial opportunity to dissect the mandates once proposed by the Bush regime and expose them as civil rights abuse. Instead, the show justifies the Bush claim that the threat of terrorism exists everywhere. The detainee camp is not a springboard for even-handed political examination, but a paranoid playground populated by seemingly average Muslims like Salhib, who are in fact terrorists.

After joyfully beating Walid to “create his cover,” the FBI forces Walid to wear a wire. Then, Walid joins Salhib’s friends in the camp. When Salhib asks what the FBI wanted, Walid tells him they demanded information about Abu Fayed. Suddenly, Salhib’s group is a militant band of brothers, united and ready to strike the American enemy. When Walid spots one of the men talking suspiciously on his cell phone, it dawns on the FBI, “He must be talking to Fayed!” Walid pickpockets the phone and discovers the man had only been accessing Arabic websites reporting Fayed’s activities. “These men aren’t terrorists,” Sandra tells the FBI. Yet what the show leaves unsaid is that while these men are not physically involved, they ideologically support Fayed. This perpetrates the myth that violence against the West is a Muslim way of life.

Walid, here comes the pain.

Of course, Walid is caught slipping the phone back into the man’s pocket. Salhib hisses, “You’re spying on us? You’re worse than they are!” The group of exposed terrorist supporters pummels Walid until the FBI intervenes and rushes him to the hospital.

Thus ends Walid’s storyline and all hope that 24 would examine Lennox’s detainee camps with any critical insight. The CAIR was especially disturbed by this. Its Los Angeles representative, Sireen Sawaf, told the BBC News, “I do realize it’s a multi-dimensional show that portrays extreme situations…[but] the overwhelming impression you get is fear and hatred for Muslims…Watching that show, I was afraid to go to the grocery store because I wasn’t sure the person next to me would be able to differentiate between fiction and reality.”

24 tried to claim it made Walid sympathetic to Americans. Yet, in his last scene, after being beaten by Salhib and his cohorts, his loyalty to America is broken. “I’m ashamed for spying on those men,” he tells Sandra. This is the last the viewer sees of him. Sandra goes to the White House bunker and never mentions him again. Like Ahmed, Walid is forgotten.

In Part 5, I’ll discuss Hamri Al-Assad, 24’s most interesting Muslim character.

Walid: "I'm ashamed of spying on those men. And this band-aid is real itchy."

Bibliography

“Day 4.” “Day 6.” 24. Fox, 2005, 2007.

“24 Under Fire from Muslim Groups.” BBC News. BBC News, 19 January 2007.

Armstrong, Stephen. "Rough Justice." New Statesman 136.4836 (2007): 36-38. 

Bauder, David. “TV Torture Influencing Real Life.” USA Today. 11 February 2007.

Dougherty, Michael Brendan. "What Would Jack Bauer Do?" American Conservative 6.5

(2007): 8-10. 

Flynn, Gillian. “24: TV Review.” Entertainment Weekly. 11 January 2007.

Halliday, Fred. 100 Myths About the Middle East. Los Angeles: University of California Press,

2005.

Irwin, Robert. Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism and its Discontents. New York: Overlook

Press, 2006.

Lewis, Bernard. From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2004.

McCormick, Patrick. "The Torture Show." U.S. Catholic 73.5 (2008): 17. 

McDermont, Jim. “A Trojan Horse.” America 196.7 (2007): 23-24.

Rossi, Melissa. What Every American Should Know About the Middle East. New York: Plume

Books, 2008.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1978.

Yuan, Jada. “The White-Castle Ceiling.” New York Magazine. 4 March 2007.

Big, Bad Muslims: Part Three—24: Season Six

Bus bombing--morning commutes in L.A. are dangerous.

The action begins at 6am. Islamic terrorist groups have ‘victimized’ the United States for eleven weeks. At a Los Angeles bus station, a Middle Eastern man, late for work and distracted by news broadcasts of the latest bombing, chases a bus. The driver refuses to let him on, prompting the man to shout, “I have as much right to be on the bus as you!” Inside the bus, a wild-eyed man fingers an electronic device and the bus explodes.

            Minutes later in the White House Oval Office, President Wayne Palmer meets with his cabinet to dismiss a mandate created by Tom Lennox, his Chief of Staff, which would allow the government to hold Muslims in detention centers for questioning and possible deportation. Lennox says it will increase public safety and reclaim lost faith in the administration. Karen Hayes, the National Security Advisor, endorses the President’s refusal, stating it would destroy civil freedoms, to which Lennox growls, “Security has its price!”

Tom Lennox: this season's perpetual asshole.

            Meanwhile, CTU (Bauer’s Counter-Terrorism Unit) completes a shady deal. Abu Fayed, former partner of Hamri Al-Assad, the notorious Muslim terrorist, will give up Assad’s location if he can kill Jack Bauer and have 25 million dollars. Bauer, who killed Fayed’s brother, has been in a Chinese prison for the last two years, the twist on which season five ended. President Palmer, at his wits end with the attacks, agrees. CTU facilitates the deal with its newest employee, Muslim Nadia Yassir, who acts as translator between Fayed and CTU director Bill Buchanan.

Jack's Jesus phase.

            In another part of Los Angeles, a suburban family watches the morning news. A Culver City mosque has been bombed in retaliation for the bus bombing earlier that hour. Ray, the father, debates with his wife whether they should let their son, Scott, go to school.

Across the street, the FBI arrests Ahmed Amar’s father on suspicion of domestic terrorism. Stan, a neighborhood tough guy, intimidates Ahmed after the FBI leaves. Knowing Ahmed is his son’s best friend, Ray chases away Stan and offers Ahmed his home as shelter until his father returns.

Ray: father of a skater boy son, protector of neighborhood Muslims.

            24’s first stumbling block is Ahmed Amar, played by Kal Penn, the noted young Indian actor (yes, Kumar), and former member of the Obama administration. Popular for his stoner movie roles, his ethnicity is well known, and one cannot help laughing when he appears on screen. To be cast as a Middle Eastern teenage terrorist, Penn admitted in New York Magazine:

I have a huge political problem with the role. It was essentially accepting

a form of racial profiling…it’s repulsive. But it was the first time I had a

chance to blow stuff up and take a family hostage. As an actor, why shouldn’t

I have that opportunity? Because I’m brown and I should be scared about the

connection between media images and people’s thought processes? (Yuan)

Obviously, in accepting the role, Penn did not share the concerns of The Council on American-Islamic Relations. In Ahmed’s character, Muslims, even the quiet ones across the street, cannot be trusted.

At 7am, Abu Fayed reveals to Jack Bauer that he, not Hamri Al-Assad, is behind the attacks. Soon, Fayed calls Ahmed and asks him to deliver a package. Ahmed tells Fayed of his father’s arrest. Fayed replies, “If your father is meant to be sacrificed that is how it will be.” Ahmed nods. Of course, the slaughter of ‘infidels’ is more important than family.

Abu Fayed, this season Big Bad, chats with Kumar....I mean Ahmed.

Fayed continues, “I could have chosen other people. I chose you.” Not only does Fayed think Ahmed specially suited for the job, but he tells him he will kill him should he fail. Forget the idea that Muslims don’t kill Muslims and Arabs don’t kill Arabs.

The show reveals Ahmed’s motivations as ‘Arab Rage.’ “The roots of so-called ‘Arab Rage’ lie not in some purported cultural or religious peculiarity of the Arabs, but in the adherence by peoples of the Arab world to the universal claims of justice and equality which the rest of the world has propagated these two centuries past” (Halliday 22). None of 24’s Americans possess this deep-seeded anger (unless you count the depictions of “others” on this show).

After the phone call with Fayed, Ahmed tells Scott—remember, his neighborhood pal—he must leave. Scott says he is sorry about his father and that “the whole world’s gone crazy.”

Ahmed hisses, “The world’s been crazy for a long time. You just haven’t been paying attention.” He hurries home and tears apart the living room wall with a claw hammer (this begs the question: how did Ahmed’s father not know his son hid something behind the drywall?). As he removes a small box from between the wall studs, Stan, the neighborhood bully, bursts into his home. Ahmed pulls a gun and shoots Stan.

From that point on, Ahmed becomes a volatile, wild-eyed madman.

Hearing the shot, Scott rushes into Ahmed’s house, sees Stan’s body, and Ahmed takes him hostage. Marching him back across the street, Scott asks him why he is doing this; they’re best friends.

“Friends?!” Ahmed shouts. “You can’t even pronounce my name. It’s not Ahmed. It’s AH-Med!”

First, Penn’s overacting is hilarious. Second, Ahmed will kill friends and innocents because they mispronounce his name? Oh, yeah, the irrational Arab!

"Go ahead! Call me 'Ahmed' again!"

            Taking Scott’s family hostage, Ahmed demands Ray, the father, deliver the box to his contact in exchange for another package or else he will shoot his wife and son. Ray, with wonder in his eyes, says to Ahmed, “You were a terrorist all along.” Well, yeah! He’s Muslim!

Ray complies with Ahmed and delivers the box to Ahmed’s contact. The man opens it, says there is not enough money inside, and demandss higher payment. Ray, in a fit of rage and fear, kills the man and takes the package. This scene exemplifies a thread throughout this season: contact with Muslims will inevitably cause rational Americans to lose their senses and harm not only themselves, but each other.

"I'm sorry," says Ray. "A Muslim made me do it!"

            Ray, with the package, demands Ahmed release his family or he will destroy whatever is inside it. Ahmed compromises, and releases the mother. She flees the house, calls Ray, and they decide to call the police, who then call CTU. Soon, fresh from escaping Fayed’s men, Jack Bauer and his partner Curtis Manning are on their way.

            As promised, Ray delivers the package to Fayed (the big bad terrorist) and is soon taken hostage. Fayed calls Ahmed and orders Scott’s death: “He’s seen and heard too much.”

Make your own caption, I guess.

Meanwhile, outside, Jack and Curtis sneak upon Scott and Ahmed. Just as Ahmed is ready kill Scott, Jack bursts in and shoots him. Scott tells Jack of the conversation he overheard between Ahmed and Ray about where his father took the package, but it is too late. The package, a detonator to a nuclear bomb, is used to explode the device. Ray is killed in the blast, leaving a kind, American family fractured by Muslim intrusion.

In Part 4, I’ll continue my dissection of season six’s other Muslim characters.

An actual affecting moment in the show--Fayed bombs Los Angeles.

Bibliography

“Day 4.” “Day 6.” 24. Fox, 2005, 2007.

“24 Under Fire from Muslim Groups.” BBC News. BBC News, 19 January 2007.

Armstrong, Stephen. "Rough Justice." New Statesman 136.4836 (2007): 36-38. 

Bauder, David. “TV Torture Influencing Real Life.” USA Today. 11 February 2007.

Dougherty, Michael Brendan. "What Would Jack Bauer Do?" American Conservative 6.5

(2007): 8-10. 

Flynn, Gillian. “24: TV Review.” Entertainment Weekly. 11 January 2007.

Halliday, Fred. 100 Myths About the Middle East. Los Angeles: University of California Press,

2005.

Irwin, Robert. Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism and its Discontents. New York: Overlook

Press, 2006.

Lewis, Bernard. From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2004.

McCormick, Patrick. "The Torture Show." U.S. Catholic 73.5 (2008): 17. 

McDermont, Jim. “A Trojan Horse.” America 196.7 (2007): 23-24.

Rossi, Melissa. What Every American Should Know About the Middle East. New York: Plume

Books, 2008.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1978.

Yuan, Jada. “The White-Castle Ceiling.” New York Magazine. 4 March 2007.

Big, Bad Muslims: Part Two—24: Season Six

The show's most uber-patriotic DVD cover.

If Jack Bauer represents American ‘values’, then 24’s villains reflect his global ‘others’.

In season one, Serb warlords try to kill the first African-American presidential candidate. Season two sees Middle Eastern terrorists financed by American oilmen attempt to detonate a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles. Mexican cartels and a vengeful Mi-6 agent spread a lethal virus in southern California during season three. Terrorist group Crimson Jihad (what a name—ooohhh, like blood!) kidnap the Secretary of Defense, rupture a nuclear power plant, shoot down Air Force One, and almost destroy Los Angeles with a nuclear missile in season four (damn, those guys had a plan).

In these seasons, 24’s villains were less of a vehicle for pushing politics and more focused on providing Jack Bauer strong antagonists. Playing it safe like this was a strength and weakness. Yet that changed in season five.

            Season five (2006), 24’s best, had Russian, British, and American terrorists take hostages, release nerve gas, and attempt to kill the Russian presidential family. All were violent, greedy, and blinded by anti-American ideologies. That is, until the season’s big twist. The true villain behind the attacks was the President of the USA, who believed provoking war between Russian dissidents and its military would gain America Asian oil interests.

24, once a simple thriller, moved into the realm of political commentary and succeeded wonderfully. Although it rightly condemned its villains, each was allowed to speak, to touch the deeper issue at hand. Here, 24 questioned the Bush administration at the height of the Iraq War and did so not in black-and-white terms, but in prevalent grey. It made a continual thematic point to state even hardliner patriotism can be treason. Flawed, human, characters and sharp, economic writing elevated the season to critical acclaim. It won Best Drama Series and Best Actor at the 2006 Emmys.

President Charles Logan: Yes, this dude's an asshole.

In 2007, the stakes were incredibly high for its sixth season. 24’s producers, buoyed by the response to season five’s weighty matters, decided to tackle a delicate subject: Muslim extremists operating in America. The stakes were high, but the slope was too steep.

            Obviously, 24 used Muslim terrorists in seasons two and four. The difference between those seasons and season six are paramount to condemning season six’s depictions. In season two, the terrorists worked for American oilmen for profit, not for ideological gain. They had no real political purpose, only greed, grounding their actions in a universal temptation the American viewer could accept as applying to everyone. In season four, Crimson Jihad, led by Habib Marwan (an excellent Arnold Vosloo), proclaimed the exact purpose for their attacks in a homemade video:

People of America, you wake up today to a different world. One of your own

nuclear weapons has been used against you. It will be days and weeks before

you can measure the damage we have caused. But as you count your dead,

remember why this has happened to you. You have no knowledge for the causes

of the people you strike down or the nations you conquer. You choose to meddle

in their affairs, without respect. You follow your government, unquestioningly,

toward your own slaughter. Today, you pay the price for that ignorance...Unless

you renounce your policies of imperialism and interventionist activities, this attack

will be followed by another...and another after that.

Crimson Jihad criticized the Bush regime’s foreign policy. Marwan, intelligent and well spoken, killed only when necessary, and Vosloo, so charismatic in the role, captivated the screen. Although Marwan was evil, he was not a Muslim stereotype. His religion, like the terrorists in season two, was moot. His motivations were purely political, and for much of the season, largely ignored.

Nevertheless, when his character emerged, The Council on American-Islamic Relations cautioned the show on how it portrayed Muslims. In a BBC News statement, the CAIR said: “Repeated association of acts of terrorism with Islam will only serve to increase anti-Muslim prejudice.” Kiefer Sutherland appeared before 24’s next episode with this announcement:

Hi. My name is Kiefer Sutherland and I play counterterrorist agent Jack

Bauer on Fox’s ‘24.’ I would like to take a moment to talk to you about

something that I think is very important. Now, while terrorism is obviously

one of the most critical challenges facing our nation and the world, it is

important to recognize that the American Muslim community stands firmly

beside their fellow Americans in denouncing and resisting all forms of terrorism.

So in watching ‘24,’ please bear that in mind. 

Yes, a nice sentiment, maybe weightless, maybe forced. Still, such intention was lost on the creative team behind the show’s sixth season. Religion—evil, evil Islam—is the only motivation of its Muslim villains.

24: Season Six has, coincidentally, six major Muslim characters. All become mired by Middle Eastern/Muslim myths. As discussed by Edward Said in his seminal work, Orientalism, the roots of Islam’s clash with the West was caused by its misconception and demonization by Western powers. Robert Irwin summarizes Orientalism as the “discourse of imperialism…[one] that constraints everything that can be written and thought in the West about the Orient and more particularly about Islam and the Arabs…The West possesses a monopoly over how the Orient may be represented…[carrying] implications about Western superiority” (3). Bernard Lewis, in From Babel to Dragomans, states “[The West is] accused of distortion, not just distortion of this or that individual theme, but a systematic, deliberate distortion conducted as a profession or, more precisely, as a conspiracy” (437). I don’t buy the conspiracy part of Lewis’ assessment, but feel rather that now ignorance has fallen over our views of the Middle East. When it comes to artistically depicting the region and its people in accurate (ie: multi-faceted) light, unfortunately we often find laziness and a reliance on outdated archetypes. 24’s Muslim depictions in season six explicitly exist in Orientalist branding. Specifically, the show depicts a ‘backward’ behavior considered abnormal to the West which inhabits these strange ‘others’ Jack Bauer must defeat.

Return for Part 3, where I’ll begin to analyze season six as it unfolds.

Bibliography

“Day 4.” “Day 6.” 24. Fox, 2005, 2007.

“24 Under Fire from Muslim Groups.” BBC News. BBC News, 19 January 2007.

Armstrong, Stephen. "Rough Justice." New Statesman 136.4836 (2007): 36-38. 

Bauder, David. “TV Torture Influencing Real Life.” USA Today. 11 February 2007.

Dougherty, Michael Brendan. "What Would Jack Bauer Do?" American Conservative 6.5

(2007): 8-10. 

Flynn, Gillian. “24: TV Review.” Entertainment Weekly. 11 January 2007.

Halliday, Fred. 100 Myths About the Middle East. Los Angeles: University of California Press,

2005.

Irwin, Robert. Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism and its Discontents. New York: Overlook

Press, 2006.

Lewis, Bernard. From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2004.

McCormick, Patrick. "The Torture Show." U.S. Catholic 73.5 (2008): 17. 

McDermont, Jim. “A Trojan Horse.” America 196.7 (2007): 23-24.

Rossi, Melissa. What Every American Should Know About the Middle East. New York: Plume

Books, 2008.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1978.

Yuan, Jada. “The White-Castle Ceiling.” New York Magazine. 4 March 2007.

Big, Bad Muslims: Part One—24: Season Six

James Bond. Jason Bourne. Jack Bauer. Contemporary film and television’s top spies epitomize Anglo-physical perfection: blonde hair, ice-blue eyes, toned bodies. 24’s Jack Bauer, however, is the ideological anomaly. While Bond battles international megalomaniacs and Bourne defends himself from his country’s own agents, Jack Bauer remains quintessentially hawkish. Unlike Bond, he’s unconcerned with sex or witticisms (he tells the women in his life ‘I’ll be right there’ before running off to fight terrorists and smiles maybe once per season). Unlike Bourne, he’s unapologetic in his use of violence (when he decides to hack off his daughter’s lover’s hand to defuse a bomb in season three, he doesn’t even blink). Unlike both Bond and Bourne, he often sacrifices friends, family, and coworkers for the American good (like killing his boss to stop the spread of a lethal virus). Truly, Bauer embodies post-9/11 neoconservativism: a strong America assured of itself and uncorrupted in its ‘values’. Always, Bauer battles the ‘other’, a seditious force intent on taking American lives and civil liberties. In characterizing the villains of its sixth season, the show exploits the fear of Muslim terrorists operating freely on American soil. 24 could be accused of simply embodying the Bush administration’s homeland agenda but for its reliance on Orientalist stereotypes uses harmful parody to color its Muslim characters.

To understand 24’s conservative agenda, one must grasp its hero. In a 2005 USA Today interview, the show’s producer, Howard Gordon, said Jack Bauer “taps into the public’s ‘fear-based wish fulfillment’ of having protectors…who will do whatever is necessary to save society from harm.” This usually involves torture. “‘[Bauer] is a tragic character. He doesn't get away with it clean. He’s got blood on his hands,’ Gordon says. ‘In some ways, he is a necessary evil’” (Bauder). Calling him an anti-hero undermines Jack’s political importance in the fear-mongering Bush-era in which he was born. “The disturbing appeal of Jack the Torturer reflects a wounded and frightened national psyche, a desire to lash out at those responsible for 9/11, and the frustration of a superpower unable to defeat a ragged band of terrorists” (McCormick 17). Bauer’s dramatic core, however, is similar to the Hollywood cowboys of Wayne and Eastwood. Though a government agent, Jack distrusts politicians and bureaucracy, and operates by his own moral code. Yet, after saving the day, he most always returns to government service.

"Hey, brother. Long time no see" - Jack's brother discovers family reunions aren't what they used to be.

In post Abu-Ghraib America, 24 takes great strides to prove that for whatever diplomatic laws Jack breaks, he suffers for in his personal life. Through eight seasons and a TV movie, Bauer loses a wife, coworkers, friends, and estranges his only daughter. His politics, however, remain 24’s driving force. Jim McDermott humorously dissects Jack Bauer in America. “Yes, he tortures prisoners and shoots co-workers in the head, but he’s not a bad person. He’s just caught in a bad situation” (23). Still, the show enforces his rationale: his ends justify his means. “[Jack] demonstrates what few may care to admit: in the war on terror, the conservative movement has become willing to sacrifice principle to passion and difficult moral reasoning to utility” (Dougherty 9). Jack Bauer is not “America”. He does, however, represent values 24 believes sacred, ones entrenched in American lore: self-sacrifice, results before diplomacy, and an unbending “sense” of right and wrong opposed by those too weak to do what is “right”.

In season six, 24 cherry-picks this sense of right and wrong with abandon. A New York Times column “compared 24’s focus on domestic terror threats to the Bush administration’s focus on Iraq” (Bauder). Whether Jack Bauer is a sadistic sinner or patriotic saint, in the 24 world America is unique, and its villains need to clearly wear the black hat or else its sense of right and wrong might be complicated by nagging realism.

In Part 2, I’ll examine the villains in previous seasons of 24 and how they adhere to us vs. them U.S. geo-political archetypes.

Bibliography

“Day 4.” “Day 6.” 24. Fox, 2005, 2007.

“24 Under Fire from Muslim Groups.” BBC News. BBC News, 19 January 2007.

Armstrong, Stephen. "Rough Justice." New Statesman 136.4836 (2007): 36-38. 

Bauder, David. “TV Torture Influencing Real Life.” USA Today. 11 February 2007.

Dougherty, Michael Brendan. "What Would Jack Bauer Do?" American Conservative 6.5

(2007): 8-10. 

Flynn, Gillian. “24: TV Review.” Entertainment Weekly. 11 January 2007.

Halliday, Fred. 100 Myths About the Middle East. Los Angeles: University of California Press,

2005.

Irwin, Robert. Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism and its Discontents. New York: Overlook

Press, 2006.

Lewis, Bernard. From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2004.

McCormick, Patrick. "The Torture Show." U.S. Catholic 73.5 (2008): 17. 

McDermont, Jim. “A Trojan Horse.” America 196.7 (2007): 23-24.

Rossi, Melissa. What Every American Should Know About the Middle East. New York: Plume

Books, 2008.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1978.

Yuan, Jada. “The White-Castle Ceiling.” New York Magazine. 4 March 2007.