Iraq

By Ron Najor





About the video:

“Iraq” is a collaboration between rapper TIMZ (aka Tommy Hanna) and director/producer Ron Najor. Says Najor, “I had been watching CNN and Fox News and the corporate news channels back in 2006, and I was flabbergasted by all the lying I was seeing in their coverage. When I heard TIMZ’s song, I thought it was an opportunity to provide a different perspective. We wanted to show the harshness of war. We wanted to show the brutality and the rawness of two sides killing each other and the people caught in the crossfire. And for what? A war that turned out to be false and unnecessary. That to me is both depressing and shocking.” Najor and TIMZ are both Iraqi Americans – Najor was born in Detroit and TIMZ is from San Diego. Their parents are Chaldean Iraqis, a Catholic ethnic group which is now being persecuted by the warring factions of Sunnis and Shiites. Says TIMZ, "Because my parents are from Iraq but I was born in the United States, I feel like I'm able to connect to both sides of this war a little more than the average person. That's why I wrote the song the way I did. The first verse is written from the perspective of an Iraqi while the second verse is written from the perspective of an American. The third verse is a history lesson."