Watch out for that shoe, Mr. President!

[gambit]

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20081214/capt.b95e057088ec40f292d9fce0cb6e5722.aptopix_bush _wx108.jpg?x=400&y=306&q=85&sig=dNbLisgkH3xyo3su_.zZ4A--

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/bush

BAGHDAD – On an Iraq trip shrouded in secrecy and marred by dissent, President George W. Bush on Sunday hailed progress in the war that defines his presidency and got a size-10 reminder of his unpopularity when a man hurled two shoes at him during a news conference.

"This is a farewell kiss, you dog!" shouted the protester in Arabic, later identified as Muntadar al-Zeidi, a correspondent for Al-Baghdadia television, an Iraqi-owned station based in Cairo, Egypt.

Bush ducked both shoes as they whizzed past his head and landed with a thud against the wall behind him.

"It was a size 10," Bush joked later.

----------------------------

Can't we keep Bush around for laughs? I mean, not with any power of course, but just so we can throw shoes at him.

[dubman]

i love how hes got a half-smile the whole time
the dude has such contempt for everyone.

[gambit]

The other guy's expression is priceless. I bet he's wanted to do that for years.

[myrrh]

Classic!

"This is the farewell kiss," reporter Muntadhar al-Zaidi yelled as he hurled the footwear -- a strong sign of contempt in Arab culture.

But Bush, who ducked the flying footwear, told reporters aboard Air Force One afterward that the "bizarre" incident was not a sign of popular opinion in the country he ordered U.S. forces to invade in 2003.

Hmm... I find it hard to believe that this is NOT the popular opinion in Iraq.

edit: as I further read the quoted article from CNN, I found this line:

"Iraq has been far more costly to the United States with more than 4,200 Americans killed and costs estimates of more than $600 billion."

What about the 90,000 Iraqi's that have been killed? I guess their lives aren't worth as much as an American's, seeing how they aren't even mentioned. I guess that could to so that the American's don't know what evil their country is doing. I remember when my parents were here two months ago. It was there first time overseas and they said "All they show on the news is the US bombing, attacking and killing people". As if they couldn't believe that the US was actually doing such things. Go figure...

[Deckard]

But Bush, who ducked the flying footwear, told reporters aboard Air Force One afterward that the "bizarre" incident was not a sign of popular opinion in the country he ordered U.S. forces to invade in 2003.

Hmm... I find it hard to believe that this is NOT the popular opinion in Iraq.
Tbh, so do I. I was watching an interview with various Baghdad Iraqis last night and one guy dismissed the notion of them now being a free society by pointing out that yes, anarchy IS technically a form of freedom isn't it? I just hope they can rebuild their country once we've gone, but let's hope it's not now rebuilt in a way that backfires on us, seeing as the principle reason was that it was supposed to make us safer (in that sense, "us" quite clearly being "not them")

"Iraq has been far more costly to the United States with more than 4,200 Americans killed and costs estimates of more than $600 billion."

What about the 90,000 Iraqi's that have been killed? I guess their lives aren't worth as much as an American's, seeing how they aren't even mentioned.
It's hard to take that number in without some kind of comparison. Take the number killed in the Mumbai terror attacks that dominated the news recently, and imagine that level of death 500 times over. Where is the sympathy and the outrage?

[myrrh]

Well, you can compare it to 140,000 which is the number of people who died between August and December of 1945 in what was left of Hiroshima (70,000 of which died instantly as Little Boy vomited his guts over her).

And who are the terrorists again?...:rolleyes:

terrorism |ˈterəˌrizəm|
noun
the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.

[King of Snake]

war = terrorism?

btw not sure where the link with Hiroshima comes from. The situations are not really comparable wouldn't you say?

[heavens_night]

Muntadar Al Zeidi is my new fucking hero. Goddamn I wish one of those shoes hit their mark ....

[Deckard]

Just to emphasize, I wasn't wanting to get into the politics of it, or whether war = terrorism. That's a whole other kettle of fish.

It was just a reflection on the sheer magnitude of death, the sheer number of grieving mothers and fathers, widows and orphans - and how it's not entirely unreasonable to expect that that scale of death and loss might just occasionally be channelled into something as simple as the throwing of a shoe at the man whose arrogance and contempt came to symbolise the entire mess.

Fair play to his reflexes though.

[cacophony]

8 years and we never knew he was a ninja.

[Deckard]

8 years and we never knew he was a ninja.
and we only find out just as he's getting the boot.

(sorry)

[gambit]

The shoe-thrower should've said, "Here's your weapon of mass destruction!"

Cacophony, he's been dodging questions and threading the needle for eight years. He could probably go all Neo on us and dodge bullets.

[BeautifulBurnout]

Nice to see that Muntadar al-Zaidi is getting some support... (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7783608.stm)




(and I think war = terrorism, btw :p)

[stimpee]

i thought it was a bit slapstick... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua05RTaDE8o

[Sean]

I've always been disturbed by the habit of reporters focussing on how many Americans have been killed, but not really mentioning the Iraqis killed. That never made sense to me. Victims are victims whether they're from here or there.

[IsiliRunite]

Muntadar Al Zeidi is my new fucking hero. Goddamn I wish one of those shoes hit their mark ....

Violence creates peace.

[Deckard]

i thought it was a bit slapstick... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua05RTaDE8o
Haha, brilliant!

[heavens_night]

Violence creates peace.

And you've have succeeded in turning my joy into shame .... Damn you and your good point.

[myrrh]

war = terrorism?

btw not sure where the link with Hiroshima comes from. The situations are not really comparable wouldn't you say?


That was the only number I could come up with off the top of my head that had to do with the US killing mass amounts of people.

I don't think that the situations are quite the same, but now that you mention it, our current situation is worse because the Iraqi's weren't doing anything to justify us killing so many of their people. At least we were technically at war with Japan when we decided to start dropping bombs on them.

[Deckard]

From the always-reliable Peter Brookes in the Times:
http://i33.tinypic.com/535l5c.jpg

Steve Bell's now iconic depiction of Bush:
http://i35.tinypic.com/23h4sqh.jpg

Matt in the Torygraph:
http://i34.tinypic.com/2ro0zer.gif

[Deckard]

On a rather more serious note (and this needs corroboration):

The brother of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at US President George W Bush has said that the reporter has been beaten in custody.

Muntadar al-Zaidi has suffered a broken hand, broken ribs and internal bleeding, as well as an eye injury, his older brother, Dargham, told the BBC.

Dargham al-Zaidi told the BBC's Caroline Wyatt in Baghdad he believed his brother had now been taken to a US military hospital in the Iraqi capital. Mr Zaidi told our correspondent that despite offers from many lawyers his brother has not been given access to any since being arrested by forces under the command of Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser.

If true, well... that should teach that terrorist shoe-bomber never to attempt to assassinate the president. :rolleyes:

[cacophony]

I don't think that the situations are quite the same, but now that you mention it, our current situation is worse because the Iraqi's weren't doing anything to justify us killing so many of their people. At least we were technically at war with Japan when we decided to start dropping bombs on them.
you're right. those innocent civilians going about their business in japan totally deserved to die.

[dubman]

technically

of course it makes sense that we never hear about iraqi deaths. we're not supposed to care.

[cacophony]

http://www.boingboing.net/images/x_2008/iraqimage007.gif

[Deckard]

http://www.boingboing.net/images/x_2008/iraqimage007.gif
Your boingboing image didn't load. :confused:

Was it this one?

http://i40.tinypic.com/2utkqo9.gif

(I keep watching expecting at least ONE to hit him!)

[//\/\/]

you're right. those innocent civilians going about their business in japan totally deserved to die.

the second world war brought civilians into play on an unprecedented scale. the germans, japanese and the allies all targeted civilian populations - it was a tactic brought about by technological advances in aviation. they didn't deserve to die, but their country was at war and they became targets; just as millions of europeans did too.

and looking at the way the uk population viewed the war, they were supportive of their country's actions and took being targets as something that went with the territory; so does that make them complicit in some way?

[IsiliRunite]

Nanking anyone?

[cacophony]

the second world war brought civilians into play on an unprecedented scale. the germans, japanese and the allies all targeted civilian populations - it was a tactic brought about by technological advances in aviation. they didn't deserve to die, but their country was at war and they became targets; just as millions of europeans did too.

and looking at the way the uk population viewed the war, they were supportive of their country's actions and took being targets as something that went with the territory; so does that make them complicit in some way?

i accept no argument that makes civilians acceptable targets of war.

[King of Snake]

I don't think that the situations are quite the same, but now that you mention it, our current situation is worse because the Iraqi's weren't doing anything to justify us killing so many of their people. At least we were technically at war with Japan when we decided to start dropping bombs on them.

yeah that was kinda the point i wanted to make.
While I don't exactly want to go into an argument about whether or not dropping atomic bombs on civilians was justified or not. At least from a historic standpoint I think we can safely say that the war on Japan in general was justified, since they allied with Nazi Germany and actually attacked the US (not to mention attacked and occupied many other countries before that).

[myrrh]

you're right. those innocent civilians going about their business in japan totally deserved to die.

Now you are taking my statement out of context. I am not justifying the actions of the US, since in my original post I compared the death-toll in Iraq to the death-toll in Hiroshima.

I am saying however, that while I don't agree either actions, we were at a state of war with Japan, and the way that the US fights wars is by bombing the country it is fighting. When you take this factor into play, I can see (even though I don't agree) with how the actions of the US can be justified by the US government and it's supporters.

My whole point though, was to show by examples of their act's of terrorism how the US is a terrorist nation, though it has brainwashed the majority of it's population to think otherwise.

[cacophony]

i don't disagree that the US's actions absolutely fit the definition of terrorism. personally i would love it if the hague would issue a warrant for bush and cheney after they're out of office. it would never fly, but i think it would be a valid statement.

still, disagree with your analogy.

[34958hq439-qjw9v5jq298v5j]

Say what you will about Bush - I still think this was ridiculous and immature. At the same time I kind of wish he got hit - "Bush gets nailed by shoe"...can you imagine it?

[Strangelet]

Say what you will about Bush - I still think this was ridiculous and immature.

I disagree and disagree.

1. It galvanized protests across the middle east and he effectively became a symbol of dissent.
2. He was beaten by the u.s. authorities while being held. If it was just ridiculous and immature, it wouldn't have meant anything. If it didn't mean anything they wouldn't have beaten him.

And as far as Bush's legacy. I find it decidedly cowardly that he would not go out of his way to pardon this guy. Instead of rambling on about how people want to make a "distraction" and to call "attention" to hiimself (like he's don't tase me bro or chris crocker on about britney spears again), he could have said look, he's angry about the death caused by the hands of our inaccurate intelligence, our mismanagament, and hubris. Maybe I deserve to face their anger, and come to an understanding of it. Maybe that's the least I could fucking do.

But no. they beat an apology out of him.

[Sean]

It bothers me too that I haven't seen any comment by Bush on the alleged abuse of al-Zaidi. The most I've seen is a statement that Bush has "no hard feelings" against him, but nothing about a stance against the allegations of abuse.

[myrrh]

It doesn't surprise me because in this (http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/12/16/intv.crowley.bush.long.cnn?iref=videosearch) interview he says that the US has never tortured anyone. Of course I realize that he probably has to say that but if you see how he reacts to the question, it looks like he really believes it and he is not just talking.

[Strangelet]

The shoe thrower has been completely black holed for more than a month. New evidence he's been tortured.

http://www.twincities.com/ci_11466032?nclick_check=1



On Thursday, Dhiyaa al-Saadi, al-Zeidi's lawyer, said he had recently seen medical records that were part of al-Zeidi's court file, which he said added credence to the journalist's claim he had been beaten and tortured after his arrest Dec. 14 by the security detail of the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.
Al-Saadi said two medical reports conducted by government physicians within a week of al-Zeidi's arrest described bruising that covered the reporter's face and body, but was especially severe on his legs and arms; a missing tooth; a gash on the bridge of his nose; and what appeared to be a burn mark on his ear.
Al-Saadi said he had not been permitted to remove the records from the office of the judge investigating the case, so the existence of the documents could not be verified independently. But the account of al-Zeidi's wounds matches injuries described

[myrrh]

The real question is is who is doing the torturing? US or Iraq? Or are they both one in the same here?

[Strangelet]

A statue of a big shoe has been erected in iraq to honor "the shoe thrower"

http://www.inquisitr.com/16865/iraqis-build-giant-shoe-to-honor-bush-shoe-thrower/

[Deckard]

This, just in....

A sculpture of a shoe erected in Iraq to honour a journalist who threw his footwear at George W Bush has been dismantled, reports say.

Foreign media say the bronze-coloured fibre-glass shoe was removed from its site in the city of Tikrit on the orders of the local authorities.

"I did take the shoe down immediately and destroyed it, and I did not ask why," Shahah Daham told the German news agency DPA.

RIP "Bush shoe sculpture" :(

http://i39.tinypic.com/4ic7yo.jpg

[Strangelet]

its like the opening credits to monty python and the search for the holy grail.