Watch out for that shoe, Mr. President!

[gambit]

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]

Originally Posted by myrrh

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")

Originally Posted by myrrh

"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?...

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.