In a bizarre moment, President George Bushes surprise visit to the Green Zone was met with an even more surprising shoe attack from an Iraqi journalist, TV reporter Muntazer al-Zaidi . As shown on this video, the President proved pretty nimble in dodging the shoes (dodging congressional subpoenas may have been good training).
The reporter yelled “This is a gift from the Iraqis. This is the farewell kiss, you dog.” And Bush thought MSNBC was a rough forum. Al-Zaidi is now being hailed as a hero by Iraqis.
The reporter threw both shoes and almost hit Bush who proved he was no loafer or loafee. After the attack, Bush remarked: “That was a size 10 shoe he threw at me, you may want to know.” To his credit, Bush waved off the Secret Service to avoid a nasty confrontation. Al-Zaidi remains in detention, however, accused by the Iraqi government of a “barbaric act.”
What Al-Zaidi needs to understand is that shoes can be put to a better use at soles4souls. Indeed, he may want to claim that as a defense — his effort was to donate shoes to Americans in this economic crisis with little money (given Bush spending a billion dollars a day on the occupation).
The Justice Department prompted announced that all shoe salespeople would be rounded up and questioned as “material witnesses.” OK, I made that last part up. However, it does prove Bush correct when he has referred to terrorist elements as “soleless”
Aaron h. 1, December 17, 2008 at 9:07 pm
“wow waynbro,
If you were in a school and had your reading, your comprehension and your analysis of what I wrote graded as one would have a book report graded you would have earned a solid F!!!
It would be so much easier to respond to you if you had understood anything and argued reasonably or logically against any of it or added meaningful alternative views, but when you argue ridiculously against ideas I didn’t put forth in most cases, it makes untangling it all a really arduous task and I don’t have the time or energy right now. I’d sort of like to ask you to reread and rethink more carefully what I was actually saying and what my points are, but you really don’t give me much hope that it will be fruitful at this point.
Man, my post was obviously really long already, it took a lot of time and I thought I made my points fairly clear, but now with what you’ve done it would take basically re-explaining everything I said in a different way so that you could understand it and then also refuting/replying to each of your responses and statements and that would take a post TWICE as long as my first one!!!
I guess I will take the time to take one of the most ridiculous things you did here. Your absurd rant about what I said being good ammunition for right wing cretins to accuse the left of “hating our country,” in order to make that statement you had to take the punch line of a long paragraph out of context and completely change the meaning of it! If you were Hannity or Limpbone I would understand that you’re just being a slimy lying shitbag demagogue intentionally misleading people that didn’t actually get to hear the whole statement in context and judge for themselves what the person being quoted was really saying, but in this case my post is right there for everyone that’s reading your post to see!
Just to save people the trouble of scrolling back up I’ll put it here again in more of it’s context; what you quoted and replied to as “WE OURSELVES SHOULD BE BOMBED INTO THE STONE AGE!!!!” as if I was simply stating that as my unadorned opinion, was really this;
“Another fact is, that if some other country had done even a tiny fraction of what we have done there, and we had some strategic or financial interest in attacking that country, then our government and our media would use any of thousands of the very things we ourselves have done and used whichever of those things they felt most useful in order to call that country the worst of the worst, the most evil, the new Nazi’s etc., and we all would jump on the bandwagon and call for bombing them into the stone age…. in other words by our own “logic” “morals” “principals” “beliefs” and patterns of behavior, WE OURSELVES SHOULD BE BOMBED INTO THE STONE AGE!!!!”
Now I hate to call you stupid, but there are really only two choices here, either you really were attempting to demagogue in tried and true republican fashion in all its despicable, dishonest, sleazy, reprehensible and sickening manifestations or you truly need to go back and retake 3rd grade!
What was my point? That if the same “standards” were applied to this country that we apply to other countries when we decide to bomb them then we would be continuously bombed ourselves, and that if we actually think it’s right every time we bomb someone then if we were “fair and balanced” and honest then we would necessarily have to think it right that we be bombed. So rather than accusing me of saying we should be bombed, you have to ask yourself if YOU think our bombings are just, and if so then by what logic, aside from might makes right and that Americans apparently should own and rule the world with complete tyranny and hypocrisy, could you argue against any of dozens of countries bombing us?”
Wow Aaron, if I were grading you on your ability to bs you’d be an A student.
You make the case that you never meant to make the case that you were making the case for us to be bombed, and then proceed to make the case for why we should be bombed.
That’s an amazing feat of contortion worthy of only the highest grade.
Second, in your wordy ranting response you failed to even address your statements about the deaths of our troops.
So an “F” coming from you I’ll take as high praise.
Aaron H:
You might have had some measure of credibility here had you avoided such blanket statements of condemnation as “We are a rogue nation, pure and simple. The emperor has no clothes, looks disgusting, and you can’t fucking see it! NO!, not just fucking Bush, he’s among the worst, but OUR WHOLE HISTORY!!!! WAKE THE FUCK UP AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!!” That’s just far left demagoguery masquerading as thought. We are not some rogue nation,and our whole history is not replete with actions that render us a pariahs to the rest of the world. To the contrary, we do much good, and, unlike most nations, the bad always becomes public for all the world to see. So spare us the blame America First position and make your points calmly and rationally, lest we consider you how we consider most of our right wing bloviators–not at all.
wow waynbro,
If you were in a school and had your reading, your comprehension and your analysis of what I wrote graded as one would have a book report graded you would have earned a solid F!!!
It would be so much easier to respond to you if you had understood anything and argued reasonably or logically against any of it or added meaningful alternative views, but when you argue ridiculously against ideas I didn’t put forth in most cases, it makes untangling it all a really arduous task and I don’t have the time or energy right now. I’d sort of like to ask you to reread and rethink more carefully what I was actually saying and what my points are, but you really don’t give me much hope that it will be fruitful at this point.
Man, my post was obviously really long already, it took a lot of time and I thought I made my points fairly clear, but now with what you’ve done it would take basically re-explaining everything I said in a different way so that you could understand it and then also refuting/replying to each of your responses and statements and that would take a post TWICE as long as my first one!!!
I guess I will take the time to take one of the most ridiculous things you did here. Your absurd rant about what I said being good ammunition for right wing cretins to accuse the left of “hating our country,” in order to make that statement you had to take the punch line of a long paragraph out of context and completely change the meaning of it! If you were Hannity or Limpbone I would understand that you’re just being a slimy lying shitbag demagogue intentionally misleading people that didn’t actually get to hear the whole statement in context and judge for themselves what the person being quoted was really saying, but in this case my post is right there for everyone that’s reading your post to see!
Just to save people the trouble of scrolling back up I’ll put it here again in more of it’s context; what you quoted and replied to as “WE OURSELVES SHOULD BE BOMBED INTO THE STONE AGE!!!!” as if I was simply stating that as my unadorned opinion, was really this;
“Another fact is, that if some other country had done even a tiny fraction of what we have done there, and we had some strategic or financial interest in attacking that country, then our government and our media would use any of thousands of the very things we ourselves have done and used whichever of those things they felt most useful in order to call that country the worst of the worst, the most evil, the new Nazi’s etc., and we all would jump on the bandwagon and call for bombing them into the stone age…. in other words by our own “logic” “morals” “principals” “beliefs” and patterns of behavior, WE OURSELVES SHOULD BE BOMBED INTO THE STONE AGE!!!!”
Now I hate to call you stupid, but there are really only two choices here, either you really were attempting to demagogue in tried and true republican fashion in all its despicable, dishonest, sleazy, reprehensible and sickening manifestations or you truly need to go back and retake 3rd grade!
What was my point? That if the same “standards” were applied to this country that we apply to other countries when we decide to bomb them then we would be continuously bombed ourselves, and that if we actually think it’s right every time we bomb someone then if we were “fair and balanced” and honest then we would necessarily have to think it right that we be bombed. So rather than accusing me of saying we should be bombed, you have to ask yourself if YOU think our bombings are just, and if so then by what logic, aside from might makes right and that Americans apparently should own and rule the world with complete tyranny and hypocrisy, could you argue against any of dozens of countries bombing us?
Now I’m not the one believing in all of this attacking, overthrowing, invading, assassinating, controlling and bullying that we’ve done during our whole history so I’m not the one that needs to apply the same philosophy toward ourselves if I were to be fair and honest. Now if I were simply an honest observer and thought that whats good for the goose is good for the gander, turn about is fair play, an eye for an eye, revenge is sweet well then an argument could certainly be made couldn’t it? Sorry to spoil your day with a little truth and reality, but there it is.
Now personally I don’t want to see us bombed into the stone age like YOU would (as conclusively demonstrated by your rational for bombing Iraq) if you happened to be born in another country and had an honest picture of the things this country has actually done over time, which virtually every other country does (have an honest picture of us, which most of us don’t), but I do want as many US officials still living as possible to be tried and convicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity for countless operations and programs and I think they should be put to death for the mass murder they’re responsible for, and prior to death, for the many, and there are indeed many even though your media won’t tell you that, that were responsible for torture, they too should be tortured. I don’t believe in torture nor the death penalty in general, but in the case of high officials responsible for major war crimes and mass murder and torture I make the exception.
Furthermore we also need a gigantic truth and reconciliation program in which we come completely clean about every facet of our entire history both here and abroad, laying bare all the crimes, all the lies, all the details, all the plans and conspiracies, the underlying motives, from the Indian genocide, to slavery and everything since and right up to Iraq & the current domestic disaster capitalism. We must educate our own people about it all, and admit it all to everyone else who already knows it, we must sincerely pledge to do everything in our power to truly change our behavior and philosophy and correct our damage to whatever degrees possible. In addition to anything else we might do, in order to do and maintain the things I just said, we need to have an honest and competent media. We must make them criminally and civilly liable for lying, misleading, suppressing important truths and facts, failing to report things crucial to an informed public and electorate etc. There is much more, but how’s that for a start? Better than bombing us into oblivion?
Aaron h.
1, December 15, 2008 at 10:06 pm
“Second of all, in the face of that, whenever someone makes an argument that starts off talking about a few thousand dead Americans and how many wounded we have and how much money we’ve blown…. well, I’m sorry but that exhibits the very attitude, the very blindness, the very lack of humanity that allows these things to continually happen in the first place! When you allow and are complicit with with mindset that American lives are worth so much more than others, when you dehumanize “our” so called enemies to the point that, even if you thought it was “only” half a million of them dead, you find it appropriate to mention that only as an afterthought to what you position as your priority concern, how many deaths and injuries are incurred by the aggressor, the instigator, the invader, the occupier…. well, sir, you, and all who think that way, which seems to be almost all of us, are really enabling these things to happen. It is shameful.
Could you imagine a local news report about a situation where a man went on a rampage in your town and he beat to death a thousand people with his bare hands and the whole news report was only concerned with the bruises and damage done to the mans hands in the course of his slaughtering a thousand people? Please don’t just laugh at the absurdity of this, I want you to actually imagine it.”
Well “imagining” it is a good choice of words since your analogy exists only in your imagination.
You like so many confuse our soldiers with our leaders.
A soldier doesn’t have much choice in the matter. It’s either follow orders or spend 20 years in prison. It is not our soldiers we are to hold accountable for the death and destruction over there (except in extreme cases where clearly soldiers crossed the line) but the leaders who sent them there.
So excuse me for being grieved with the loss of over 4000 Americans, or the horror of 10’s of thousands of horribly wounded and disfigured, but it seems to me if you were as thoughtful as you are loud you’d realize that it’s not the young men and women who are compelled into war that bear the responsibility for that war.
That singular honor is reserved for the old men and women who sent them there.
Aaron h.
1, December 15, 2008 at 10:06 pm
“Ok, but the CIA was about to kill him you say, that would be ok with you? Why?”
Because Aaron there are times to kill and there are those who need to go, albeit those times are rare and should be used with caution and judgement.
If for example, the US suddenly declared that we were going unilaterally if need be, into the DR Congo, Darfur, Somalia, etc, to slaugther (and I do mean SLAUGHTER) these bands of armed militants who are committing mass genocide, as well as cutting off the arms and legs of little kids, raping them and their mothers and sisters, etc, I’d probably head down to the local recruiters office and say “sign me up”.
Then when everyone at the local recruiters office stopped laughing, I’d say “no no really guys, come on sign me up”.
Aaron h.
1, December 15, 2008 at 10:06 pm
“Good god, OF COURSE Iraq and the world would be better off with Saddam still in power!!!”
When you sady “of course” you imply that’s what one of us said. No one here said that and I doubt any believe that, I know I do not. Saddam Hussein was a tyrant who butchered tens of thousands of his own people just experimenting with Sarin gas. He tortured and slaughtered political opponents in his dungeons and launched offensive war into Kuwait where his army’s raped, plundered and murdered civillians.
And he constantly attacked our planes in the no fly zone, openly declaring war on us by using Anti Aircraft to shoot at our planes. You forget Saddam had lost a war to us in 1991 (perhaps you’re not old enough to remember)and that means he was merely a puppet ruler of a conquered regime, permitted to retain power only due to the wisdom of George Bush senior in not wanting to invade his country and “own” it, as his dumber son decided to do. Once you’ve started a war, and the US and it’s allies has subdued you, you don’t continue to shoot at their peacekeeping forces. Japan didn’t continue shooting at us once they were conquered. Neither did the Germans. He lost the war but he kept shooting at our planes, meaning HE was the troublemaker, and needed to go.
Aaron h.
1, December 15, 2008 at 10:06 pm
“Dude (waynebro),
First of all you and others that talk about half a million or less dead Iraqis are understating it by more than half! Kucinich held a hearing of sorts, prior to ‘06 so it was almost more of a press conference than a real hearing since no chair would call it, but he had a panel consisting of the Johns Hopkins team that performed the surveys as well as Juan Cole and others in which they laid out the methodology used for their figures and showed without a shadow of a doubt that it is the most reliable and respected method known, used by the UN, the US and all governments in all similar situations and always sited and quoted by governments and press in other war zones, and that it was even more precise the second time they did a study. They concluded over a million dead long ago!”
Dude….Aaron, I’m quite familiar with the study which was published in the “Lancet” Journal, and the methods employed (sampling as opposed to headcount) however to avoid the inevitable sidetrack debates over the actual number I prefer to use numbers which are generally accepted by the Pentagon, Red Cross and other international organizations and are of themselves horrific enough to drive the point home.
Aaron h.
1, December 15, 2008 at 10:06 pm
“So if he was an evil dictator oppressing, abusing and killing his own people then we shouldn’t have been supporting him and calling him “our friend” eh? And considering that we have consistently supported dictators, put them in power, funded them, armed them and used them for “our” own purposes such as suppressing their own people in order to provide slave or sweatshop labor for our corporations or to supply us with resources or other nefarious purposes”
You seem to forget we DID put Saddam into power. In fact we effectively created the country of Iraq. As for the “sweatshops” I don’t know of too many Nike’s or Lampshades being made in Iraq. In fact I don’t know of too many goods we purchase coming from Iraq period, other than a tiny fraction of our oil consumption.
Aaron h.
1, December 15, 2008 at 10:06 pm
“WE OURSELVES SHOULD BE BOMBED INTO THE STONE AGE!!!!”
Something tells me you’re allready slightly “bombed”, however declarations like yours are how the right wing is so successfully able to label us all as haters of our own country. They merely turn to extremist statements like yours and attribute your sentiments to us all.
What we did was bad, really, really bad. But half the country was and is against it, so lets focus on the better half and rebuilding what we have left, instead of effectively standing on a street corner with a long beard and a sign reading “The End Is Near”.