The brother of Muntadar al-Zaidi says that the journalist has been beaten in custody suffering a broken hand, broken ribs and internal bleeding, as well as an eye injury. In the meantime, al-Zaidi is now an international superstar and there is now even a couple of games for people who want to throw shoes at Bush, including some that appear to teach the physics of shoe throwing.
The reporters older brother, Dargham, told the BBC that the Iraqis have still not given access of lawyers to his brother. If it makes him feel better, Bush denied the same access to detainees for years before being forced to grant basic rights in this country. Finally, Iraq has achieved the American standard of civil liberties.
He may face two years in jail.
Iraqi television is now demanding his release as Iraqis herald his actions against Bush as protesters call for him to be freed. Our billion-dollar-a-Day occupation appears to be securing over more shoes than allies.
For the full story, click here.
Sally 1, December 16, 2008 at 11:25 pm
“Waynebro
If someone leader like Putin or some other fool tried to come into our country and harm my family, I can guarantee you that I can find something a hell of a lot more damaging to throw at them than a shoe. And I wouldn’t get caught either”
Or are you saying only when YOUR friends and family and country are invaded should their be retribution? When others friends and family and country is invaded by us, they should roll over and submit to our will?
Waynebro
If someone leader like Putin or some other fool tried to come into our country and harm my family, I can guarantee you that I can find something a hell of a lot more damaging to throw at them than a shoe. And I wouldn’t get caught either
And the man’s act wasn’t symbolic as much as it was moronic.
And don’t compare me to a Nazi when you don’t know a darn thing about me.
Now continue to run from my question. Because you know, and I know, that the answer would provide a stark contrast to your one sided goosestep logic.
Sally 1, December 16, 2008 at 11:17 pm
“And those that beat him up were also simply expressing their opinions and views as well”.
As I said, you’d have fit right in in 1938 Berlin.
When you can compare a man being beaten half to death, crippled by the beating, with a PURELY SYMBOLIC ACT, you reveal yourself to be little more than one of the mindless citizens who tossed their hands into the air and yelled “Seig Heil, Seig Heil!” as the staff cars drove slowly by.
I hope you have the opportunity to have someone “express” themselves to you one day, so you can make excuses for them too.
Once more I ask you Sally. If some powerful world leader invaded the United States, and in the process killed many of your friends and family members, would you describe your feeling for that person as “didn’t like nor care for”?
And those that beat him up were also simply expressing their opinions and views as well
Waynebro
The fact is is that if you’re going to stand your ground about something you believe in, then you better be damn prepared to accept the consequences of your actions
Sally 1, December 16, 2008 at 10:58 pm
“Basically, a person had better be ready to face the consequences of their actions, especially if they feel that strongly about something”
He tossed a shoe in a symbolic act. Even if the shoe had struck Bush it would not have done any damage.
Meanwhile this poor man has suffered his ribs broken, his hand smashed and broken, and was beaten severely while he’s being held like a caged animal for a mere symbolic act.
People who can compare such acts or speak so coldly on such a horrific brutal act would have made great candidates for citizenry in 1938 Germany. In fact, they would have fit right in.
Sally.
That is not pertinent whatsoever to the analogy.
Your response however makes it clear you are incapable of answering the question, because you know the answer defeats your one sided thinking.
Waynebro
Mr. Putin doesn’t have the balls to attempt such an act.
If someone is responsible for the wrongful death of millions, they deserve much more than a shoe thrown at them. If someone invaded America, we’d all cry out for nukes being sent out. I thank the man for his actions, I feel it was more than justified. Kudos to him for having the courage to do what he did.
Here’s a link from Alternet on Iraqi “reconstruction”:
T. Christian Miller wrote a definitive work a couple years ago called Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq. Late last week, Miller, who used to work for the LA Times and now writes for the online investigative unit Pro Publica got his eye on an unpublished document detailing the history of the failed reconstruction project in Iraq, and the only thing surprising about it is that the Pentagon allowed the Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, to write it up at all. The blinding incompetence and ignorance, the sustained money funnel into the hands of contractors, and the ideological warfare that led to over $100 billion in waste and fraud, all to simply replicate what we spent even more billions destroying without improving the basic lives of Iraqis, is just astounding. You can pull out anecdote after anecdote that will absolutely floor you.
It also concludes that when the reconstruction began to lag — particularly in the critical area of rebuilding the Iraqi police and army — the Pentagon simply put out inflated measures of progress to cover up the failures.
In one passage, for example, former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is quoted as saying that in the months after the 2003 invasion, the Defense Department “kept inventing numbers of Iraqi security forces — the number would jump 20,000 a week! ‘We now have 80,000, we now have 100,000, we now have 120,000.'” […]…
The New York Times, who published this article in conjunction with Pro Publica, has actually put the entire report on its website, with keyword searchable functions. It’s a major achievement that will ensure this history will not be buried, as important as the Pentagon Papers in many respects. The stories contained within tell a sad chapter in American history, where people with no interest and in fact total contempt for government were given the task of remaking a country, to predictable results. It’s not just that they didn’t know what they were doing – they didn’t want to know. Domestic politics trumped competence, appearance trumped reality, and ideology trumped knowledge.”
All this death, torture and horror bush has brought Iraq and our own people.
Sally
1, December 16, 2008 at 5:02 pm
“Mike,
No I would not throw my shoes at someone I didn’t like nor care for.”
“Didn’t like nor care for”?
So if Validmir Putin launched an invasion on US soil that resulted in your parents being slaugthered in a bombing raid, and your brothers imprisoned and beaten, and flattened schools, homes, supermarkets, librarys and killed dozens, perhaps hundreds of people you know, you’re saying that Putin would then be someone you “didn’t like nor care for”?
Mike,
No I would not throw my shoes at someone I didn’t like nor care for. Nor would I lick their boots either to get their approval.
I get the fact that you think the president falsely lead us into war.
You say:
“Are you not horrified that this president has authorized illegal torture, wiretaps and other things that abrogate our own constitutional rights, yet failed to make us safer?”
I think their country is guilty of illegal torture as well as many other crimes against their own people. No it doesn’t justify us doing it either. But you’re a fool if you think that they’re treating our fellow Americans like kings and queens when they get their hands on them.
I am saying that he was foolish to do what he did. And the people in prison beating him up are also simply expressing their opinions as well. I never said he deserved a beating. I’m not sure what I said that implied I thought he deserved it. I did say what did he expect his actions would do. I never said that he got what was coming to him. I said he made a stupid decision.
Of course he deserves a fair trial and an attorney that will represent him fairly, everyone does.
Basically, a person had better be ready to face the consequences of their actions, especially if they feel that strongly about something
Sally
1, December 16, 2008 at 2:05 pm
“If someone had thrown a shoe at Obama”
Obama didn’t illegally and mercilessly invade and plunder and obliterate the guys country.
Bush did.
Give the poor guy a break.
Sally,
I am wondering why you feel it is all right for this man to be beaten in detention. If a US citizen threw a show at the president, the law would deal with him. He would be arrested and have the right to an attorney. The same should be true in Iraq.
I agree entirely with Mike that this man showed great courage. But I’m asking you a different question. Why are you justifying his beating?
Sally,
Don’t you get the fact that this man did this to protest our Iraq invasion? Perhaps you also find it hard to understand why the Iraqi’s don’t appreciate having had their country’s infrastructure destroyed and hundreds of thousand of their citizens killed, while an occupation of foreign troops rules their land? You definitely don’t get that this president led us into a war based on false information, against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11? Are you not horrified that this president has authorized illegal torture, wiretaps and other things that abrogate our own constitutional rights, yet failed to make us safer?
Would you have the courage in a like situation, where America had been invaded and the invasion’s leader was holding a Washington Press Conference, to throw your shoes at him, or would you be licking his boots?
Hey the man was foolish to do that. You don’t just throw things at people like that, regardless of whether or not you like the person. Especially someone who has more body guards than people you know.
Even though he greatly dislikes the man, he made a very very stupid choice to do that. Did he seriously think he was going to get away with that? Or did he just not give a damn?
If someone had thrown a shoe at Obama, then everyone would have cried racist or say that it was a hate crime. We can play the same card in this situation. Obivously, the man hates white people. (please note I am being sarcastic.)
I am offended that he would throw a shoe at our President, regardless if you like the man or not. How would they feel if an American threw an object at their country’s leader? They would be insanely irrate with us!
I say it all the time, we went to war to save this Country? Maybe our friend here JP can sugarcoat this too.