I’m probably in a minority of one who doesn’t find the shoe incident particularly funny, especially not after hearing/reading reports that the individual is being tortured in custody. However, I haven’t had time to read up with any kind of depth. I’m not going to get in to the debate over whether the action was appropriate, nor whether it should be considered a symbolic protest rather than an assault. I’m more concerned with the fallout. Does anybody have a link to a story to get me caught up?
Hopefully I’ll have something intelligent to say about it later.
60 comments
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December 16, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Joe Blow
Curiosity keeps me coming back. Probably be the death of this observation too.
Guess not all Iraqis are whores.
Hey Eric! When you going to clean up your little rat dropping you deposited on my Blogs?
December 16, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Eric Kirk
Well, you can remove the comment, I can’t. I think it was a fair question.
December 16, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Nick Bravo
How would you feel if someone threw a shoe at Obama? or hillary clinton?
December 16, 2008 at 7:04 pm
kaivalya
I saw this article today
Apparently there are 1000 protesters in Mosul demanding his release.
December 16, 2008 at 7:13 pm
middle child
Can you imagine having to sit there and listen to George Bush talk about the great accomplishments his invasion and occupation have brought to the people of Iraq after having witnessed first hand the unnecessary destruction and death our mental and emotional midget of a president visited upon his country. According to his brother, he had been detained by both US soldiers and Al queda operatives in the past. He hates both sides and believes the US and Iran are fighting a proxy war in his country. Personally I think he may have been the most sane person in that room. Bush of course missed the point entirely saying only that in free societies people will do things just to get attention. What a clueless pig. I wish he clobbered him.
December 16, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Not A Native
Given Bush’s low popularity, I don’t think there will be a groundswell of outrage that the US has been “dissed”. Bush himself is wisely treating it as a joke, signaling US citizens to do likewise. Similarly, I don’t expect US demonstrations in defense of Al-Zeidi.
I think this will go down in history as one of other presidential gaffes and miscues. Can’t wait to see the SNL skits on this one. The political cartoonists and comedians should also have a field day.
To me, its a fitting conclusion to the assertion that the US would be welcomed as liberators in Iraq.
Maybe this humiliation of Bush will help those who are angry with USA to feel a little mollified and open to the possibility that future alliance is thinkable. It may give Obama a small increment of foreign goodwill. That’s about the best I can expect to come out of this. But, if the Iraqi’s impose further severe punishment on Al-Zeidi, it will reduce US foreignprestige.
December 16, 2008 at 8:33 pm
mresquan
“To me, its a fitting conclusion to the assertion that the US would be welcomed as liberators in Iraq.”
Well I think his frustrations had more to do with prior treatment of Iran actually.
December 16, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Ben
If he survives, this guy has a guaranteed political future in Iraq. He went before a judge today so he’s not dead yet. The shoes were loafers. Easy off… so he had planned it and he has (or had) a great arm. The guy has (or had) balls.
December 16, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Jimmy Carter Redux
Give the American people a few more months of the messiah. They’ll be wanting to throw shoes at him too. He’s already censoring the press (those that aren’t completely in the tank for him) and denying his involvement in the Blago criminal activity. Oops, got Rahm on tape!
December 16, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Ernie's Place (Branscomb)
Well at least now we know what it takes to get George Bush to move to the left.
December 16, 2008 at 9:51 pm
middle child
Hey JC Redux,
Better pace yourself, you’ll have 8 years to get worked up over non-issues. No need to wear yourself out before the man even takes office.
December 16, 2008 at 10:57 pm
anonamie
I would have to wonder about Obama’s association with the Governor of Illinois who possibly is very corrupt and has been under investigation of the FBI. The Govenor before the current one was corrupt as well.
December 16, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Eric Kirk
I wouldn’t. With the economy tanking and two wars which may heat up again, I’ll leave the speculating to the talking heads. Wake me up if something tangible turns up.
December 17, 2008 at 6:08 am
Nick Bravo
once again Eric’s political bias shines through with the stunning brightness of a laser pointed at ones optic nerve.
December 17, 2008 at 7:39 am
Mr. Greenjeans
Eric, I think yours and other’s opinions who think this was over the top by the Iraqi do not realize that they really hate Bush and the U.S. more than we are led to believe. They are not the happy people that Bush and co. would have you believe. Bush and co. keep telling everybody that things are going swimmingly over there but that is just not the case. There is murder in the streets and the different factions hate each other and their country is much more screwed up than it was before Bush got involved. Of course they despise him and us. And for Bush to go there and show his face is rubbing it in. Think of France and Paris during WWII.
December 17, 2008 at 7:39 am
Greg
Ernie, thank you.
December 17, 2008 at 7:51 am
ecumenik
Mr. Branscomb, please remember this is California: “Use a Pun-Go to prison. It’s the law.”
December 17, 2008 at 7:52 am
mresquan
Mr.Greenjeans,the throwers resentment runs much deeper than what stems from this current quagmire.I wish that people would get that and quit placing the blame on just the last 8 years.
December 17, 2008 at 8:07 am
Carol
Now, now ecumenik, Ernie is a very punny guy!
December 17, 2008 at 8:35 am
Kahlihl
The secret service should have shot him.
December 17, 2008 at 8:44 am
Eric Kirk
Mr. Greenjeans, the point is, there are those who want to assassinate the president. I’m not judging whether they are justified in their sentiments, but an educated journalist should have known that this would be taken very seriously. He could have staged a protest another way.
That’s not to say they had the right to beat him and it’s incumbent on the president to demand his release.
As to whether the country is better off or worse since the invasion I can’t say. I do doubt that the current political prisoners, however badly they’re being treated, are being locked into rooms for acid showers or being raped by dogs trained to do so. The country has been messed up for decades, and I don’t know if we’ve made it worse. There are many Iraqis who will tell you it’s improved. Certainly most of the Kurds belief so.
December 17, 2008 at 9:25 am
ecumenik
I think that hitting someone with a shoe is a major insult in Arab culture. I’ve heard that even showing the bottom of your shoes while you are sitting with others, is a very insulting thing to do.
that touching someone with your left hand, was also an insult. since you eat with your right hand, and wipe yourself with your left.
Other than their physicians washing their hands 200years before ours (Western European) got over their arrogance enough to do it, these people are barbarians! Oh yeah, and that invention of the “Concept of Zero,” thing, Oh, and that whole “Law of Hammuradi (?)” stuff, oh yeah, and the concept of individual rights, (go ahead) and the Pyramids/sphinx deal, Oh yeah, and the whole planetary theories, that were based on science, instead of the elite fiction of Greece and Rome. and the theories of personal hygiene a thousand years ahead of England, Oh well, they’re still darker than whites, so they must be gross.
December 17, 2008 at 9:55 am
Mr. Greenjeans
You can train a dog to rape?
Eric, the real story is that both Iraqs (before and after 2003) are probably two sides of evil. I just wish I was not part of one of the sides. And it would probably be best if Bush did not visit.
How about that Zimbabwe. That Darfor? That Congo?
December 17, 2008 at 10:04 am
Joe Blow
Eric says:
I assume you’re talking to me? If so, your comments are “rat droppings” because you made an ambiguous statement and never came back to explain what you meant when I asked? You think it’s a “fair question.” I asked you, “Why?” I’m not a mind-reader.
December 17, 2008 at 10:38 am
Ernie Branscomb (South Fork Ernie)
Early on in the Arab world, they make great strides toward science and civilization, but recently they have become somewhat complacent. Some would say that they are no longer keeping pace with the modern world, indeed some would say that they are becoming a backward tribe of people, and they are starting to harm the progress toward civilization.
December 17, 2008 at 10:43 am
Eric Kirk
You’re preaching to the choir M.G. I opposed the invasion, and I believe we should leave their country. But as to whether Iraq is better, worse, or the same, I can’t offer an opinion.
December 17, 2008 at 11:00 am
mresquan
Ernie,those strides have been greatly hindered by the influence of the West,Iran for example,with some of the greatest universities in the region dedicated to technological advances cannot succeed while the West actively prevents the country from having nuclear access technology needed to help them move forward.Part of the reason that the West has become morre advanced is by having much greater nuclear access.
December 17, 2008 at 11:09 am
mresquan
…..and I’d say that the part stagnancy of the West in regards to failing to move away from mass Oil consumption and into other advanced means has allowed the Plutocracies of the Mideast controlled by big oil to strengthen their control,that dates all the way to ’53.
December 17, 2008 at 11:20 am
Carson Park Ranger
“I’m probably in a minority of one who doesn’t find the shoe incident particularly funny…”
Most folks probably didn’t think that the incident was “funny.” We’re cheering, not laughing.
December 17, 2008 at 12:14 pm
olmanriver
“progress toward civilization”?—-
i am reminded of gandhi’s response when asked what he thought of “western civilization”— he said “i think it would be a good idea!”
December 17, 2008 at 2:50 pm
keep 'em on a leash
December 17, 2008 at 9:55 am
Mr. Greenjeans said:
“You can train a dog to rape?”
Come on, don’t tell me you’ve never had a dog try to hump your leg?!?!?
December 17, 2008 at 5:48 pm
olmanriver
“Conventional wisdom in American politics focuses only on American costs in the war in Iraq: the casualties to U.S. soldiers, the financial costs, and sometimes the strategic costs. But the human cost to the Iraqis themselves are nearly ignored in political discourse, the news media, and intellectual circles. This site is a corrective to those oversights. We present empirical reports, studies, and other accounts that convey and assess the consequences of war for the people of Iraq.” John Tirman, Executive Director, MIT Center for International Studies
http://web.mit.edu/humancostiraq/
UNICEF estimates 500,000 children died post Bushwar I, due to the collapse of health standards from bombing their infrastructure in violation of the Geneva Convention. Estimates of Iraqis killed in Bushwar II range from 600,000 (Lancet a few years back) to 1.2million (ORB estimate). There are more than 2 million Iraquis refugees in other countries, and 2.7 million displaced from their homes but still in country.
“But the big news is a big new Johns Hopkins study published in The Lancet that suggests that the US misadventure in Iraq is responsible for setting off the killing of twice as many civilians as Saddam managed to polish off in 25 years.” http://www.juancole.com/2006/10/655000-dead-in-iraq-since-bush.html
Over 200 lawyers have offered to defend him pro bono.
That man is a hero and deserves a statue where the saddam statue stood.
December 17, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Had it
oldmanriver
History will find those of us who supported the American war against Saddam heroic and you and your ilk, cowardly.
December 17, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Carson Park Ranger
“He could have staged a protest another way.”
What, he should have been polite, like all of the cowardly, feckless journalists at the Washington Press Club? Should he have started a blog? Would that have been more productive?
He creatively and courageously did what he could, and he did good.
December 18, 2008 at 9:04 am
Eric Kirk
Shouted Bush down. Opened a banner. Either would have made the same headlines, sans the sympathy push for the president as a “victim of attempted violence.”
December 18, 2008 at 9:05 am
Eric Kirk
History will find those of us who supported the American war against Saddam heroic and you and your ilk, cowardly.
Yeah, that was an easy political position to take in the aftermath of 911. That’s why so many of the Democrats fought the war tooth and nail.
December 18, 2008 at 9:27 am
mresquan
“History will find those of us who supported the American war against Saddam heroic and you and your ilk, cowardly.”
He who wins writes history,right?Stalin would have loved your line of thinking.
December 18, 2008 at 10:05 am
S. C.
Great one Ernie!
It was not attempted violence, it was an insult, manifested in a very public forum. I say well done. Bush should be pelted with shoes as he he is dragged off to the Hague for war crimes.
December 18, 2008 at 10:16 am
olmanriver
Now an interesting comparison to make would be to take those stats and reverse them. How would Americans feel if a vastly superior military from another country had invaded us to restore the democracy lost during the fascist rule of this President and claim our natural resources for their own. If we we work with the approx. numbers of 28 million Iraquis and 300 million Americans. At 1 in 28, the deaths would be about 10 million Americans. Approximately 30 million would be displaced into refugee camps in country, and maybe 25 million would have fled country. Not to mention the deadly deforming legacy of DU left everyone. Not to mention the wounded.
Had it? I bet you would throw more than a shoe.
Erik…where are you seeing sympathy for the president?
More than “mission accomplished” this could be Bush’s quintessential history picture.
December 18, 2008 at 10:19 am
olmanriver
sorry, should be DU left everywhere.
December 18, 2008 at 10:23 am
Eric Kirk
Erik…where are you seeing sympathy for the president?
KGO call-ins.
December 18, 2008 at 10:42 am
olmanriver
Thanks Eric. Well maybe this will increase Bush’s ratings from the early november gallup poll where his popularity was soaring at 27-8%.
I suspect talk radio is to the right what blogs are to the left.
December 18, 2008 at 11:12 am
S. C.
Caffeine suits radio, a joint the blogs.
Ram Dass said his biggest spiritual challenge of late is trying to find love in his heart for Bush. I asked him to let us know if he finds any.
December 18, 2008 at 1:24 pm
olmanriver
I heard a westerner volunteer at one of St. Theresa’s charity homes in India tell a story on the radio that illustrates that challenge, S.C. This westerner was very dedicated to the Mother and serving the suffering
and developing her Love for others. One day a couple of wealthy Indians visited the center and behaved arrogantly as the privileged sometimes do. The woman observed Mother Theresa shows the same gracious energy towards these people as any others. Now Mother Theresa was quite crippled towards the end of her life, hunched over with what we call dowagers hump, or crippling kyphosis. Just before the wealthy couple left, the female Indian insisted on having her picture taken with Sister Theresa.
To the repeated horror of the westerner, the Indian woman would lift Mother Theresa’s head up from its bent position to her obvious discomfort for the picture. The western woman was, naturally, enraged, but said nothing til the couple had left. She challenged St. Theresa about why she had allowed them to behave so disrespectfully, even inflicting pain upon her. The Saint replied something to the effect that it IS harder to love the rich and see their suffering than it is to love the more obvious poor and ailing. But that was the real spiritual work.
December 18, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Mr. Greenjeans
Erik…where are you seeing sympathy for the president?
Juan Williams went on a rant as well.
“WILLIAMS: But on a serious level, how many American lives have been sacrificed to the cause of liberating Iraq? How much money has been spent while they’re not spending their own profits from their oil? American money. So I just think it’s absolutely the act of an ingrate for them to behave in this way. Just unbelievable to me.”
Damn ungrateful Iraqis!! (Shaking my head) snark
December 18, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Eric Kirk
The KGO listenership is mostly based in the Bay Area, and while the callers may be statistically less liberal than the population base, I’d say it’s pretty left of center. Anyway, it’s what I could listen to on Monday when I was down there. I guarantee that most Americans were offended by the act. You can debate whether they have the right to be, or whether it matters, but I don’t know what it accomplished except to make some of the anti-war set feel a little better.
December 18, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Carson Park Ranger
“…I don’t know what it accomplished except to make some of the anti-war set feel a little better.”
The “anti-war set”?
December 18, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Eric Kirk
People in the anti-war movement.
December 19, 2008 at 6:40 am
Anonymous
Joe Blow>…Guess not all Iraqis are whores.
gee such a racist, demonizing, essentialist statement, dude…fyi, this shoe throwin’ guy was a leader in the Iraqi Ba’athist Party student union during the reign of saddam’s thugs (read dexter filkins book on iraq for tons of stories on that regime’s death squads and mass graves) how much you want to be mr. throw a couple of shoes at dubya, has the blood of iraqi dissident student leftists on his hands?!
December 19, 2008 at 6:46 am
Anonymous
>…Similarly, I don’t expect US demonstrations in defense of Al-Zeidi.
ah you need to get on the e-mail lists of your local “peace and justice” coalition…code pink and united for peace and justice are holding demos in front of the white house gates soon where they will hold up shoes
this guy supports al-sadrs paramilitaries, btw…and yes, iraq does have now a free press, hundreds of papers from Communist to “Neo-Con” there…under saddam being an honest journalist gyot you a trip to abu ghareib to get tortured to death by ba’athist mukharabat thugs
December 19, 2008 at 6:50 am
Anonymous
mrsquen>…To me, its a fitting conclusion to the assertion that the US would be welcomed as liberators in Iraq.”
Well I think his frustrations had more to do with prior treatment of Iran actually.
Ah this guy hates iranians. like a good bna’athist newspaperman who had in the ba’ath party style guide for comformist journalists had it always refer to iranians as, “persian flies.”
December 19, 2008 at 7:03 am
Anonymous
>…Ram Dass said his biggest spiritual challenge of late is trying to find love in his heart for Bush. I asked him to let us know if he finds any.
A.J. Muste, Christian left-wing pacifist, during WWII, “If I can’t love Hitler, who can I love.”
Ghandi on the Nazis anti-semitism, charming too. Google, “Gandhi Jews Holocaust, ” you will find Ghandi’s advice to the Jews was to go willingly into the death camps.
December 19, 2008 at 8:24 am
Carson Park Ranger
Have you ever considered that, perhaps he wasn’t performing symbolic tricks for the pleasure of fatuous Americans bloggers?
December 19, 2008 at 9:47 am
Anonymous
fatuous amerikkkan bloggers, eh, heh, hmm. eric isn’t a “typical” american, hardly one to ignore crimes of us foreign policy, whether intentional evil or the consequence of good intentions (the evuuuuhhhll “neo-cons” who took seriously the 70′s left-liberal/progressive/radical meme that us foreign policy was wrong to prop up 3rd world dictators like saddam, the shah, somoza, marcos…so they helped to withdraw u.s. support for saddam, an unqualified good, which has of course led to a power vacuum now pretty much filled with legitimate, freely chosen iraqi leadership from all the communities, whose status of forces agreement will force the us combat troops out, as the mission has been accomplished of setting the underpinnings of a semi-liberal democracy in place…)
marxist philosopher norm geras,
December 19, 2008
Rights and wrongs of shoe-throwing
Is it OK to throw shoes at George Bush? I’m not going to re-enter here into arguments about the Iraq war or the war on terror, about how much harm Bush is responsible for and how much good (chortle and sneer away those of you who want to). For, if I do, then my shoe-throwing sortie sinks to the bottom of a billion words of other argument. You’ve all got your positions on these matters. Good. Assume those positions.
Since, however, it seems to be quite widely thought, when the shoe-throwing incident is being talked about, that whoever may have rights against assault, those covered are only human beings, and this does not include the despised president of the United States of America, there are two points that seem to me worth making. One, aiming a shoe at a person’s face is a form, precisely, of violent assault. How much damage it would do if it succeeded would depend on the weight and hardness of the shoe, the velocity of the throw, and where and how it struck the victim. But in any case if ‘the symbolism is the important thing’, it’s not the only relevant thing. Aiming a shoe at a person’s face is plainly, other things equal, a wrong, and under most legal systems a criminal wrong. You may now decide, in light of how you assess the just-stated ‘other things equal’ clause in this case, that aiming a pair of shoes at George Bush was a justified act, all things considered. Or that it wasn’t justified.
But even if it was justified – and here I come to two – the justification has to acknowledge the wrong contained in the act. Otherwise one has to say that it is, in general, morally acceptable to aim a shoe at a person’s face. I discount the possibility of any serious person claiming this and I would not take seriously anyone who did. The wrong is acknowledged, but then justified – justified as a form of symbolic protest or what have you, in the light of other considerations (roughly, the harm Bush has been responsible for). But there is a tradition of this kind of deliberate wrongdoing as a form of justified protest; it’s known as civil disobedience, though not all forms of civil disobedience involve the deliberate attempt physically to harm another person. In this tradition it is common for the protestor willingly to accept that he or she will be punished for what they have done. They break the law knowingly, judging that their act is justified by whatever set of moral considerations they appeal to. But they simultaneously show their respect for the rule of law by accepting that their violation of the law should not go unpunished.
Nothing I have said, of course, justifies the beating up of Muntadhar al-Zaidi if that is what has been done to him. Nor could it justify prosecuting him for attempted murder or imposing anything but a mild, mostly symbolic sentence. It is, after all, of some account that al-Zaidi missed.
Posted by Norm at 12:55 PM | Permalink
December 19, 2008 at 9:50 am
Anonymous
fatuous? is that a SIZEIST slur you person of thinness on rotunfd eric? why eric is hella’ funky phresh PHAT, dude
December 19, 2008 at 12:09 pm
olmanriver
“Strip the words away, and his and the Iraqi people’s cry of deep pain, anger and defiance would amount to no more than a shoe-throwing insult. But the words were heard. “This is the farewell kiss, you dog,” he shouted as he threw the first shoe. The crucial line followed the second shoe: “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.” Once those words were heard, the impact of a pair of shoes became electrifying. A young journalist has put aside the demands of his profession, preferring to act as the loudest cry of his long-suffering people. If one considers the torture and killings in Iraqi and US jails that Muntadhar often mentioned in his reports for al-Baghdadia satellite TV station, he was certainly aware he risked being badly hurt.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/17/bush-shoes-iraqi-journalist-hero
December 19, 2008 at 2:16 pm
anonymouse
heraldo had it first… sock and awe! http://play.sockandawe.com/
December 19, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Carson Park Ranger
“…my shoe-throwing sortie sinks to the bottom of a billion words of other argument…”
It looks like the long-winded Anonymous was trying to get a good chunk of that billion words in in one single comment.
December 19, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Nick Bravo
When one looks past the flesh the soul wears in its journey through incarnation one can see a being as it trully is. Bush is a young soul, he has great lessons to learn. For him I have the sympathy and love one has for a child first learning to walk, bush has had most everything handed to him as have others in political power such as ted kennedy, al gore, and many many more.
My frustration with all of them is great but my wrath is tempered by my love and my rage melts into sympathy for them.
Watching one soul throw a shoe at another, I am reminded of a room full of tired 5 year olds who need naps. We have in our society so many souls who are but children pretending to be men and women of power and influence. The world needs real men and women willing to be leaders, leading as did Ghandi, Jesus, Abraham, and so many others who remembered that to lead is to serve.
December 19, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Nick Bravo
If you went back in time and held a baby george bush in your arms would you be able to love him or would you throw him to the ground in rage? What about a baby hitler? baby hilary clinton? baby mao?
So many wearing the bodies of adults and yet so infantile in their emotional and spiritual maturity.