joe posts

He’s a hero. They should put those shoes on display in an Iraqi museum. Unfortunately they were blown up by the bomb squad. Really. I guess they were worried the shoes might be thrown again and not blow up again. There’s nothing more dangerous than a non-exploded non-explosive.

It sounds silly to deify a shoe-thrower (seriously, who throws a shoe?!) but it certainly worked as an attention getter as he called Bush a bitch and reminded him of all the people he’s murdered with his neoliberal crusade to remake the Middle East. I hope this reporter lives a long and healthy life and gets to enjoy all the benefits of being ‘the guy who threw a shoe at Bush.’ But not before the goons torture him and we have the obligatory false confession – pretty much the regular War Against Terror Treatment:

He said he visited his brother Sunday and found him missing a tooth and with cigarette burns on his ears. He also said his brother told him that jailers also doused him with cold water while he was naked. – AP

So rest assured, America, that your pResident will not be harmed by this shoe-thrower ever again. If he survives American-sponsored torture and sexual assault and imprisonment he’ll certainly be traumatized and possibly very very angry at those who’ve ruined his country and his life.

And here’s exactly what he said, and why it matters. Who else has gotten away with ten seconds of truth with this pResident?:

Contrary to most media coverage, the 28-year-old TV reporter Muntadhar al-Zaidi made history not by merely throwing a pair of shoes, the highest expression of insult in Iraqi culture, at the US president, but by what he said while doing so and as he was smothered by US and Iraqi security men. He groaned as they dragged him out of the press conference. They succeeded in silencing him – and according to his brother he was beaten in custody – but he had already said enough to shake the occupation and Nouri al-Maliki’s Green Zone regime to their foundations.

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. – The shoes we longed for