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Thousands Demand Release of Iraqi Journalist Who Threw Shoes at George W Bush
Thousands of Iraqis have taken to the streets to demand the release of a reporter who threw his shoes at President George Bush.
Arabs across the Middle East hailed the journalist a hero and praised his insult as a proper send-off to the unpopular U.S. president.
A shoe is raised during a protest against the visit to Iraq of US President George W. Bush, in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday. Dec. 15, 2008. Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zeidi threw his shoes at President George W. Bush during a press conference in Baghdad on Sunday, while yelling in Arabic: 'This is a farewell kiss, you dog, this is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.' (AP Photo/Karim Kadim) Muntadhar al-Zeidi, who was kidnapped by Shiite militants last year, was being held by Iraqi security today and interrogated about whether anybody paid him to protest during the press conference.
He was also being tested for alcohol and drugs, and his shoes were being held as evidence.
Showing the sole of your shoe to someone in the Arab world is a sign of extreme disrespect, and throwing your shoes is even worse.
In Baghdad's Shiite slum of Sadr City, thousands of supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr burned American flags to protest against Bush and called for the release of al-Zeidi.
"Bush, Bush, listen well – Two shoes on your head," the protesters chanted in unison.
Newspapers across the Arab world printed front-page photos of Bush ducking the flying shoes and satellite TV stations repeatedly aired the incident, which provided fodder for jokes and was hailed by the president's many critics in the region.
"Iraq considers Sunday as the international day for shoes," said a text message circulating around the Saudi capital Riyadh.
Many users of the popular internet networking site Facebook posted the video of the incident to their profile pages, showing al-Zeidi leap from his chair as Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki were about to shake hands.
"This is a farewell kiss, you dog," al-Zeidi yelled in Arabic as he threw his shoes. "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."
Al-Zeidi was immediately wrestled to the ground by Iraqi security guards. The incident raised fears of a security lapse in the heavily guarded Green Zone where the press conference took place. Reporters were repeatedly searched and asked to show identification before entering and while inside the compound, which houses al-Maliki's office and the U S Embassy.
Al-Zeid's tirade was echoed by Arabs across the Middle East who are fed up with U.S. policy in the region and still angry over Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein.
Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the influential London-based newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, wrote on the newspaper's website that the incident was "a proper goodbye for a war criminal."
The response to the incident by Arabs in the street was ecstatic.
"Al-Zeidi is the man," said 42-year-old Jordanian businessman Samer Tabalat. "He did what Arab leaders failed to do."
Ghazi Abu Baker, a 55-year-old shopkeeper in the West Bank town of Jenin said, "This journalist should be elected president of Iraq for what he has done."
Hoping to capitalise on this sentiment, al-Zeidi's TV station, Al-Baghdadia, repeatedly aired pleas to release the reporter Monday, while showing footage of explosions and playing background music that denounced the US in Iraq.
"We have all been mobilised to work on releasing him, and all the organisations around the world are with us," said Abdel-Hameed al-Sayeh, the manager of Al-Baghdadia in Cairo, where the station is based.
Al-Jazeera television interviewed Saddam's former chief lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi, who offered to defend al-Zeidi, calling him a "hero."
In Najaf, a Shiite holy city, some protesters threw their shoes at an American patrol as it passed by. Witnesses said the American troops did not respond to the protesters and continued on their patrol.
Al-Zeidi, who is in his late 20s, was kidnapped by Shiite militias on Nov. 16, 2007, and released three days later. His station said no ransom was paid and refused to discuss the case.
Violence in Iraq has declined significantly over the past year, but daily attacks continue to occur. The truck bomb that killed five police officers Monday also wounded 13 others, said Iraqi police.
Hours earlier north of Baghdad, a female suicide bomber knocked on the front door of the home of the leader of a local volunteer Sunni militia and blew herself up, killing him, said Iraqi police.
The police officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the press.
- Posted in
101 Comments so far
Show AllWe should all throw our shoes at the American press barons who've stopped covering the true situation in Iraq since deaths of US soldiers have tapered off.
Mail your shoe to (if you can't throw it)
George Bush
Departing War Criminal
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC
Seems like folks here and the many "there" are agreed on this journalist:let him out of jail. No harm done.
No harm, but plenty of good. Honestly this man is a hero. Think about the deep gravity of what he actually accomplished with humble shoes. Amazing. I'm honestly inspired. By an Arab throwing shoes. Crazy.
The sad thing is that Bush is too stupid to realize he's been humiliated the world over.
Oh no, he realises it. He is enraged by it. He's not that stupid.
I fear this brave man is in for a world of hurt. May Alla give him peace and courage. I'd be suprised if they haven't burnt one of his feet off with a blow torch yet.
Box cutters and shoes. And we spend a fortune on weaponry??
Ursa
This journalist has my respect! As well as all of those independent reporters/journalist out there that believe in reporting the truth and risk their lives to do so.
It would have been nice to see a giant goose egg in the middle of georges forhead - like a scarlet letter. In the words of Maxwell smart "I missed it by that much" Too Bad!!!!!!
I'm all for giving us the "boot" and getting out of Iraq, Afghanistan,Iran etc. Due to bad behavior, the gods have taken away our license to run the world.
Dr Wu, the last of the big-time thinkers
He had no Bubble to burst in that statement.... the God statement was sarcasm. Calling names and ready to "burst his bubble" sounds arrogant to me.
EXACTLY.
it is called THE MONROE DOCTRINE...continuing the "WHITE MAN's BURDEN" to rule the world and "civilize" other people...as well as "american exceptionalism".
you put those three together -- and the TOOL is capitalism ...
and you have IMPERIALISM on a global scale...while the USA repeatedly exhorted americans and "allies" that "there are threats all over against US".
when in reality-- the "threat" is ANY rival or challenge OR RESISTANCE to US imperialism.
in other words --IF A NATION DARES resist american imperialism -- that nation is an ENEMY.
this is EXACTLY like in the Star Wars:
the USA has become ANAKIN SKYWALKER becoming a SITH lord --
saying "either you are with me or you are my enemy". there is no compromise...and "being with me" MEANS -- "you are MY SUBJECT and i am YOUR MASTER".
but you see how the "american century" project is COLLAPSING under its own weight and arrogance.
from internal ROT and CORRUPTIOn to WALL STREET and banks exposed as BIG GIANT PONZI SCHEMES and its foreign interferences and scheming to topple governments it doesn't like because they are resistant against american exploitation -- even to its religiousness praying "for our troops" but seldom if ever a word for the VICTIMS of america's wars --
right down to its DELUSIONS about "eternal greatness" and exceptionality and belief in actually BEING FREE when IT"s NOT....right down to torture and politicans hemming and hawing about how to make it more palatable (watch the obama administration do THAT dance) .....
right down to its 14 TRILLION DOLLAR bailout debt which translates into an over-all 50 TRILLION dollar global debt....(this is true, that is what the ponzi schemes, stock options, derivatives culture, and fancy other "financial instruments of NOTHING" really amount to as debt -- and THAT"s while the dollar is STILL on life-support as the world's main currency...imagine if oil, gas and other energy nations REALLY began trading in OTHER currencies? -- it is FINISHED)
and what you see is a "powerful nation" that actually has been floating on an OCEAN OF DEBT for decades to the rest of the world...while going around kicking sand in everyone's face....
it is the grand theatre of a collapsing Empire. ...
"Ghazi Abu Baker, a 55-year-old shopkeeper in the West Bank town of Jenin said, "This journalist should be elected president of Iraq for what he has done."
Like someone here said before, "if he decides to run he will be a Shoe-in."
There's a famous photo from World War II of a captured French resistance fighter tied to a post, about to be shot by a Nazi firing squad. He grins at them mockingly, even though he is about to die in the next few seconds. Even now, that photo inspires awe. The video of Mr. al-Zeidi throwing his shoes at George Wanker Bush inspires similar awe.
A fantastic comparison, and I have seen that footage also, and have always laughed at the Germans for having allowed it to escape the censors. That kind of defiance is inspiring.
Then again, if one remembers what happend to the Nazi power structure, though not nearly enough of them answered for their crimes. Mr. Bush should be made to answer first, then as many as possible of the other Americans and any other nationals who have participated in the Iraq war, "where the Americans would be greated as liberators for bringing freedom".
My wish is that the "shoe thrower" be given the "star status" he deserves; and that it is a shame upon "freedom" that if someone here in America were to do the same, they would be locked up for years and years. Isn't "freedom" what all those Iraqi people and their country were destroyed for? And to think, G.W. Bush & Co. "brung it to em".
where can i find this photo...i am intrigued
It's just a shame that the guy didn't have better aim.
q
His aim was right on, Bush has just had so much practice ducking shit.
The Green Zone will now become a 'Barefoot Zone'. You will only
be able to enter without shoes.
This incident shows one thing clearly, the shame it puts on all
Americans. It's their criminal president and they are supposed
to throw shoes at this sad excuse of a human being.
I am wondering whether Al-Zeidi will be waterboarded now.
Hopefully he is still alive.
The lesson to be learned is to dis those 'press conferences'
altogether. News are already entirely written by the white house
through censorship and intimidation.
Americans are to pity. Their moronic president has steered the
national ship into an iceberg and it is sinking fast.
I guess You could say it's just Karma!
May all Beings be blessed. Specifically the weak and ill minded.
There is a shoe hanging from my rear view mirror.
I only happened to catch the footage on the Today show a few hours ago--taped it so my wife could enjoy it--delighted as my teenager laughed at the sight of Dubya dodging size-10s--and felt heartened that someone had the guts to do it.
joshuafalchion
joshua -- you and your wife have a daughter who already has the RIGHT conscience...that much is clear from your description of her laughing at the BOY KING and EMPEROR without Clothes.
that journalist it turned out was the RIGHT one , not bush, in saying HE represented how the arab world felt!
how is maliki and leaders and bush and american and western media going to portray it?: "just another bad apple?" like they tried with a "few bad apples in the army" on torture?
they can't. they're COMPLETELY EXPOSED as the ONES that are OUT OF STEP with the rest of the world. they have NO ONE LEFT TO FOOL . the only thing left is for the rest of them to be surrounded under pressure and whoever wants to escape vilification BETTER DISTANCE themselves from george bush some more . lol.
this was the equivalent of "the boy that said: BUT SIRS, the Emperor has NO CLOTHES!!".
the man showed, using the highest kind of INSULT in the arab world :showing the bottom of the shoe -- and even throwing it at someone - to imply one is beneath contempt, showed the entire world - when the Emperor deigned to "survey" his court just what he is, even lower than a DOG, he doesn't even deserve the shoe thrown at him.
those officials would likely have no recourse about that journalest but eventualy release him, un harmed or they have a revolt on their hands and maliki can kiss his presidency goodbye. that much is clear.
"Thousands of Iraqis have taken to the streets..."
Cool. Democracy and freedom in action. Mission accomplished.
something you don't see in the "land of the free" , except by permission of "law and order" that protects the status quo....and allowed only in "free speech zones".....
ironic isn't it? the USA wanted to "export democracy" abroad and ends up LOSING it at home.
The video of Bush ducking the shoe is so hilaripus, I almost fell over laughing at it! Who knew GWB had such lightning-quick reflexes?!
Brings out the lolz!
matthew loughran
there needs to be more shoes flying bush the assholes way. he can't duck all of them.
shoes also need to be thrown at cheney and clowns in congress who are responsible for this criminal war in iraq and the collapse of the US banking system from widespread fraud.
May be he has lots of experience ducking things because of Laura. If I were married to that nasty piece of work, I would throw things at him!
a brave iraqi journalist threw his two shoes
at george wanker bush at a conference of news
unfortunately they missed, as george quickly ducked
let's hope the journalist will not now be .........
Hi _ C O C O _,
You go girl !
Thank you, for a fitting rhyme,
an arrow besmirching W's crime.
Perhaps this flight awakens the blame
toward that lame ducking shame ?
Namaste
hey namaste, where've you been? any sign of kem?
where have all the 'flowers' gone?
DK Blake I think we should ALL show our support for this act and our disdain for Bush by hanging a shoe from the rear view mirror-great idea voxclamantis! This is probably the most we can do as it is doubtful that this war criminal will get the punishment he deserves.
I want to do this.... but I am afraid it would have an op-ti-grab effect on me.... while driving.... Perhaps attatched to the bumber wedding-style?...
I hung one right above my license plate. Probably more visible on the back of the car someplace.
Why question him. He was probably the sole conspirator!
They gotta have a reason to torture him, so they'll try to tie him to a terrorist group - like they paid him to throw the shoes at bush. As if someone who's suffered and seen suffering caused by someone wouldn't have the brains to "lose it" when they saw the one responsible.
They might let this guy out, but the evidence against him is quite obvious.
Not so true for Susan Lindaeur. Have you heard about Aafia Siddqui? Those two, both women, have a perplexing lack of evidence assembled against them.
In both case the women were denied their right to confront their accusers. Nor were they provided adequate medical care, and both are/were subjected to forced psychiatric treatments.
Both Siddiqui and Lindaeur's evidence was withheld for years, as they were held against their will, beaten, and abused.
They are examples of Bush-style frontier justice, the kind which got his amigo Cheney indicted down in Texas for that prisons thingee. They were disappeared by our government, like some Third World country we've become. No habeas corpus, no legal rights, or grievance process. Just like me or you could be, classified an enemy combatant, denied any legal rights, tortured, and detained indefinitely without cause.
Did you all see the movie "Wag the Dog"? Remember the shoe? Let's all toss shoes on the phone lines. Make mass actions. Put out media advisories and press releases.
RELEASE AL-ZEIDI!! GIVE HIM A MEDAL!!!
On yahoo and other M$M sites, I did not read how shoe throwing is an insult for Arabs. So now I have a different view of the situation.
There is no 'security lapse' as it was not intended to harm the President (I would even guess that he did not intend to hit him).
It was symbolic, and that symbolism is lost on Americans viewing only M$M. I got the feeling that the view is Iraqis/Arabs are ungrateful savages...
How hard would it have been to add that 1 sentence about the nature of the insult?
The cultural aspect of the shoe throwing is the least of the things USAn are ignorant about.
USAns continue to be clueless as to the sheer scale of destruction the US inflicted on Iraqi society - much worse than anything Saddam did, inclding his awful war with Iran.
This the accusations that the shoe thrower was "ungrateful"
Bush himself called the incident "a sign of democracy", saying, “That’s what people do in a free society, draw attention to themselves” ... over the screams and sounds of the reporter being brutally beaten.
---USAn---
you are absolutely right! the leaders andpundits ALREADY will miss that and continue to miss it - and shunt it to the background as the "work of a disgruntled journalist" and "not reflective of arab thinking"....
in DIRECT contradiction of thousands of years of reality.
and that is the problem of america's leaders --they see the world as they WISH it to BE...but the world SEES things as they ARE.
even congress -- you will NEVER hear them say anything about america's culpability and RESPONSIBILTY for having broken iraq and REPAYING iraq.
INSTEAD they GRIP , including obama, about how "the iraqis have had SIX YEARS of OUR support and it's time THEY start taking ReSPONSIBILITY for rebuilding"
AS IF!!!!..............
have they NO SHAME? don't they realize that the world keeps watching , even if silently (just think of the russians or chinese or other asians just biding their time and waiting as they watch america destroy itself - while they make the moves to INSULATE themselves as much as possible from the waves that are coming up as the "giant" falls of the weight of its own arrogance and ambitions) -- and that this kind of attitude and foreign policy is only making america MORE exposed about being the country that americans say foreigners ":hate" -- and NOT because of ";freedoms" BUT because of ITS HUBRIS and domineering and destructive and exploitative ways?>
Wow! I wish I'd said that.
"Bush, Bush, listen well – Two shoes on your head," the protesters chanted in unison."
NEAR-MISS, LAME DUCK!
~TWO SHOES ON YOUR HEAD
OOPsee...NOW know your PLACE:
This photo-op-STOP-fist in-your-FACE!
this foot in your mouth!
and the head
of the 1st Horse of your Apocalypse
in your bed...
http://www.bcx.org/photos/art/artgen/?file=ArtistGeneral20080801_07_1681BCX.jpg
I have talked to 2 friends today who are starting a collecting drive:
SHOES FOR IRAQ!!!!!!
Also - A friend who is a pitching coach is willing to go to Baghdad and set up a baseball academy and name it in honor of 'Shoeless' Jackson.
Maybe we can start using the time-honored Middle-East tradition here - start saving your shoes now for future demos.
I've started tossing practice myself.
I am really jealous - but I feel he threw in my name as well as for Iraqis protesting an illegal and bloody murderous occupation of a sovereign country.
But I could be wrong !
He threw in my name too.
you brilliantly named a title that could go for practical purposes as well:
:SHOES FOR IRAQ:
imagine AMERICANS -- the citizens of the EMPIRE headed by the emperor without clothes -- doing what they can, inspite of their own difficulties in the economy , to save a little something for IRAQI children or women and sending THEM shoes, if only to ease their suffering just a little bit...and a DIRECT , heart to heart signal from the ORDINARY american to show iraqis how much americans are pained by what the USA has done to them.
if that were to happen on a LARGE scale directly from american citizens , of their own volition, WITHOUT government coercion or "riding" that wave ..and how will the USA STOP american citizens? charge THEM with "treason?" , "aiding terrorists?" when the whole world knows which country HAS terrorized WHICH citizens thousands of miles away? lol.
if that were to ever happen -- i think it will go a LONG way to signalling to the arab world that americans TRULY do NOT support the way their own government has behaved towards other, weaker nations...as well as -- PERHAPS -- by indirect means -- PRESSURE the american politicians that THEY are the ONES that are ON THE SPOTLIGHT as being the courtiers against whom that shoe was thrown symbolically - and that THEY are the DOGS! but NOT the ordinary americans who have the decency to know when their own government and country's foreign policies do NOT reflect an american's sense of decency and honor and humanity.
and iraqis will KNOW for real -- they HAVE friends - fellow human beings in the country that invaded them and destroyed their lives. and even if that were just a small measure - when things eventually clear up as to the LIMITS of what america OUGHT to be allowed to do - and respecting other cultures -- something like that will be REMEMBERED by the iraqis and arabs -- for they have thousands of years of MEMORY as a civilization. never forget that. while america is a MERE child - overgrown at that -- in comparison.
believe it -- there CAN be and might be real truth in an OLD saying from INDIA to the west:
"we were here long before you were even a civilization...and long before your powers, we already had many fallen kingdoms....and long after your Empires are no more...we will still be here".
in the sands of mesopotamia - are a reflection , in the turn of teh USA as an empire, of something "the Poet of Empire" - Rudyard Kipling wrote in a poem , near the end of his life, at the realization of how WRONG he was in glorifying the British Empire, and after sending his own son to death "to honor the queen and empire" in the Khyber pass in afghanistan in the early 20th century:
and he wrote it as both a reflection of the sadness of losing his son to "glory of empire" -- and the futility , ultimately, of EMPIRE itself:
"HERE LIES A MAN THAT TRIED TO HUSTLE THE EAST".
the same thing is happening to the USA in the sands of ancient Mesopotamia
and if obama goes ahead to INCREASE militarism in Aghanistan , thinking it is about "catching bin laden" or cutting the heads off of the heads of terrorist organizations -- he is VERY VERY WRONG because to the middle and central asians - it is ALWAYS going to be about A FOREIGN INVADER in their lands...and they will NEVER give it up - until the US EMPIRE BLEEDS itself dry - just like the british, the russians and french and belgians and germans and dutch did.
it is better for the USA to once and for all to BEGIN the dismantling of empire -- it is TOO BIG a TASK for america's SHOES! and only CORRUPTS the very soul of america.
and we know what corruption does eventually - it ALWAYS brings the house DOWN. and when that happens -- it is the future and the children that will PAY the price beyond imagination.
see...the USA is the SHORTEST LIVED empire in the history of the world....it already is on its way to a PERMANENT decline, even if americans or their leaders in all institutions STILL imagine it can be "resurrected" to the glory and power of the 1980's and 1990's. no...it can't happen that way. ONCE the impotence was pricked open for all the world to see how the greatest military power in the world has to practically BEG the iraqis to let them stay or manipulate with the coerced leaders, but ONLY for as long as iraqis TOLERATE it with their own OTHER longer-lasting , thousands of years of complex rules and ways of doing things -- there was never going to be any "going back" or as OBAMA WISHFULLY FANTASIZES
::going forward to creating the most powerful army in the world:: as IF that was going to do the job against resistance of america's domination....
people have to understand that if America's MEMORY is of 200 plus years -- and designs run according to a decade or 2 or fifty years or one hundred or even two hundred, if these leaders can even CONTROL the future that way....
the people in the east have memories and think IN THOUSANDS of years.
It appears as if this is another "The Emperor wears no clothes" moment for Dubya (Katrina being the other). Hopefully, it is the first of many where the bubble of the US Presidency no longer envelops him and the world gets to let him know up close and personal exactly how we feel about the wanker. As for Muntadhar al-Zeidi, I hope one day to have the pleasure to thank him personally for doing something was way past due.
www.wunderman-comics.com
I'm not surprised that George ducked so quickly! For eight years he's been ducking Presidential responsibility with amazing agility so he's had lots of practice. Of course he also ducked military service in Vietnam too.
That the Muslim world has made the journalist a hero is wonderful. Perhaps they'll realize that with bullies like America, you have to stand up to them or they'll cower you into subjection every time.
Go Muntader, go! Throw Muntader, throw!
www.dangerouscreation.com
The Muslim world is not the only world that has made this guy a hero. I have no religion, and I absolutely love this man. I want to shake the hand that threw those shoes.
I'd wash the feet of the man who threw those shoes. Bless him.
I agree with Saint-Just:
send or throw our shoes at the media who are disregarding the truth. Bush does not get it and those surrounding him will just laugh. Send shoes to "journalists" who have failed to expose the corruption of this administration. Let the news rooms be filled with shoes and images of shoes, accompanied with letters of cancellation to subscriptions. That sends a message. I imagine the mailcarriers will also get the message and tire of carrying shoes to their clientelle.
I'd love to hear what the Pontius Pundits have to say about the abundance of shoes they receive. Suggestion: don't waste your money on "new shoes". Purchase them from thrift shops and help others in need while sending a message.
I am Committed to Oneness through Justice and Transformation
peace,
st john
I love everyone's shoe ideas - reminds me of the possible 1800's origin of the word SABOTAGE:
"It is said that powered looms could be damaged by angry or disgruntled workers throwing their wooden shoes or clogs (known in French as sabots, hence the term Sabotage) into the machinery, effectively clogging the machinery. This is often referenced as one of the first inklings of the Luddite Movement."
(from wikipedia)
"December Fourteenth. A SHOE which will live....in INFAMY!" (make that two shoes)
(LOL)