Shoelidarity forever: Support for Iraqi journalist detained after throwing shoes at Bush

Not bad for a lame duck.

Bettter video here (bbc) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7782422.stm

This was no soft toss either, but a fastball (fastshoe?) directed at the cranium. Said reporter to sign with the RedSox next year.

As to why shoes were tossed: "In the Arab world, shoe flinging is a gesture of extreme disrespect. A notable occurrence of this gesture happened in Baghdad, Iraq in 2003. When U.S. forces pulled down a giant statue of Saddam Hussein during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, many Iraqi detractors of Hussein threw their shoes at the fallen statue.

This may be an ancient gesture from the Middle East; Psalms 60:10, speaking of some of the traditional enemies of Judah, says that "Moab is my washpot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe...." (KJV)

The shoe represents the lowest part of the body (the foot) and displaying or throwing a shoe at someone or something in Arab cultures denotes that the person or thing is "beneath them." Showing the bottom of one's feet or shoes (for example, putting one's feet up on a table or desk) in Arab cultures is considered an extreme insult. "

check democratic underground for discussion on the incident .

Coyote wrote:

Dude's got no aim.

The guy didn't do too bad.  A shoe can be pretty awkward to throw, and he chucked it pretty hard and managed to make Bush have to duck.  I probably wouldn't be able to do any better.

Although I wouldn't mind if he threw a knife or a bomb instead...

Quote:

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."

[img]http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/shoe-1215.jpg[/img]

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Hey...now I know what to do with all my old shoes!

Viva  al-Zaidi! Viva Iraq!

Doug wrote:

The dog part I get, but is there some special insult in throwing your shoes at someone that I'm not aware of?

It's like the biggest insult in the Arab/Islamic world. Because teh soles of your shoes touch the dirty ground, tehy are considered really unclean and offensive. I visited Egypt once for a medical conference and before meeting people I had this quick little session with my host about the cultural differences and was basically told that if I'm wearing shoes, the soles must be on the ground the whole time. Sitting cross-legged where the soles can be seen is like giving them the finger. And if you ever go into someone's house, it's jsut automatic that you take them off oat the door. To not do so would be like dragging feces through their home.

Remember when the Iraqis tore down the big Saddam statue? They immediately began hitting it with their shoes since this is the ultiamte sign of disrespect.

On a serious note, Muntadhar al-Zeidi is in serious trouble. He was handed over to the Iraqi military and has been beaten and tortured. An international campaign is being mounted for his release, but in the meantime he is being badly mistreated.

This is Bush's idea of bringing freedom and the rule of law to Iraq.

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Mundathar is definitely a hero but we are deluding ourselves if we imagine that the puppet Iraki government will let him go free. They will want to make an example with the punishment meted out for the freedom he took.

"it is our duty to support this heroic journalist." Absolutely. Will do what I can.

It looks like Al-Zaidi is injured, but it's not clear if it's from when he was first jumped on by all the security people at the press conference or from later mistreatment. Neither source of the injuries would be a big surprise, but if it's the latter it pretty much proves in a way more visible than any other than the whole Iraq war with it's billions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost was for nothing.

Meanwhile, it seems the thrown shoes are becoming a much sought-after item. See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7785338.stm

I'd love to see someone mobilize a huge group of people to gather across from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, and throw their shoes onto the White House lawn as a symbolic protest! And do it soon!

It proves that human spirit is alive and well in Iraq as it always has been. Nice to raise the spectre of Saddam. A man brought to kangaroo court, accused, convicted, and executed for war crimes by war criminals. The Iraqi people never did a thing more to Americans than throw a shoe at one president, and yet the Americans have murdered in the neighbourhood of 2.5 million Iraqis and have left another 4 million as refugees. Genocide by any count. Bush should share Saddam's fate with the same amount of dignity shown

FM

human spirit may be have been alive and well in Iraq but only as long as 2+2=5. nothing like exaggerating body counts to negate any credibility to a debate

every single human life is more than something that should be "lumped" into a statistic. Since U.S. occupation in Iraq, Iraqii casualties is at the highest estimates 150,000. Previous conflicts are far fewer. Very large numbers I concede but nowhere near 2.5 million. Saddam on the other hand.....

...or a mere "disaster".

So the USians can congratulate themselves that their work of bringing democracy and freedom to Iraq is now done.

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Shoe thrower tortured, Iraq to go up in flames?
by dday, dailykos
I think there's reason to be very concerned about the fallout from the shoe throwing incident in Iraq.  It's fun to joke about and all ("Bush hasn't dodged anything that fast since the draft!"), but the consequences are likely to be grave.  The act of defiance at an American President has galvanized opinion in the Middle East. I don't want to call him Munthadar the Plumber, but that's the basic dynamic.
Arab and Iranian TV stations have gleefully replayed the clip, sometimes in slow motion, of an Iraqi reporter calling Bush a dog" and throwing his shoes at him -- the Middle East's tastiest insults -- at a Baghdad news conference on Sunday.
The affront was a twisted echo of the triumphal moment for Bush when joyous Iraqis used their footwear to beat a statue of Saddam Hussein toppled by U.S. invading troops in 2003.
dday's diary :: ::
"It indicates how much antagonism he's been able to create in the whole region," former Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher told Reuters, adding that the incident was regrettable.
Bush had harmed America's reputation and the friendship many had felt for i. "Despite past mistakes in its policies, there was always a redeeming factor. In this particular case, there doesn't seem to have ever been a redeeming factor," Maher said.
Now we're learning that this guy, seen as a hero by a non-trivial segment of the Arab world, has been charged with assault (on the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, not Bush), thrown into Camp Cropper prison and
tortured.
Albaghdadia, the TV channel where the Iraqi Journalist Montather Al-Zeidi works, reports that an Iraqi MP (Ms. Zainab Al-Kanani) informed them that Montather's hand was broken in jail.
This confirms a lot of reports and rumors about Montather being subject to torture while the Iraqi authorities are interrogating and detaining him in some unspecified location. (...)

An Egyptian man has [url=http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081217/od_nm/us_bush_bride_3] offered [/url] his daughter as a bride to the shoe-thrower.

FM, you are attributing the murders by people other than the American military to the Americans. Various insurgent groups, rebels, and other from other countries are the main cause of death there at the moment. 

Boom Boom wrote:

I'd love to see someone mobilize a huge group of people to gather across from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, and throw their shoes onto the White House lawn as a symbolic protest! And do it soon!

Quote:

About 20 people have protested the war in Iraq by tossing shoes at a fellow demonstrator wearing a prison uniform and mask of President George W. Bush outside the White House.

The group yelled, "This is a goodbye kiss from the people of America!" They also arranged along a curb about 120 pairs of shoes tagged with the names of Iraqis who have died as a result of the war.

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Haven't you been banned yet??

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Quote:

One only has to look to the late eighties and the Al-Anfal campaign,
culminating in 1988 with the Halabja poison gas attack. If there ever
was a time when the streets were in ruins and running with blood, it
was then and there in northern Iraq. How long should've we let that
continue?

So it is your argument the US was justified in killing 2.5 million Iraqi, and laying waste to the nation, as well as genetically poisining large segments of the population because of a poison gas attack that occured when the US was providing Iraq with logistical support and, when informed of the gas attack, then president Ronald Reagan punished the regime of Saddam Hussein with additional trade. Because if that is your argument, then surely the Iraqis are entitled to kill some 35 million Americans as well as lay waste to the entire country. Do you agree? Or is it only white America that is priveleged to be judge, jury, and executioner and exempt from its own bloody standards?

"One only has to look to the late eighties and the Al-Anfal campaign, culminating in 1988 with the Halabja poison gas attack. If there ever was a time when the streets were in ruins and running with blood, it was then and there in northern Iraq. How long should've we let that continue? "

Good grief man; the US was supplying Iraq with their poison gas at the time.

As the another US president said back then, "Well, heckuva job Saddami"

By the way, you can throw shoes of your own at:

 http://play.sockandawe.com/