Tuesday, December 16, 2008

It's the Farewell Kiss, You Dog



The mass media are agog this morning about yesterday's shoe-throwing at President Bush by Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi, following the bizarre statement by Bush that while the war in Iraq was not over "it is decisively on its way to being won." All over the Arab world this morning people are calling al Zaidi courageous and a hero.

Bush has been protected in public throughout his presidency, appearing only at controlled settings in which most of those attending were either staunch supporters, military people (a captive audience) or servile corporate media "journalists." Our own corporate press have spent eight years kneeling and kissing Bush's butt, which may be why there is so much surprise at the fact that Bush is one of the most hated people on the planet, inspiring such bitterness.

"Throwing the shoes at Bush was the best goodbye kiss ever... it expresses how Iraqis and other Arabs hate Bush," wrote Musa Barhoumeh, editor of Jordan's independent Al-Gahd Arabic newspaper.

Saddam Hussein's former lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi said he was forming a team to defend Zaidi and that around 200 lawyers, including Americans, had offered their services for free. "It was the least thing for an Iraqi to do to Bush, the tyrant criminal who has killed two million people in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Dulaimi.

"All US soldiers who have used their shoes to humiliate Iraqis should be brought to justice, along with their US superiors, including Bush," said Ali Qeisi, head of a Jordan-based Iraqi rights group, calling for Zaidi's release.

"The flying shoe speaks more for Arab public opinion than all the despots/puppets that Bush meets with during his travels in the Middle East," said Asad Abu Khalil, a popular Lebanese-American blogger and professor at Stanislaus University in California.

Not reported in the corporate media is that three weeks ago, Huffington Post blogger Jamal Dajani noted that crowds of Iraqis "gathered in Ferdous Square, where Saddam Hussein's statue once stood" and pelted an effigy of Bush with their shoes, so there is nothing new in this.

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