by now you know his name, Muntadar al-Zaidi, the iraqi journalist who hurled both of his shoes at george bush.
while he is universally acclaimed as a hero in iraq, a number of american journalists have criticized him, asking if we would approve of americans hurling footwear at visiting heads of state in this country, or similar actions.
at visiting heads of state? how come you guys HAVEN”T been throwing shoes at bush for the last eight years? because you have no fucking balls, that’s why. mainstream media in this country rolled over and played dead when the republicans stole the 2000 election, and they’ve stayed dead and played nice ever since. NO FUCKING BALLS. would you criticize someone for throwing shoes at adolf hitler? no? but would you throw the goddam shoes yourself?
you think al-Zaidi expected a slap on the wrist for this? in a country still ruled by the american military complex? in the land of abu-ghraib? nothing has been confirmed yet, but there are numerous accounts of him being under torture since this incident. HE KNEW THE RISK AND HE DID IT ANYWAY.
so, to those journalist critical of the fact that al-Zaidi is being hailed in his country as a hero, i say FUCK YOU. if you had HALF this man’s balls you might be heroes as well. yeah, you might very well also be in prison. but that’s exactly the point. he was willing to risk everything (he’s been tortured before) in order to send this message to the extremely evil bush, the man almost singlehandedly responsible for the destruction of iraq.
pundits not busy criticizing al-Zaidi are busy making jokes about it; even my beloved keith olbermann got on that bandwagon. and who, hating george bush as all sane human beings must hate him, wouldn’t find this funny? i applaud all the comedians and talk-show host who’ve used the flying shoes as grist for their humorous mills (yes, even the surreal budweiser commercial that came out of it). but not the political commentators. for them, this is not just another chance to score a few cheap shots off bush, but an opportunity to do some soul-searching. when your nation is being flushed down the toilet by a man with the IQ of a chicken and the compassion of a KGB dungeonmaster, perhaps polite applause and offended articles aren’t enough.
we need a few Muntadar al-Zaidi’s in this country. people who walk the walk and put their balls on the line when the opportunity arises. this journalist was heard, and heard quite clearly, all around the world. what if something like this had happened earlier in bush’s term? what he did could have made a difference. hell, it’s making a difference now: he’s just penned bush’s legacy.
we’ve got a little work to do here, folks; two quite serious, one quite sarcastic. all important.
first, we need to plead for clemency for al-Zaidi: george bush can set that man free with one well-chosen paragraph. contact the white house and ask him to do exactly that.
this one’s harder, and i need your help. al-Zaidi is supposed to get in front of a judge today; who better to petition for his clemency than the american citizens who were supposedly so insulted (not) by this? but i’ll be damned if i can figure out how to get a message over there — do any of you know?
and here’s what we tell him: iraq remains commited to the concept of an eye for an eye; just recently, a man who threw acid on the woman who wouldn’t marry him, blinding her for life, was sentenced to have five drops of that same acid dropped into each one of his eyes. therefore, the appropriate punishment for al-Zaidi is for the court to throw two size-ten shoes at him, nothing more. HELP GET THIS MESSAGE OUT THERE!
last, but not least, send a pair of your oldest, stinkiest shoes to the white house. as a gift to george from the american people. you don’t even have to call him a dog.
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Good one, Jaxx. Bush’s “farewell tour” of the country he illegally invaded sickens me. While he was there, UN forces should have intercepted him and sent him to The Hague to be tried for war crimes. That’s what he deserves.
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Sending shoes sounds good, but Bush doesn’t pick up his mail. I know because I sent him some “Rice for Peace” a few years ago, and he STILL hasn’t been to the post office to get it. I paid extra to track it.
Excellent rant
I sincerely hope you find a way that we can help al-Zaidi.
The guy really is a true blue hero.
“If only that shoe had hit Bush. It wouldn’t have compensated for the hundreds of thousands of people who have died in Iraq, but it would have been a good start” – Richard Herring (newstatesman)
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