same why as to, why not Tony blair? Sharoon, other arabic leaders.. eetc

maybe cause Bush just exceeded expectations? or maybe cause people are asking baseless question. the dude just happened to be there, and threw his shoes. probably it didn’t occur to anyone before.

anyways, i think he had powerfull personal intentions, for starters Bushs hands reached a much wider range of iraqes(saddam is nothing compared to what US did), plus, Bush was standing unwelcomed in this iraq’s home land, smirking, and telling the world what a very nice favour he’s done to Iraqi people.

you cant compare Bush to Saddam, and you cant measure democracy by such a small act. if the Mom of a Saddam’s victim bumps into Saddam, she will throw much more stuff than shoes in his face you know.

“why didn’t this “hero” do this 6 years ago when Saddam was in power?””

is a stupid lame , movie like, media backed question.

.

I live just outside of Washington DC. Nearly everyone I talked to saw the shoe throwing incident pretty much as described above: “many in the States see this simply as proof that democracy is now alive and well … begging the question, why didn’t this “hero” do this 6 years ago when Saddam was in power?”

but seriously, i will always remember bush as a murderer who got two shoes thrown at him by a hot arab dude.

ladies! who the hell knew that doing something as ccccccccrrrraaaaaaazzzzzzzyyyyyyyy as throwing a shoe at someone could be soooooooooo damn attractive???????

sigh.

On a more serious note, outside of the disdainful college crowd, many in the States see this simply as proof that democracy is now alive and well … begging the question, why didn’t this “hero” do this 6 years ago when Saddam was in power?

I don’t believe many people in the US, as you said, share this view. Throwing objects at people has never been the measure used to tell if democracy is alive and well. Even Jordanian members of parliament throw objects at each other and nothing happens after that, and we still don’t have democracy.

I also don’t think this incident will generate many bad feelings on the Arab side. To say so would mean that most of them sympathize with Bush, which not even most Americans do today.

On a more serious note, outside of the disdainful college crowd, many in the States see this simply as proof that democracy is now alive and well … begging the question, why didn’t this “hero” do this 6 years ago when Saddam was in power?

Me, I just think it’s a cheap stunt that will have it’s 15 minutes of fame and fade away. No new policy, no new actions, no new initiatives nor changes will occur from it. Only bad feelings on both sides.

mo: actually as soon as the news came out i blogged it and saved it, figuring it would wait till morning, by which time everyone else had beaten me to the punch. predictable!

Deena, Dean, Layla: i kind of have to disagree here. this flying shoe is not going to change the stereotypes any non-arab has of the arab world. perceptions of a civilization deemed “lesser than you”, which is a perception historically held by the dominating civilization, never change to the positive until the lesser civilization becomes the dominating one. moreover - less philosophical and more realistic - as Hamzeh accurately noted, we are talking about a country that has been invaded, occupied, destroyed and torn apart by another. and for anyone to expect that the leader of that latter country, the invader himself, to pay his destruction a visit and be treated with, at best, respect and at worst, apathy, is simply folly.

i mean no one really likes the french, but if 68 years ago, a frenchman threw a shoe at hitler when he visited paris, i wouldn’t think any less of him. i would expect it.

nadine: to be fair, i think they did eventually report it. sometimes i think when JTV doesn’t report things we give them too much credit in assuming its a conspiracy or part of state-controlled media. in truth, i think the station just doesn’t have the capabilities anymore to know what’s going on in the world, and they probably didn’t hear about it till later.

happy kundara day!

Lets do a : Dec 14th , blog about the kundara day…HAHAHAHHAAH

they said in it that he was kicked out of the room, but not arrested… maybe coz it was the first channel they weren’t accurate…

also Maliki’s hand at the second shoe is kinda funny symbolically(although it was only a reflex)

I wonder If any famous shoe manufacturers will use this this incident as a a base for their advertising campaign. :-p

بعد ست سنوات من احتلال العراق، كان من المفترض ان تكون زيارة الرئيس الامريكي ‘المحرّر’ (بضم الميم وكسر الراء) الوداعية علنية، وسط احتفالات عارمة من ‘المحررين’ (بضم الميم وفتح الراء)، حيث من المفترض ان يصطف هؤلاء على طول طريق المطار، وفي ساحة الفردوس في قلب العاصمة بغداد حاملين الاعلام الامريكية ويلوحون بها وسط عزف الموسيقى والرقص طربا وفرحا، للتعبير عن حفظ الجميل، لهذا الزعيم الامريكي البطل الذي ‘حرر’ بلادهم. ولكن هذا كله لم يحدث على الاطلاق، فقد وصل الرئيس الامريكي متسللا الى بغداد، ووسط اجراءات امنية مشددة، ولم يغادر المنطقة الخضراء مطلقا، ونشك ان يكون السيد المالكي رئيس الوزراء، وجلال الطالباني رئيس جمهورية العراق الجديد قد علما بالزيارة مسبقا، بل فوجئا بها مثل الزيارات السابقة.
العراقيون لم يستقبلوا الرئيس بوش بالورود والرياحين ولا بالرقص بالشوارع، وانما بالأحذية، مثلما فعل احد الصحافيين الذي كان يشارك في تغطية الزيارة، ويستمع الى المؤتمر الذي عقده الرئيس الامريكي مع السيد المالكي، واسهب فيه في وصف انجازاته ومكارمه للعراقيين باحتلاله لبلدهم.
استخدام ‘الاحذية’ كوسيلة تعبير عن الرأي عمل غريب، وغير مهني، في نظر

Muntadher al-Zaydi is courageous man ,who saw the horror of George Bush’s war first hand when he was working as a journalist, It’s not only justified but should be encouraged

@Rima, I think he developed quick reflexes after so many hunting trips with Dick Cheney.

@Deena, I think it’s more likely that the guy will be released soon, but will be banned from the Iraqi press core.

@Dean Peters & Layla, the guy didn’t do something that is out of the ordinary for westerners given the current situation in Iraq. Cheney was told to go fuck himself when he visited New Orleans, the governator was egged, and the Chinese president was heckled at the south lawn of the White House. Just try to imagine a US that is utterly destroyed, with millions of its population rendered refugees in Canada and Mexico, and the guy who caused all of it shows up smiling and acting like there’s no “beef.”

I bet he is being tortured till this very moment.

So much for dialog and influencing the hearts and minds of the Western world away from various stereotypes.

As @Deena put it so succinctly, it only eventually serves the gulna mafshoush - and while the journalist may have the respect of those in the Middle East - it has quite the opposite effect of those in the States.

i heard that an iraqi millionaire wants to buy it for one million