Iraqi Journalist Throws Shoes At President George Bush during News Conference!!!

These terms are being thrown around with such gay abandon lately on these boards [And elsewhere on the internets] against nearly everyone for all kinds of imaginable reasons.

These words will most likely go the way of fuck and shit and completely lose their offensive and shocking connotations.

 

For one, I am no Bush lover. For 2, shoes mean nothing to America, I don't understand what the big deal is. It is not a great insult to the American people to have shoes thrown at us. All it is to us is throwing something, the shoes, they have no special meaning.

 

I agree. I don't care if the guy throws a shoe or 2 at Bush. Protest is acceptable in democracies.

The guy was jailed in Iraq. The same would have probably occurred in the US if the guy threw shoes at the President here.

If the guy had thrown shoes at you or me it wouldn't have mattered.

As RobJones said earlier, had he thrown shoes at Saddam in prewar Iraq he'd be dead now.

Look, as an American, I've been against the war in Iraq. Regardless, there is no panacea with a quick pullout right now. Iraq is too unstable for its own good to lose the peace keeping forces of the American military. It is a fragile nation.

Those that support Islamic fundamentalists should look to themselves. Where are the fundamentalists loved? After the taliban were overthrown the citizens of Afghanistan celebrated having a repressive regime removed. Similarly the same thing happened immediately in Iraq.

Regardless, the nations are fragile militarily, fragile with regard to police forces, and unable at the current time to defend their peace and people.

Again, where are the fundamentalists loved? Are there any fundamentalist groups that rule lands and do so without the power of military? None that I can see.

Meanwhile, where they do rule, how do the people make out? Poorly in my estimation.

Islamics should look to rid themselves of the fundamentalists and join in the world of nations, and do so in their own style.

 

Thank you I have yet to see anyone comment about us taking all of our humanitarian aide away from all these countries, and to stop trading with them. The world is too dependent on the United States, and you know it. And I have also yet to see anyone give any sources for their hatred of the US other than political propaganda. I'm waiting.

Edit: I am a member of the US Military. I serve my country proudly, I wear my countries uniform. I make sacrifices for my countries freedom. I took an oath to obey the orders of the president of the United States, and to protect the constitution of the US against all enemies foreign and domestic. No where in my oath does it say I support nor like the President. You all seem to think that every American loves Bush, guess what? Not true. I may not agree with his policies. But I do believe in the right of the people to make their own choices as to who leads their country, not being forced to "vote" for one leader. Not being forced to be covered if they choose not to. Guess what everyone, unlike most of you here, I actually respect each and every one of your opinions, not matter how asinine they may be. No matter how ignorant they may be. No matter how full of hatred they may be. Opinions are like assholes, everyones got one. I don't hold any of your views against you, as you are entitled to them, thanks to this wonderful right to free speech. I believe every human has that right, not just to free speech so long as it is in line with the government/religious policy. Guess what? Every person also has the right to choose their religion, or to choose not to have one, and to practice that religion/not practice anything, without fear of persecution. Just because our country believes this stuff, and believes every person in the world has these same rights, doesn't mean that we are a horrible country. We may be "non believers" or "infidels" but guess what? The average American doesn't look at an "arab" or "muslim" and automatically hate you. Contrary to what your countries tell you.

 

If we did that these same posters would be here saying how evil the US is for not helping and they know it.

 

The fact still remains that this war was fought over 2 big fat lies (wmd's and terrorists being in iraq). We have to stop acting like a nation building empire and start acting like a republic. The list goes on and it starts with mossadegh and the crime of destroying democracy in iran , vietnam and the gulf of tonkin. There are many instances of our foreign policies spreading facism and dictatorship in other countries rather then spreading democracy.

Russia did the same exact thing but to us they werent so transparent about it. Im sure we appeared the same way in their newspapers. Islamic extremism didnt start for no reason at all. BLOWBACK.

I can imagine no ayatolla and his extremist idealogy today if we didnt mess with iran. No nation building, bring the troops home from all over the globe, let countries solve their problems through diplomacy. If our government really was against saddam hussein, we would have rumsfield shake saddams hand while he was gassing thousands of kurds.

Phil donahue said it best when he said" saddam was an sob but he was our sob"

 

IRONY.

Look who gave him the freedom to do so.

 

The war was fought over several different things, thats just what the political media chose to highlight. I think its time to bring everyone home, stop handing out foreign aid, stop trading with those countries that the people on here are from (except the UK, as they have been one of our best allies) and focus on our own country. I think we should have finished the Iraq thing about 1 year after saddam fell. Same with afghanistan. Now they are just sucking up resources. Time to let their countries go the way they want to go. Stop trying to fix everyone else, and fix our economy first. Then we can go back to trying to help out.

However, the fact remains that without the US, all the countries here that complain about us would not be anywhere near where they are. The fact remains though, Bush was lied to about the WMD's, and that has already been released. I know, I know, cover up, blah blah blah. Whatever, again, for anyone wishing to go that route, please, cite your sources to refute me.

 

Worth adding that the US occupied Japan and Germany after wartime, for a considerable time, helped rebuild infrastructure and get things settled down... and both are now stable as well as being world economic powers. There's something to be said for taking the time to get the current government on its feet before leaving. It has worked before.

The question is how soon the people of the country will be willing stand up to the radicals that would rather blow up their own people rather than allow their countrymen to have their own freely elected government not entirely dictated by nutjob mullahs hopelessly stuck in the 16th century. The sooner we get our guys out of that incendiary place(s) the better IMO, but letting the loonies take over by force of arms in a power vacuum would be bad for everyone but the loonies.

 

Lonestar, while i agree that we should be out of iraq, as far as those countries not being anywhere if it wasnt for us is another debate. Iran in the 1950's was never given the chance to grow on its own without our meddling in it.

They had a great leader who understood finance very well and if given the chance Iran would have eventually become a financially powerful democratic country. What makes us better then them? I mean if we succeeded on our own why cant they if they followed the same principles of having a democratic free market and society. We need to stop propping up dictators or supporting dictators and then taking them out when it suites the needs of our elite.


What is the difference between our empire and the roman empire of old?
The only difference is that fantastic document written by our founding father THE CONSTITUTION. I just wished that i knew how truely revolutionary it was back in high school when i was taking science fiction history courses.

Bush said he was lied to, and then you have the cia saying that the bush white house told the cia to put a bias on the intel it was supplying them and us. If bush thought he was lied to he wouldnt have justified the invasion by saying it was still necessary because he nailed a bad guy lol. That right there tells me he knew what was going on, and now we have another puppet Obama coming in. Who knows what he will do. What a tangled web we weave when we practice to decieve. Millions of iraqis and many of our soldiers died because of this supposed (and i mean light lightly) bungling of info.

Robjones if we recall the iranian people tried to protest brutal rule in their country once when they protested the iranian coup by our puppet the shah of iran and our government and thr british intelligence agency slammed that protest and continued to slam it by supplying arms year after year to the brutal shah and we even helped to train his secret police the savak which was right up there with hitlers secret police. How can any country protest and bring down a brutal dictatorship when we keep getting in their way. The funny thing is we never find out about this till 20 years after it happened.
Ron Paul has it right all along when he said for us to stay out of other countries affairs .

If any group of people are given this power(the power to influence the destiny of a whole nation) most of the times that power will corrupt them absolutely. This has shown to be true thorughout history and this was the way the roman empire conducted its business. This will only change when the elite powers in our country allow us to elect honest politicians that truely care about us and have a long term foreign policy that is based on democracy and conscience.

 

He has almost been beaten to death, he has a broken arm, broken ribs among other injuries. Anyway, someone who throws a shoe now is an islamic fundamentalist?

 

I agree completely!!!!!!!! I think its high time we pull out of Iraq/Afghanistan, we are not really accomplishing much anymore. I also agree that what we did with Iran was shoot ourselves in the foot, and I dunno wtf we were thinking doing that in the 50's, that was a horrible short term solution to trying to only have to contest with Russia.

And yes, we stayed and helped Germany/Japan after the wars. They didn't have other countries putting insurgents into them blowing up our soldiers. I agree, I have watched 3 close friends loose their lives feet from me over there. I honestly think it was in vain. I think if we are going to honor their sacrifice like we should, it is time to pull out. There are few things left for us to do. The middle east has been fighting for longer than anyone can remember, I don't care what anyone says, we are not going to stop that. Let them blow themselves up. Lets concentrate our efforts on border security. Keep intelligence assets fighting the war on terror. Focus more money into HUMINT.

I hadn't heard about Bush pretty much telling the CIA to taint the intelligence, I'll have to look into that.

We need to really re-evaluate the way politics is done in this country. There should be no elite, I forgot who said it, but the only title higher than president is citizen. It should go back to being that way. Obama is just another puppet. I read a book, by vince flynn. Its about a couple ex SEAL's that take out a few politicians, in order to protect the constitution. Upholding their oaths they took to protect it against all enemies foreign and DOMESTIC. If something like that happened, I don't think I would shed any tears. Force the politicians to start upholding the constitution and the will of the people, instead of doing their own personal/party agendas. And quite decimating the 2nd Amendment (I know, I'm a radical gun nut lol)

 

Where did you get that from his post? I know it didn't transition from idea to idea perfectly, it jumped back and forth, however, no where in it did he say that. And if you actually read it carefully you would have seen that. However, I remember reading something on this forum about him being horribly anti US. Do I think he should be jailed? Yes, he broke Iraqi law. There are many more ways to express your dislike for someone than throwing a shoe at them lol. Seriously? Could he really not come up with something better? What was it he said when he did it?

He was making a point about fundamentalists in his post, not saying this guy was one.

 

http://play.sockandawe.com/

There we go

 

lol I have as bad of aim as that guy did. I got 9

 

I am so sorry to hear about what happened to your friends, as my family on my dads side all served in the military. I agree that pulling out is one way of honoring them, another way is to keep talking about it so our future generation in America doesnt forget what the elite can do to its citizens if they dont all protest as one voice. As far as what we did in the 1950's we didnt do it because mossadegh because he was pro russian. He was actually more anti russian then we were. Doctor Mossadegh was a very progressive guy politically and financially.

I totally agree with the border security thing and mainaining our intelligence against terrorism. Are you sure you didnt vote for Ron Paul this year. Your post describes everything The good Doctor stands for.



What was that book written by Vince Flynn called? Sounds right up my ally of reading.

the problem is that the elite have a big grip on the 2 party system and they are not letting go. I couldnt help but laugh when Obama was elected and people started yapping about CHANGE hehehehehehe. Folks just check out who contributed to his campain. The same big banks and institutions that supported mccain. How long are we the american people gonna keep letting these people fool us?

 

And what a reflection from Bush. I was not thinking that Bush is such a flexible man

 

Thank you My kids will all know about it, and if I am ever invited to speak at their schools in a few years, I will talk about it (not graphically of course)

I believe the book was Term Limits.

I wrote in Senator Hutchinson, (R) Texas for this past election lol.

 

C'mon baby show me one more time haha lol

 

Well kid it maybe only 2 shoes but it also show the pain and frustration of iraqi people.

the pain that was caused by your lifes icon mr bush.