The Iraqi Shoe vs the US Jackboot

The image of the anonymous man heroically facing-off the tanks during the brutally crushed Chinese democracy protests of 1989 has become an icon of popular resistance to state tyranny. In the same way, footage - footage! - of Iraqi journalist Muntazer az-Zaidi's shoe-throwing protest at Baby Bush in Baghdad will surely become an icon of popular resistance to the US jackboot. Shouting, as his first shoe flew through the air, "This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, O dog!", and, as his second followed, "This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq," az-Zaidi's action and words registered the anger and disgust of millions of Iraqis, Afghans, Palestinians, Lebanese and others throughout the world who struggle to survive under the crushing weight of the imperial jackboot. Az-Zaidi was then set on by security rottweilers and dragged off to an unknown fate in one of their lairs.

Here's some of the best commentary on az-Zaidi's bravery so far:-

From The Angry Arab News Service:

"When the shoe hits your eye/like a big-a pizza pie/That's amore."

Caption for the photo of Bush wincing as Iraqi puppet PM al-Maliki tries to shield him from az-Zaidi's second shoe: 'Please, please, one shoe at a time!'

"Is it just me or is the scene of the shoe-throwing hypnotic? It must be my Arab culture."

"And now the serious business. Comrade Sinan sent me this: 'Did you see the fuckers pull the man by his hair? And the Iraqi security telling everyone to turn off cameras? God knows they will torture him. We should start an appeal for his safety'. Will those fancy journalist's associations now demand that he be released? Will they speak out on his behalf? Or will they now say that shoe-throwing is a brand of terrorism and that he should be shipped off to Guantanamo Bay?"

From antiwar.com:

On Bush's ability to dodge flying shoes (but not neocon artists): "All reflexes, no brain."

"Finally, some journalistic integrity."

"If I lived nearby, I'd throw a shoe over the White House fence."

"Although he insulted dogs, this Iraqi is a hero."

"That journalist is a hero. The only thing better than a direct hit would have been the other Iraqi journalists joining in."

"Finally, Bush found his WMDs."

And just to save my old friend anonymous out there in the wilds of cyberspace the trouble of posting his own lame comment, here's one from one of his fav websites, littlegreenfootballs.com:

"Rant on: I for one would like to know just what the *sshole is so pissed off about. Is he mad that oil revenue is now going to the people to pay for schools and hospitals instead of to a dictator for palaces and armies of suicide bombers? Is he mad because his wife and daughter won't be raped in retaliation for some perceived offense he may have committed (like throwing shoes at a press conference)? Maybe he's an out-of-work industrial shredder repair man who wants to go back to work cleaning human gristle out of a plastic shredder? Or a grave digger who liked the convenience of digging mass graves? Or maybe, just maybe, he's some arrogant, impotent, needle-d*cked little schmuck who hasn't got the b*lls to do himself what the United States military did for him and now he's too embarrassed to admit it, and too unable just to be a man, say 'thank you' and take responsibility for maintaining the freedom that American blood and treasure bought for him."

In expressing his ignorance of az-Zaidi's motives, the author of the above (aptly named 'CIA Reject') is at one with Bubba Bush. That drooling infant had earlier been telling Iraqis that the shedding of their blood and the plunder of their treasure had been "necessary for American security, Iraqi hope and world peace [in that order]," and was quoted as saying, following his narrow escape from the shoe-throwing assassin, that he had no idea what "the guy's cause" was.