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Bush and Iraq: A shoe in the face of the dog. Do you agree or disagree?
Posted by AlexGreat • 12/14/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: bush, Dogs, iraq, shoes, What Now, wrong
Bush on farewell visit to Iraq dodges flying shoes
news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081214/pl_nm/us_iraq_bush_11
What do you think about it?
I personally think someone had to remove Saddam and the US were the best to do it (you don't want Russia or China to do it). Yet the war was mishandled or was it?
where did Bush go wrong?
User Comments
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You probably can't run a perfect war.
If Bush didn't take Saddam out, someone else would have to years from now anyway. The guy dying of old age would not help. His sons would just continue the tortue and more peoples tongues would be cut out for losing soccer games. Some people may not care since they do not live there. I think everyone should have a shot though at a normal life without a nut running their country. Now they have a chance at a normal life like we all enjoy here.-
I agree. A war is always a mess. Yet postwar management was a mess without any justification, I guess that's what the guy who hurled his shoes at him meant. I hope with US help Iraq will become a beacon of democracy, respect for human rights and good governance, in the darkness of the Middle East or just another Pakistan begging for US money with one hand and harboring terrorist with the other.
I hate to see shoes flying at the President of the USA and can't figure out whose fault it is. -
"Now they have a chance at a normal life like we all enjoy here".
A good test will be to send Bush on Baghdad streets and see how people, "now having the chance to have NORMAL LIFE" behave.
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Yes I thought about that too. With all the talk about democracy Bush was brave enough to go to Iraq and Afghanistan but not brave enough to meet the people.
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You can always look at it this way...
If Saddam was still running Iraq, that shoe-tosser would have been dragged out back and double-tapped to the head. Now all he'll get is arrested for assault.
Just a thought.
John -
We didn't go to war with iraq under the premise we had to remove a despot (who we supported in the first place-remember we supplied them chemical weapons). We went to war under the premise that we were in imminent danger (remember the claim of wmd) and the claim they had something to do with 9/11.
WE are not going to instill the kind of democracy that we recognize. We got rid of a secular dictator and now it is replaced with a patriarchal shiite government. 6 years of war, thousands dead,torture, abuses, kidnappings, murders, women oppressed. Why is this any different than when Hussein was in power?
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5368360.stm-
agreed -
I fully agree with that view point. I feel that there is a basic flaw in the US policy regarding foreign relations. Saddam received active assistance from US at one point of time and then he became a threat and enemy who had to be removed. Active support was rendered to Taliban militia by US when they were fighting the occupying soviet forces, and now US has to tackle taliban and fight a costly war in Afghanistan. The military dictators and the ISI of pakistan received and billions in aid and arms from US and now they have turned to be a big threat to global peace even possessing nuclear weapons. US has started bombing areas within pakistan claimng that in the said areas the Pak government doesnto have any control. If huge aeas within a country are not within the control of the government how can nuclear weapons be safe in the hands of such a government. Moreover the father of pak nuclear wweapons programme is himself a confirmed arms dealer who sold nuclear secret for money to rogue nations. US needs to revamp its approach for the benefit of its own citizens. Hope Obama can do that. -
Well said and I definitely agree.
At the time of that invasion Iraq was no longer a threat to the US or to any country in fact. Saddam was only a threat to his own people.
One can say they were living at "peace" compared to the situation they are in now.
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I don't love Bush, but I don't think he deserved to get a shoe thrown in his face either (well two, shoes, I'm pretty sure it was). My opinion of Bush, everything that he has done, and everything that has happened to him is that...people tend to lose sight of the fact that he is just a person.-
No body love him I guess!
I wrote a post about this: Who was Insulted? Bush or the Shoe?
mylifethinking.com/life/who-was-insulted-bush-or-the-shoe/
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Iraqi's protest jailing of reporter and human rights question treatment of prisoner.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7783608.stm
I don't support the throwing of objects at world leaders (no matter what my personal opinion of them) but I can understand the sentiment and level of frustration that led to it after 6 years of hell.
www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/world/middleeast/14reconstruct.html?bl&ex=122949... -
Didn't Dick Cheney say they will welcome US troops as liberators?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS4Ex4kRT5g
This is a perfect tribute to a failed policy, a failed war, a failed President. -
We didn't go to Iraq as liberators.
We aren't in Iraq as liberators.
There are many other countries in the world with Sadam like leaders. Would you have the U.S. bomb every country with a despot? -
One of my favourite reads has a good take on the whole thing:
www.deusexmalcontent.com/2008/12/if-shoe-fits.html
Can you imagine any other President subject to such abuse? That's how far down Bush has pulled the office. He's a global laughing stock, a punch line. -
I personally think it's ridiculous to continue to maintain that the US went into Iraq for defensive reasons. A failed dictator whose army crumbled with almost no resistance a treat to the most powerful nation?
Somehow the CIA got it wrong. Was it intentional or simply sloppiness is not so important now.
Frankly there is no country in the world that poses a threat to the US. Cuba won't invade Florida, Nicaragua either. Libya and Syria ran for cover with the fall of Iraq and that was one good reason for the war. It showed all dictators that they are vulnerable.
As to the US being threatened I will use the words of Billy Joel from his concert in Moscow 1987: "Don't let them ever fool you again!" -
We did this yesterday here: www.blogcatalog.com/discuss/entry/iraqi-reporter-throws-shoes-at-george-bus...
And here: www.blogcatalog.com/politics/discuss/entry/what-did-you-think-when-you-hear... -
I don't like Bush and his war...
See, how many innocent people dead, many wives loss their husband, living alone to live their children, even his soldiers (us army) family felt the same.
If the only reason is to fall down Saddam with his massive bomb, I think that's bullshit.
Bush is cruel than Saddam..
Just think.. if you could think..
For the reporter who threw shoes to Bush: may God bless you.
Peace 4 all... -
I lol'ed hard when I saw it on TV this evening! -
The dead in Iraq would be far greater over the years though if Bush never went in. The toll was already higher.
Saddam has killed over 100,000 people. How come nobody protested against that, but got mad when people died when Bush went into Iraq? It makes no sense like most things in life. -
It is really important to the Iraqi civilians, innocent civilians, who died or who are still refugees. "Bagdad Burning" was a blog kept alive until October of 2007, and no one has heard fro Riverbend since though on reading a Swedish news journal I know she is alive. I believe they fled to Syria. You might get a different impression on our invasion if you saw it from the eyes of those whose lives were destroyed, when there was another way it could have been done.
I believe he found his weapon of mass destruction though himself, if he is not as stupid as I think he is he will be destroyed by what he provoked.
The U.S. carried out a preemptive war in a country which was over fifty percent children under the age of fifteen.
Sadam was an Iraqi whom we let do whatever he did as long as it worked for us, when it stooped working we were more than willing to go in and kill 100,000 more and displace a million or more destroying that country for a very long time. You can't justify what we did this time based on the Anfal Campaign, even if Bush was making up for (and there is no substance to support this it's just and even if), the fact that the first his father's administration supported Saddam Hussein economically as he gassed and bulldozed Kurdish villages.
We didn't have to take down Iraq the man had already been charged with genocide and was going to stand trial - right? There were other ways.-
You're the first person I've read from who has explained Bush's motives to a T. Besides myself, on my blog.
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It's a barbaric act. You don't stop a war by tossing a shoe at someone's face, if anything, you embarrass your country doing that. A guest is still a guest.-
Yes, a guest must be treated well.
But from Iraqi's perspective,he was not a guest. He was and is an invader responsible for deaths of about one million people.
With Iraqi journalists seeing so many deaths around because of this baseless war, I wonder why there was only one "shoe thrower".
Anyhow, we finally found the WMD (2 x size 10 shoes).
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Sure Saddam was bad but the way Bush handled taking him out was so completely wrong. Not only did he attack a country that didn't have anything to do with 9/11, he also launched a full scale attack to get to just one man. I'm no war expert but there has to be a better way to catch someone other then to randomly carpet bomb a country.
Also the entire Weapons of Mass Destruction failure... I mean, they havn't found em yet and I think they have searched every corner of that desert twice by now.
The way Bush handled things and the amount of lying he did to people... he deserved that shoe to the head. It should have hit.-
Yup. I agree with you on every point. -
For a heartless idiot, he sure has catlike reflexes. Too bad.
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I agree, and Saddam nearly got away too. He got caught more by chance than though planning and intelligence. But if Bush was misled about the weapons why didn't he launch and investigation into how could the CIA make such an embarrassing blunder. THey should have had enough agents in Iraq. What happened they didn't believe them. Or the CIA just tells what the boss wants to hear. If that is the case why spend all these money on intelligence? Actually speaking of intelligence the lack of it seems the cause for all problems haunting humanity.
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Throwing a shoe at some one is bad indeed. But compared to Bush, the shoe thrower is a very civilized gentle man. His intention was not to kill. Normally no one gets killed by the throw of a shoe. His object was only to ridicule. At the most we can term it as an attempt to injure another human being. Since that human being was the President of a country, the thrower intended to convey a message to the government too. Thrower’s object ended with that. It did not carry blood within it. Bush by his action killed innocent people. Yes, collateral damage in a war cannot be avoided. Even war cannot be avoided all together as long as humans think and behave differently. Wars however deplorable are here to remain. War may have to be fought (unfortunately) as a last resort when all other means end. Bush went to war everywhere out of rage and not for the right reasons. He had other civilized options before him. But he chose the blood stained path instead. The shoe thrower from his action seen on TV did not want to kill. So he, though not innocent, seems more civilized and humane than Bush.
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look at it this way, if it wasn't for bush, the reporter would have probably been executed by now for committing such an act....
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I agree with the "shoes effect". Shame for the former U.S. government. -
Hi,
I sometimes wonder that why the name of US comes in all bad things.What do you think US is the guardian of this world and a true democratic country. You think that someone had to remove Saddam..But was the intention of Bush really honest?.If yes then why he continuously supported Pakistan for carrying on attacks on its neighboring countries? Why he has not interfered when Pakistan without any logic captured part of Kashmir.I think US always acts in an hypocritical manner. The main motive of Iraq war was just to capture the oil reserves nothing else.During the world war US talked of humanity and defeated Hitler..But Hitler was right in his own way..Besides US also Lynched hundred of Blacks and continued to discriminate..then How one can say that US is democratic and guardian of the whole world..50% of the brain working in NASA is from INDIA,JAPAN,China..US is a smelting pot and if all the nations turns hostile US will disintegrate.There are many nations in this world and many people, who hate Bush bitterly and are always ready with their shoes in hands to hit Bush.A true American must not support him as the term America itself represents nobility and superiority.-
Wow...I hope my grandkids don't go to the same schools that taught you. The last thing I want is for the generations after me to believe "Hitler was right in his own way" or that "the US is the guardian of the world" or that "the term America itself represents nobility and superiority." Not one word of that is true.
To believe such nonsense is to set yourself up for bitter disappointment when America acts...like ALL other nations...in its own self-interest. A true American must not support Bush because he is the worst president of the 20th century, but not because of some altruistic twaddle conjured up by someone who has probably never been to America and knows nothing about the place. -
America is the most democratic and liberal country in the world and will remain a leader for the foreseeable future in world finance and economy too despite the recent setbacks. All those clever immigrants know that too that's why they flock to the US.
Yes America is not perfect and will never be, but Americans have proved to be at the forefront of human progress for the last centuries and again it looks like they will retain their leadership in the future.
It's OK to criticize America even if you haven't been there (nobody's perfect), but you must be blind not to admire the best country in the world. -
I wouldn't say America is the most liberal alex, netherlands maybe (same sex marriage-legal pot smoking cafes) nor the most democratic. There are many other countries that can boast that also. Immigrants can come here and be who they want to be, live as they see fit without the restraints that homeland social/rules mores impose and that is what makes this country special and unique.
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How 'bout having a bit of fun with it? Help Bush dodge the shoe:
blog.zanorg.com/index.php?perm=370
(click on: jouer to start playing)-
really funny and Creative....
Keep it up..
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Bush regretted that he went on war with Iraq...and he said his intelligence gave him the wrong information...i really bush deserve more then a shoe on his face...
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The brother of the reporter claims he has been beaten in custody.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7785338.stm
I suppose one could claim things are much better off in Iraq because had Hussein been in power the reporter would have been dead by now, there's progress for ya
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Hi SV..
Its always better to check your credentials before commenting...Or I am ready to buy you a history book coz it will surely help ur grandkids to know the actual facts...as people often fail to judge their own country as their basic education on history and its imact on global politics is very weak. -
this is the most brilliant thing in world , the iraqi journalist was very very brave , and we all support him, and G.W Bush deserve all this and more even, see how all people in world deal with these news they all stand with the brave Iraqi journalist (Mortadha Al Zaidi) ,
may Allah guard him
to see the vedio and picture on them click here
شاهد جميع صور منتظر الزبيدي وصور الحذاء الطائر على رأس بوش بالصور والفيديو في مدونة الموصل للجميع
mosul-4all.blogspot.com/2008/12/shoes-fly-on-bush.html
mosul-4all.blogspot.com/ -
Alex,
I don't think it's helpful to think in absolutes, whether the U.S. is the best country in the world or not. It prevents productive, constructive criticism and dialogue. What is best for you might not be the best for someone else, it's relative. For example, yes the U.S. has an ok standard of living and freedom of expression. If that is your priority then yes it is the best country. On the other hand, the U.S. has empire-building mission (see Iraq)and is the only "developed" country that has not ratified CEDAW, a sort of international bill of rights for women. If that is your priority, then the U.S. is not the best country (for you).
Now, many live in a country that is not the best for them because they have a desire to change it and be part of that. Some live in countries that are not the best for them because their family is there. Sometimes that is stronger than anything else.
Now onto the shoe. At first it is hilarious, Bush would be a great dodgeball player. Then you realize that if a journalist who has learned to interview even people he doesn't like can't control himself, imagine how those who don't have that training feel. I don't condemn violence but I understand where they are coming from. I would be angry too if my country was invaded and innocent people were killed. -
Best is best, littlepieceofpaper. Best doesn't mean perfect. Best doesn't mean immune from criticism on the contrary the best are there because they looked critically at themselves and improved more than the others and if they stop they will no longer be the best. Best seems simply better than the rest.
About CEDAW signed by Afghanistan in 1980, Libya and Syria I would rather be a woman (or man for that matter) in the US rather in any of those signatories :-)
If the US is on an empire building mission (I doubt it) they are not very good at it. Yet US foreign policy affects everyone intentionally or not and should be a matter of worldwide discussion and constructive criticism to avoid costly mistakes with disastrous outcoumes.-
Using the behavior of a few other countries to excuse this country for not supporting and signing CEDAW is disingenuous. Why would this country NOT sign it?
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Because of the popularity of the antiabortion dimwits.
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Nothing more to say,
He is too stupid being a president as well.. -
You can do it yourself at:
play.sockandawe.com/
but for me more interesting was the score by countries.
Country
1. United States
2. France
3. Australia
4. United Arab Emirates
5. Saudi Arabia
6. Turkey
7. Egypt
8. United Kingdom
9. Germany
10. Pakistan
11. Lebanon
12. Belgium
13. Poland
14. Jordan
15. Morocco
16. Canada
17. Netherlands
18. Kuwait
19. Switzerland
20. Japan
21. India
22. Spain
23. Tunisia
24. Italy
25. Venezuela
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