So you hate Bush and now you've got a really big shoe in your presence. You who find shoes insulting. This is like if one of your leaders came over here and some asshole gave him the finger and to show that we hate your leader, we put up a big hand giving the finger in our town square... or whatever the hell... orphanage. Because if there's one place you want a permanent obscenity, it's in an orphanage. Genius. Perfect genius. Built with orphan-child labor. Perfect.
UPDATE: Shoo.
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54 comments:
So you hate Bush and now you've got a really big shoe in your presence.
That's what came to my mind as well.
Can't imagine why they hate him over there too.
"Can't imagine why they hate him over there too."
What monument to something you hate would you like in your town? Think of something as ugly as that shoe. See the problem?
Lefties love this kind of thing. Symbolism really gets them going. That and stickin' it to the MAN! Who cares if orphans built it? Maybe they can fly the orphans over here to build a giant-sized version of their boot-based Iraq War casualty "memorial" on the Mall in Washington DC. Hell, just put it in the "Stimulus" bill. No one will notice.
"What monument to something you hate would you like in your town?"
Any monument to the United States would probably qualify in Leftyville.
"When the next generation sees the shoe monument, they will ask their parents about it," al-Naseri said.
"Then their parents will start talking about the hero Muntadhir al-Zaidi, who threw his shoe at George W. Bush during his unannounced farewell visit."
Then the kids will roll their eyes, go out with their friends and do things that free people in a free country do.
Iraqis aren't known for their tasteful monuments.
One can hardly blame Mr. al-Amiri for resenting President Bush.
Things nowadays must be kind of slow in the sculpture business.
Do we still give any sort of aid to them, beyond our defense spending. If so, we should immediately remove all of it. Let them pay for this bronze POS with their own money.
Tikrit was Sadam's hometown buddies reaping a share of the wealth from his Dictatorship. They see Bush like Atlanta saw Sherman and the sweet, kind Japanese Army saw United States Marines, as some one who wiped put the former wiper outers. That's a backhand compliment.
Perhaps we should build a big bust that looks like Mohammad with a bomb on his head.
Why can't we invade a country where women throw their shirts? That would be so much better than throwing a shoe, don't you think?
Is South Beach a country? No? Hmmmm...maybe we could invade Jamaica.
Iraqis aren't known for their tasteful monuments.
Like something you'd expect on the Klingon home world.
Leland said: Perhaps we should build a big bust
Exactly what I was thinking.
What monument to something you hate would you like in your town? Think of something as ugly as that shoe. See the problem?
I can't speak for the town but perhaps it's more a symbol of solidarity to the reporter that launched the shoe at Bush. And maybe one of the reasons they hate Bush is because there are an estimated 5 million Iraqi orphans from the war.
And maybe one of the reasons they hate Bush is because there are an estimated 5 million Iraqi orphans from the war.
Right. And there were no orphans under the Saddam Hussein regime.
Think of it like the Confederate Flag. To many in its natural habitat, the Rebel Flag is a big ole FU to The Man, to others it's a symbol of racism and suggests inbreeding.
Did they have to make the monument a space shoe?
Garage-
An estimated five million orphans from the war? In a country with a population of twenty five million?
Whose butt did you pull that statistic out of?
If the average family had five kids, you'd have to kill 2 million parents to orphan five million kids. Without killing any of the kids.
Iraq would'nt have any adults left if there wre five million orphans.
I remember Iraqis hitting pictures and sculptures of Saddam with shoes early in the war.
GWB nearly got hit (once) with a shoe recently, but that symbol of disrespect has been around that culture for a long time.
If "shoe" now symbolizes GWB, doesn't that make enlarge him? That is a very big shoe.
GWB has single-handedly (and by one brief encounter of which he was the object, not the subject) overtaken their cultural symbol.
Intentionally or not, this monument demonstrates that there are big shoes to be filled. What does the potted plant suggest about Iraqi confidence in the man who is now in GWB's shoes?
"An estimated five million orphans from the war? In a country with a population of twenty five million?"
Don't you remember, back during the 90s, the 1,000,000,000,000,000 Iraqi children killed by sanctions?
This display confirms the nugget of truth in the longstanding western generality about Arab-Islamic culture: Gratitude toward a helpful outsider is not a valued quality; there is no negative stigma whatsoever to shifting loyalties away from former friends if it suits the current moment.
That's why America will never receive full-throated popular thanks from the Iraqi nation for the blood and treasure we've spent in the cause of its freedom. It's simply not in the Arabian DNA. We should accept this knowledge and move on in the confidence of our good intentions and honorable national sacrifice. But that's just my opinion . . .
Christy's comment is the most intelligent one I've seen here. And she's right, a big part of why people in the South still fly the Confederate flag is that even today they still are irked that they lost that war almost 150 years ago. Maybe they should get over it, but they haven't yet.
I still can't believe that there are people who are actually surprised that after we invaded and occupied Iraq, they don't like us over there.
Quit holding your breath waiting for them to throw flowers at us. To paraphrase Al Gore,
"It's time for us to go."
And it's been time, for a long time already.
author, etc.
They consider our removal of Saddam in the same light they would if he'd have had a heart attack. It was a cause for celebration but after that they had a country under foreign occuaption, and like anybody else, they resisted. Only Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld never considered the fact that they might react similarly to, say, the way we might react if, for example, the Chinese came over and occupied America. Even though massively being outgunned, they fought back. Patriots do that.
Patriots don't blow up innocent members of their own population as a way of waging war against an Occupier; they do that as a way of waging war against their countrymen, which means they aren't patriots at all.
Though, Author you are right about this:
it was not worth our blood or resources. Nor was Somalia (another Islamic country where we came in as 'do-gooders' and then overstayed our welcome) And I only hope that Obama is smart enough to stay the heck out of Darfur (for the record, I once proposed that the way to deal with Darfur was to arm families targetted for ethnic cleansing) but arming people theatened with genocide with home-defense weapons like handguns has never been tried, but it's a lot easier and cleaner than trying to 'protect' them with a fullscale invasion and occupation.
Eli-
So why do the Iraqis not resist us now? Are they no longer patriots?
There was an officer that Michael Totten quoted categorizing Iraqis as follows: friends, fence sitters, and f*ckos.
The f*ckos were the ones you identify as "patriots."
While we pursued Rumsfeld's policy, the f*ckos were able to hold sway over the fence sitters and have room to perpetrate their mayhem.
With the surge and the emphasis on protecting the civilian population, the fence sitters leaned our way, exposing the f*ckos so that we could kill them. This became a positive feedback loop that tamped the violence down faster than anyone expected.
author, etc.
Patriots don't blow up innocent members of their own population as a way of waging war against an Occupier; they do that as a way of waging war against their countrymen, which means they aren't patriots at all.
I'll politely not go into a deeper examination of the American revolution,
but to contend your main point:
Most of the Sunni militia organizations were fighting the American occupation. Most of the ethnic cleansing was directed either at Sunnis by Shi'ites, or in some cases it was directed at Shi'ites but often by al-Qaeda (who wanted to set up a Sunni Wahabist state in Iraq.)
Regardless, whatever the problems in Iraq, they were not American problems. End of story.
MartyH:
You know very well the answer to your own question. The Sunni militias joined us in fighting al-Qaeda because by that time they realized there were not one, but two foreign occupiers, as al-Qaeda had flooded into Iraq after we went in to fight us, but then butchered Iraqis indiscriminately. However, minus the U.S. then they would still have attacked al-Qaeda for the same reason.
I've never opposed supporting domestic opponents of our enemies (including arming them where it is prudent to do so,) but I always oppose sending American troops to fight in someone else's war.
"Quit holding your breath waiting for them to throw flowers at us. To paraphrase Al Gore,
"It's time for us to go.""
You know you're really a douchebag when you start paraphrasing Al Gore. Lol.
Eli-
I don't necessarily disagree with you on the events that occurred, but I would not characterize a lot of these guys as patriots.
An AQ suicide bomber cell leader who targets markets is not a patriot.
A Baathist thug who is running a criminal gang is not a patriot.
A guy who plants EIDs at night because it is the only job he can get is not a patriot.
Getting back to the three types of Iraqis:
Kill or capture the f*ckos.
Honor the friends.
Forgive the fence sitters who took up arms against us.
That's essentially what we've done. It's worked-Iraq could not have gone much better since the surge was implemented.
Marty:
Nicely done.
Amen
Nice bigotted anti-southern blast, Christy. Keep trotting out the hate and stereotypes - it is truly becoming.
What monument to something you hate would you like in your town?
The shoe commemorates an event, not the shoe itself. Similarly, you would think Christians would hate crosses, since it was a cross that killed (or semi-pseudo-killed, or whatever) Christ--but they put them up everywhere.
Think of something as ugly as that shoe.
Actually, compared to the "art" that already infests many of our public spaces over here, I think the shoe looks kinda cool.
And maybe one of the reasons they hate Bush is because there are an estimated 5 million Iraqi orphans from the war.
Don’t defend the shoe to me :)
About that Confederate Flag, this local Tikrit monument serves the Tikritis similar to the South's myth of the noble lost cause that consoled the beaten, busted and ashamed southerners. But that Myth peaked in the 1920,s. Since then it has mostly been a political angle used by two groups. The Blacks hate the history of slavery that battle flag reminds them about. The whites feel unjustly attacked for only loving their Heroes which that flag represents to them. Both sides use it to stir up voter particpation. The south should say we will take our flags down when NYC removes the GAR Plaza monuments to their Heroes.(In front of Plaza Hotel)
"The shoe commemorates an event, not the shoe itself. Similarly, you would think Christians would hate crosses, since it was a cross that killed (or semi-pseudo-killed, or whatever) Christ--but they put them up everywhere."
I thought of the cross too, but the analogy is not apt. It would have to be people who love Bush putting up the shoe monument to symbolize that he had triumphed over the shoe. You have to imagine a society that is proud of killing Christ adopting the cross symbol. See how loathsome it is?
Another reason Iraqis hate Americans is now getting fixed:
Breaking sixteen minutes ago:
U.S. State Department won't renew Blackwater Iraq contract.
Our Hessians have done more than their share to make the Iraqis hate us.
A copper plated giant shoe. Ha ha ha ha ha. That's a good one.
I see the story has already transmuted. Now, it seems the evil president was hit with a shoe. I suppose next the reporter will have been martyred. Eventually, the invaders driven off. And of course, Saddam and his two darling sons, the flower of the Iraqi people, innocent victims. Oh, the promise that was lost!
Hey, they're new at all this self expression stuff. Give them time and they'll get it right.
As wrong and horrific as America's invasion of Iraq was, at least they have a chance to pull stunts like this.
Right. And there were no orphans under the Saddam Hussein regime
True. That is because they fed the kids into the wood chipper or tossed them into the mass graves along with their parents.
"One trench contains only women and children while another contains only men. "The youngest foetus we have was 18 to 20 foetal weeks," said a US investigating anthropologist. "Tiny bones, femurs - thighbones the size of a matchstick." "
Either that or bashed their brains out on the wall. Or took the women and children as slaves.
I thought of the cross too, but the analogy is not apt.
Is too!
It would have to be people who love Bush putting up the shoe monument to symbolize that he had triumphed over the shoe. You have to imagine a society that is proud of killing Christ adopting the cross symbol. See how loathsome it is?
A society that was proud of killing Christ would love crosses. Only Christians have a reason to loathe crosses, but to commemorate Christ's triumph over death they erect giant crosses everywhere. Similarly, Iraqis loathe shoes, but to commemorate the Great Shoe Tosser's triumph over Bush they erect a giant shoe. Perfectly analogous.
I love Lenny Bruce's riff that if Christ was killed in the 20th century that all the Catholic schoolgirls would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.
As wrong and horrific as America's invasion of Iraq was, at least they have a chance to pull stunts like this.
Ungrateful sister and camel fucking assholes.
What kills me about this stuff from Ann is that a lot of Iraqis died because people like her were stupid enough to support invading their country.
And now she's begrudging them their small, harmless FU gesture because... Well because she's a moron.
"An estimated five million orphans from the war? In a country with a population of twenty five million?"
Don't you remember, back during the 90s, the 1,000,000,000,000,000 Iraqi children killed by sanctions?
I get it! So the Clinton policy of sanctions that was killing 100,000 children a millisecond was preferable to the Bush policy of--uh, crap, I lost it.
Did Bush start exporting orphans into Iraq? 'cause, that's a pretty bad policy right there.
Someone should tell them that the shoe thing is way, way over. Tikrit (Saddam's home town) apparently has a long way to go.
fcai, I'm sorry you took my statement as anti-south. I am a Southerner to my core. My point was that symbols can have vastly different meanings to those on different sides of a divide.
I suppose next the reporter will have been martyred.
That's the part about this whole story that bothers me the most. Apparently the reporter in question was beat up pretty badly in custody - broken bones, internal bleeding, that kind of stuff. Plus, he's looking at fifteen years in jail.
That seems pretty harsh for a symbolic gesture. Not quite Saddam-harsh, but a bit too close for my taste.
I'm a little surprised they didn't shoot him on the spot. I think that's the likely outcome here.
What if he had thrown a knife or a bomb? From a security standpoint, aren't they just lucky he didn't? Wouldn't that have been embarrassing?
Blogger Eric said...
I suppose next the reporter will have been martyred.
That's the part about this whole story that bothers me the most. Apparently the reporter in question was beat up pretty badly in custody - broken bones, internal bleeding, that kind of stuff. Plus, he's looking at fifteen years in jail.
That seems pretty harsh for a symbolic gesture. Not quite Saddam-harsh, but a bit too close for my taste.
4:42 AM
Apparently this story of the reporter's abuse is untrue, with witnesses. Feel better?
Blake:"Christy's comment is the most intelligent one I've seen here. And she's right, a big part of why people in the South still fly the Confederate flag is that even today they still are irked that they lost that war almost 150 years ago."
A completely stupid comment, Blake. I have seen as many confederate flags in Wisconsin as South Carolina, where I now live. In other words, virtually none. I have yet to see a confederate flag "flying" anywhere, during the past five years I have lived in the south.
You seem to be living in the past in order to feel morally superior.
David,
That's Eli Blake, dude.
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