Iraq shows Bush their... SOLE?

By CLEMENTE LISI.

A sofa-sized shoe monument was unveiled today in Tikrit - the hometown of the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein - in honor of the Iraqi journalist who threw his footwear at Bush last month during a Baghdad new conference.

Iraqi artist Laith al-Amari told Britain's Sky News that his copper and fiberglass sculpture is an homage to the pride of the Iraqi people and "not a political work."

He also said journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi serves as "a source of pride for all Iraqis."

The sculpture also includes a poem dedicated to al-Zeidi and mentions the virtues of being "able to tell the truth out loud."

Al-Zeidi shouted in Arabic on Dec. 14 as he pulled off his shoes and heaved them at Bush.

"This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq," screamed al-Zeidi, who was working for an Egyptian TV station.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Your chance to toss a shoe at the President!

All the fun of beaning a Buster Brown off of W's noggin without the 15 years in an Egyptian prison!

PLAY IT NOW!

Iraqi Fun Fact: Tossing shoes is a way of honoring national hero

Did you know that Curly was a Suni? Check it out:

Iraqi Throws Shoes At Bush During Press Conference – "This is a goodbye kiss, you dog!"

An Iraqi television journalist hurled two shoes at President Bush on Sunday during a joint news conference Bush was holding with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki to mark the signing of a U.S.-Iraq security agreement.



Bush had just finished his prepared remarks in which he said the security agreement was made possible by the U.S. surge of troops earlier this year, whhen the journalist, Muthathar al Zaidi pulled his shoes off and hurled them at the president. "This is a goodbye kiss, you dog," Zaidi shouted.

Bush dodged the shoes and was not struck. Bodyguards quickly wrestled Zaidi to the floor and hauled him, kicking and screaming, from the room. Two other Iraqi journalists were briefly detained after one of them called Zaidi's actions "courageous."

CNN notes that this is considered an insult among Muslims.

The White House transcript from the news conference labels the incident an "audience interruption."

President Bush said. "Okay, everybody calm down for a minute."

Then, indicating Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the president continued: "First of all, thank you for apologizing on behalf of the Iraqi people. It doesn't bother me. And if you want some — if you want the facts, it's a size 10 shoe that he threw. (Laughter.) Thank you for your concern, do not worry about it."

"I don't know what the guy said, but I saw his sole," he joked.

Not bad on that last pun, actually. I'll giggle at that while my house gets foreclosed.

STORY

Thanks

While Congress and the Nation at large continue to endlessly debate -- about the President, the War on Terror, and the past, present and future of Iraq -- our soldiers continue to fight it out. Right now it's about 90 degrees F in Iraq, and they are out there, in full armor and aging vehicles. They get paid less that those Blackwater dudes, and have older equipment. Meanwhile, though most of us lead lives not radically unchanged before 9/11, their families continue to face the burden of missing loved ones. Kids miss their parents. Reservists miss the incomes they made before getting called to service. Some will never come back.

As cynical and desensitized as many (including myself) are these days, it might be appropriate to take a few moments to thank the idealists who think so highly of our country, for whatever their personal reasons, to protect it with their lives. Then we can get back to the cookout and the Home Depot trip.

Thanks to all of you, and be safe. I hope we get you home soon.

Image: Three Flags, 1958 by Jasper Johns

America's Hired Guns: Isn't this how Yoda fucked up?

George Bush may want to take Bingo night off and spend some time with the work of George Lucas. As every sci-fi geek knows, the Jedi were getting heat from a lot of mysterious evil dudes. The Sith hate freedom, and Yoda's posse has gotta go smoke 'em out. But the Jedi were spread too thin from being the galaxy's police. What to do? Hey, let's hire some contractors to help do the fighting. Send in the CLONES! They are lean, mean, come with their own armor, and hey, if they die, who cares? Contractors don't get benies... not even dental. It's a slam dunk!

But while the clones fought for the Jedi, they had no loyalty to them. They were doing the highest bidder's bidding, and the Sith pay better. Before you know it, the clone army was making Jedi hamburger.

Taken for a punk, Yoda has.

While hiring mercenaries in the real world hasn't always worked out too great either (see Rome, England, etc), the U.S. is now getting into the game. Companies like North Carolina's Blackwater USA are picking up where the U.S. military is leaving off all over the place, especially in Iraq. Born in 1997 by millionaire and former US Navy SEAL Erik Prince, BlackWater is has been hired by the government to help out in post-Katrina's New Orleans, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Blackwater USA has also been contracted by various foreign governments. In Iraq, when a U.S. General is touring the latest horrors, it's Blackwater that is guarding him, not the General's own men.

Controversy surrounds Prince and Blackwater. A recent book by independent journalist Jeremy Scahill is highly critical of the company (Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army). It seems not even Congress has a real grip how involved they are. A talent drain has been affecting the U.S. Army as soldiers quit the military and "Go Blackwater" to get better pay and equipment. There's also President's Eisenhower's 1961 warning about the "military industrial complex" where so much of the economy depends on war that we need to make it. They currently are not disciplined in the same way regular military is. An insider quote has surfaced regarding Blackwater conduct in Iraq: "What happens in Iraq, stays in Iraq."

President Bush on the question (during the Rumsfield era):


While all the above issues are important, they seem secondary to a basic common sense question: If these companies need war to make money, and are willing to work for those willing to pay, where ultimately does their loyalties lie? Can we be assured that they are here to protect and defend the Constitution, or their CEO's mandates and their quarterly profits.

Meditate on this, we must.

LEARN MORE:

• Diane Rhem Show


• Wikipedia


• Blackwater USA's corporate site


• Democracy Now! interview with Scahill about his book


• Jeremy Scahill's Blackwater blog


• You Tube media

17 Year-Old Kurdish Girl Stoned for Love.

On or around April 7, 2007, Du’a Khalil Aswad, a 17-year-old girl has been stoned to death in Beshika, Iraq because she loved a teenage boy of the wrong religion. She was murdered (allegedly by her brothers and uncles) while a large group of men watched and cheered.

Aswad, a member of a minority Kurdish religious group called Yezidi, was apparently murdered because she had engaged in a relationship with a Sunni Muslim boy and had been absent from her home for one night.

Some reports suggested that she had converted to Islam, but others deny this. Initially, she was reportedly given shelter in the house of a Yezidi tribal leader in Bashika. Other reports indicate she was lured back home with news her families' anger subsided.

Most accounts agree that she was dragged from her home, stripped down to her underwear and kicked in the groin and stomach and is pelted with rocks and concrete. Police officers were present but apparently did nothing to stop the murder, and they possibly sought to encourage the crowd.

Her death by stoning lasted for around 30 minutes. We appear to have had the event recorded via the mixed blessing of cell phone technology:


This CNN clip shows a bit different footage, including what the police were doing:


More complete unedited footage can be found at Robert Lindsay's BLOG

Two of the four arrested are members of the victim's family, police in Nineveh province said last Thursday. Four others, including a cousin thought to have instigated the killing, are being sought.

IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE THAT CAN GIVE ME A VALID REASON WHY THIS BRUTALITY ISN'T WORTHY OF UNIVERSAL OUTRAGE? Cause right now I want to nuke that town and everyone in it. I hate every sweaty mad-man in that forsaken place, yabbering and whooping as if they are at a football game, waving their cell phone cameras. Wikipedia notes that to the Yazidi, the source of evil is not from Satan, but in the heart and spirit of humans themselves. INDEED.

Additional objective and subjective information can be found here:

• Amnesty International


• Kurdish Women's Rights Watch


• CNN


• Robert Lindsay


• Alternative News Sources


• Assyrian International News Agency


• Learn more about the Yezidi religon on Wikipedia

SIDENOTE: I had trouble getting this footage on YouTube. It is rumored that YouTube (now owned by Google) has been trying to remove video footage of this incident from it's servers. As brutal as this video footage is, it's serves an important function. We can't deny it exists if we have the evidence, especially for those of us far from the violence. If this editing of content is true, it's a blow to non-corporate journalism. I hope it isn't so. Here's some dude (not me) noting the issue.

Directions to Baghdad? No problem. Just take a right at Guernica and go straight for 70 years.

Look, what I don't know about the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) is A LOT. Other than a few famous paintings I studied in Art School, I never knew much. Oh, and there was that trippy movie Pan's Labyrinth... but I don't think General Francisco Franco really enlisted any flesh eating cave trolls... not literal ones anyway.


At any rate, the Spanish Civil War for Dummys summary is this: A democratically elected goverment (Republic/republicanos) was overthrown in a rebellion lead by Franco (Nationalists/nacionales). For the Republic, you had the Soviet Union. For Franco's Nationalists, you had the big dogs of facism: Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Nazi Germany.

America? Well for the most part she was sitting it out, except for a couple of thousand Americans who volunteered to fight in Spain (The Abraham Lincoln Brigade). American talk show host Father Charles Coughlin worked to build Franco support among his listenership. I assume because of the Republican government's crackdown on religons, including Catholics. There were a few more American's involved — The American-owned Vacuum Oil Company refused to help the Republicans, and Texas Oil Company supplied gasoline to Franco.


Some of these folks from The Abraham Lincoln Brigade (now in their 90s) say they went because they saw the struggle between facism vs. democracy was coming, and stopping Germany and Italy in Spain may stop them cold before a larger World War would escalate. So much for that. Survivors returning from the war were seen as communist supporters and were looked at closely by the American government during the "Red Scare" following World War II.

500,000 people died in the war, with standard issue atrocities being commited on both sides for a variety of reasons. In the end Franco won, and he led Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975. Franco's legacy is mixed depending on who you talk to. Some think he pacified Spain, other think he was a tyrant. After he died Spain began to work it's way back to democracy.

As I mentioned, several famous pieces of art came from that period. The most famous is Pablo Picaso's Guernica, named for the city of Gernika that was flattened by the German Air Force on April 26, 1937. The painting has become an international symbol of civilian suffering during war.

Harry Belafonte (yeah, the Daaaaaaaaaaay-O "Banana Boat Song" guy... stay with me here) recently spoke in New York to surviving members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. He noted their courage in the stuggle against facism and drew parallels between the facists of the 1930s and George Bush's Administration. Personally, I'm not quite prepared to go THAT far, but it's sadly telling that during Colin Powell's famous speech at the United Nations to outline reasons for us to whack Iraq, the large tapestry of Picasso's Guernica was covered up so it would not be visible in the background when Colin Powell and John Negroponte gave press conferences.

"It's only temporary. We're only doing this until the (TV) cameras leave," said Abdellatif Kabbaj, the chief U.N. media officer.

Wonder if Colin had a sense of irony. Maybe the figure on the far right of the painting with his hands flailing in the air represents Powell's reputation.