The great hero in action
My column in Human Events today:
The Islamic world’s latest hero is Muntadhar al-Zeidi, the reporter for Cairo’s Al-Baghdadia TV channel who threw his shoes at President Bush at a press conference in Iraq on Sunday. Hasan Muhammad Makhafa, a wealthy Saudi, went on Dubai’s Al-Arabiya TV to call al-Zeidi’s shoes “a symbol of freedom not just footwear. They represent a victory for those who have disgraced the Arabs by occupying their lands and killing innocent people.”Makhafa was so enthusiastic about this grand gesture of freedom that he offered to plunk down a cool $10 million for the heroic dress shoes. (Makhafa, by the way, is an elementary school teacher. How many elementary school teachers in America have ten million dollars to spend on a pair of shoes? Your gas money at work, folks!)
The less well heeled were just as jazzed by al-Zeidi’s Wing-Tip Jihad. In Damascus, a street banner proclaimed, “Oh, heroic journalist, thank you so much for what you have done.” In Beirut, a Hizballah-affiliated journalist, Ibrahim Mousawi, exulted: “It’s the talk of the city. Everyone is proud of this man, and they’re saying he did it in our name.” Ali Qeisi of the Jordan-based “Society of Victims of the US Occupation in Iraq” declared: “All US soldiers who have used their shoes to humiliate Iraqis should be brought to justice, along with their US superiors, including Bush.” And the querulous Lebanese-American professor Asad Abu Khalil, who calls himself “The Angry Arab,” thundered that “the flying shoe speaks more for Arab public opinion than all the despots/puppets that Bush meets with during his travels in the Middle East.”Meanwhile, according to news reports, “thousands of Iraqis” demonstrated in three cities -- Baghdad, Basra and Najaf -- to hail al-Zeidi as a hero and demand his release from prison, where he has been held since the attack. There hasn’t been this much excitement in the Islamic world over anyone since…Osama bin Laden, whose ascetic visage could be found after 9/11 gracing t-shirts, visors, cigarette lighters, children’s toys and more.
These days, only President-elect Obama’s popularity rivals that of al-Zeidi in Muslim countries. Right after the election, Achmad Sobry Lubis of a virulently anti-American jihadist group in Indonesia called the Islamic Defenders’ Front (FPI), said of Obama that “we are now very hopeful that he can restore peace in the world.” Another jihadist, Eid Kabalu of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in the Philippines, declared that Obama “has to reduce U.S. involvement in war, which, in effect, will make global peace reign under his administration.” Ahmed Yussef of the jihad terror group Hamas said that Obama’s election gave the U.S. a “chance for a change, after his predecessor, George W. Bush destroyed relations with the external world.”
It may seem odd that the three most popular people among Muslims worldwide today would be the President-elect of the United States, a mass-murdering jihad terrorist, and a somewhat comical shoe-hurling journalist -- but anti-Americanism makes strange bedfellows. And that is certainly the common element in the popularity of all three. Many in the Islamic world believe or hope that Obama will be the anti-Bush, and will craft a foreign policy more to their liking than Bush’s -- that is, one involving concessions and appeasement.
It’s also noteworthy, meanwhile, that while “thousands of Iraqis” could be mustered on extremely short notice to protest al-Zeidi’s incarceration, to this day thousands of Muslims have never demonstrated anywhere against Osama bin Laden and his alleged “hijacking” of their peaceful religion -- except on a few occasions when Al-Qaeda has targeted Muslims rather than non-Muslims.
The popularity of Muntadhar al-Zeidi is telling: the shoe-hurler is more popular in Islamic nations today than any Islamic reformer ever has been. The man who subjected President Bush to Arab culture’s ultimate sign of disrespect and contempt is at once more famous and beloved among Muslims than a President who endeavored, whatever may be said of how well-advised or successful his policies have been, to save innumerable Muslim lives by planting free and stable societies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Osama’s popularity in the Islamic world has been obvious for seven years, and yet policymakers in Washington still have not examined its implications. The celebration of the Flying Florsheims of Baghdad reinforces once again the fact that the objects of so much hope in the West, those large numbers of Muslims who love America and abhor jihadism, have yet to make themselves known in any effective way -- despite the fact that so much domestic and international policy, ranging from questions of immigration to the role of Islamic law in Iraq and Afghanistan, depends upon their standing up to the jihadists.
Will they ever do so, or are the aims of the global jihad just fine by them? If the shoe fits, throw it.
It is doubtful that if this Arab hero would have thrown his shoe at Saddam - he would not have lived long enough to be a hero -
So this is the Arab problem - the Iraqi war has brought a measure of tolerance.
Something that is not in amply supply in that region.
I'm thinking that Iraq journalists must now remove their shoes before they can attend a press conference.
Note that the "heroic journalist" did not ask any uncomfortable questions of the President. No, that's not how it works in an Islamic Paradise. You take off your shoes and throw them. I would blame this typical behavior on cultural savagery, but I am being unfair to savages everywhere.
Well under a Saddam, this reporter would not only be shot dead right on the spot, the whole family would be hunted down to be slaugthered after being tortured themselves. Well a reflection of the ungratefullness in that part of the world towards all things American.
I agree with previous posters that this man wouldn't have worn a pair of shoes ever again, having been executed by Saddam.
However...
I'm not expecting Brownie points for this but.....
This action has shown just what the War has done. It has removed a man, albeit a dictator, who kept the populous in order. It has created a population of Muslims, who will be more anti West, even though we've given them liberation to do what they choose. And last but by no means least, we have created an environment that will constantly be a threat to the West as Islamism from Iran filters more and more into Iraq.
We never 'liberated' Iraq. We have effectively unlocked the cage door of the beast and let it out to do whatever it so chooses to do.
I expect to see Iraq follow down the same route as Iran and other terrorist states. The majority Shia Muslims will seek to wipe out the Sunnis as the Kurds have now established their own state within Iraq to the South.
The whole Iraq war was a mess from start to current situation. America has lost many men along with the UK and other coalition forces and for what? To protect and help an ideology that vehemently despises us and our Western society. We are also doing the same in Afghanistan as well.
We should have stayed out of Iraq and Afghanistan and aimed our sights on far bigger threats to us like Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Instead we have created a mess in the Middle East, toppled a dictator, to create an even bigger problem for the West and more recruits for Islamic Jihad. Madness.
"It is doubtful that if this Arab hero would have thrown his shoe at Saddam - he would not have lived long enough to be a hero -" --posted above
That's right - would have been immediate death for the shoe-throwing Barbarian.
Here's who has created your "widows and orphans" - 20 years of mass-murder by Saddam Hussein, followed by your insane suicide-bombers who think they're getting paradise through blowing people up.
SHOES AND TERROR MINDSET
When I saw the episode on TV my first though was: Just like the communist pig Nikita in UN.
Maybe there is a relationship between using shoes as a weapon and the totalitarian mind:
"The notorious shoe-banging incident occurred during a debate, on October 12, over a Russian resolution decrying colonialism. Infuriated by a statement of the Filipino delegate Lorenzo Sumulong which charged the Soviets with employing a double standard, Khrushchev accused Sumulong of being "a jerk, a stooge and a lackey of imperialism". Later Khrushchev appeared to have pulled off his right shoe and started banging it on his desk. On another occasion, Khrushchev said in reference to capitalism, "Мы вас похороним!" (My vas pokhoronim!), translated to "We will bury you". This phrase, ambiguous both in the English language and in the Russian language, was interpreted in several ways. Later, he would refer back to the comment and state, "I once got in trouble for saying, 'We will bury you'. Of course, we will not bury you with a shovel. Your own working class will bury you"
(Quoted from Wikipedia).
When our leaders completely misjudge the enemy in every possible way, we lose blood and treasure in a way that is unimaginable. Bush's "Religion of Peace" is on clear display in this shoe incident. This is obviously not just one disgruntled person throwing the shoes.
What is made very clear in this incident is the hard cold fact that since we are not Muslim, Islamic people are taught to hate us. They resent our soldiers for being their superior. They resent us and Jews because they are taught by their religion to hate all of us and regard themselves as superior to us. They are a perfect example of the worst bigots on earth. In my book, this makes all of them the enemy and not just a few. It is just that simple and our elites who run our country do not have the capacity to understand this simple thing.
I read this on another site. Can someone elucidate what this commenter means by the "miraculous" (sarcasm) switch from being Trans-Jordanians in 1964 to being Palestinians in 1965? I'm pretty confused about this whole "Palestinian" deal.
"Hogwash! One doesn't go to bed Transjordanian (pre-1964)and wake-up miraculously Palestinian in 1965! The Transjordanians have a homeland; it's called modern day Jordan. Deal with it."
What is it with shoes in the Islamic world? First it was Richard Reid and his shoe bomb, causing all of us to have to go shoeless through airport checkpoints, then it was all the people pounding on Saddam's statue with their shoes, now it it this guy throwing his shoes at the President. We could use a good shrink to explain this fetish. Shoe stores in the Middle East must be recession proof!
darcy, watch this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09pmTh64vD8
"Palestinians" is a word dreamed up by the "displaced arabs" of Egypt, Syria and Jordan.
The "jordyptians" as we call them.
Their claims are all lies.
GWB's laughter during the incident -- possibly ignorance on his part -- may have insulted Moslems. If so, good! Let's face it: ridicule and derision have their place in the counterjihad. So said Ali Sina, I believe.
If he threw his shoes at Saddam Hussein he'd be dead within seconds, or languishing in a prison. If they gathered in the streets to protest his captivity, they'd be massacred en masse. They can't or won't realize what they won from our time, toil, treasure, and tears.
The battle to win their hearts and minds was never an achievable task. Why? Because their hearts and minds belong to Allah. Can we really hope to dissuade a young muslim male from 72 virgins with candy and dental cleanings? Our mission in any Islamic Republic should be limited to kill, capture, and/or destroy.
I distinctly remember GWB saying we would not be in the "nation building" business.
Nothing an "infidel" does in an islamic land is appreciated. We should have never put boots on the ground.
Robert Spencer sees jihadis popping up everywhere. There was not a word about jihad in the shoe-hurler's outburst: Sounded more like aggrieved nationalism to me, and the Saudi mentioned cited damaged Arab pride. Nothing about Islam. To forthwith swing into one of his standard diatribes about the lack of Muslim support for Islamic reform, then compare al-Zaidi to Bin Laden (and Barack Obama!) without the slightest dollop of evidence, is a familiar Spencerian rhetorical trope. It could be the man is a jihadi, but we certainly don't know that he is. But, since Osama bin Laden is a jihadi and is popular in the Arab world, and Zaidi and Obama are also popular, then - of course! - they must all be jihadis! Next Spencer will be telling us that Cindy Sheehan is a jihadi because she doesn't buy the democracy-at-the-end-of-a-rifle- barrel philosophy.
And of course we all knew something like this would happen.
If your leftwing loon, enjoy yourself here.
http://play.sockandawe.com/
On the day this incident occurred and the following news day, I counted the number of times the shoe-throwing video clip was re-run on NBC Nightly News. It was repeated 5 or 6 times each night! Don't they have other material to cover in their brief 30 minutes of daily news?
President Bush was quick to point out that the US and UK have brought freedom of expression to Iraq, as this incident illustrates. Last night, PM Gordon Brown gave a speech beside the Iraqi President. I was struck by the similarity to the Bush-Maliki joint speech.
I suspect that all participants at the Gordon Brown news conference were asked to check their shoes at the door, as if they were entering a temple.
Have you all seen this video:
Iraq's US ambassador knocks the socks off of Code Pink lamebrains
The leader of the free world vs. a symbol of tyranny. I view it like this.
You can choose to view this anyway you feel like. But, remember this. If you're living in America, so you can express your choice loudly. Can you express your thoughts loudly in Arab world?
Before you answer, think about it. Imagine that you threw a shoe at Muqadata al-Sadr. Where would you be?
Doubting David , are you "David from AZ"?
What exactly is your affinity for islam?
Are you a convert?
Doubting David: Theoretically you have a point, but it is a sophistic and belabored one. One goes with the odds and looks at other facts too. The odds are this intrepid shoe thrower is not a Christian, not an agnostic, not anything but a practicing Muslim. And even assuming this thrower isn't a Muslim, can you not at least draw the proper conclusion about Islam from the way this guy's little stunt has been extolled throughout much of the Muslim world? If you can't, your political correctness and arid logic would almost certainly prevent you from seeing many, if not all, supremacist and violent designs that are rooted in Islamic theology, which makes Islam uniquely dangerous among the world's major faiths.
To interestinconundrum
No, I'm not "David from AZ," am not a Muslim, and don't have any affinity for Islam. In fact, I share a lot of the concerns of Mr. Spencer and others here at JihadWatch. I do have an affinity for fairness, accuracy and for perceiving the Muslim world for what it is, without rhetorical slight-of-hand. I live in the Muslim world, and have done so for the past 40 years or so. I see threats to the West and to the US emanating from Islam, share the notion that it is not only a "tiny minority of extremists" that are the problem, but that the problem - or threat - for the West is central to Islamic dogma itself. There are other things going on in the Middle East, however, besides the jihad. There are nationalist feelings, there is opposition to US occupation of Iraq, and so on. That's my point. In a phone call with an Iraqi banker friend yesterday I accused him of throwing the shoe - and we both broke up laughing. We need to keep things in context and view the danger for what it is, and not more than what it is, recognizing that there are opportunities for us in the Middle East as well as threats.
From post above: Robert Spencer sees jihadis popping up everywhere.
Me too, I'm surprised you don't see them. Of course if you are wearing rose colored glasses you won't see them.
Mohammadans always present a rosy picture, and fool many.
I would say you are a Mohammadan Doubting David, mostly because of your lack of respect...Typically a Mohammadan attitude...
Oops, I forgot, A Egyptian has offered his twenty year old daughter in marriage to the shoe thrower, she is enthusiastic about the idea.
She's 20, not married yet and desperate, her dad want's her out of the house...Sounds like a good deal if the shoe thrower is interested.
It’s also noteworthy, meanwhile, that while “thousands of Iraqis” could be mustered on extremely short notice to protest al-Zeidi’s incarceration
...................
It is also noteworthy that when al-Zeidi was kidnapped by Shi'ite militia a little over a year ago and threatened with death, there were no protesters in the streets of Sadr City. No lauding of free speech and the threat to it then.
more:
The popularity of Muntadhar al-Zeidi is telling: the shoe-hurler is more popular in Islamic nations today than any Islamic reformer ever has been. The man who subjected President Bush to Arab culture’s ultimate sign of disrespect and contempt is at once more famous and beloved among Muslims than a President who endeavored, whatever may be said of how well-advised or successful his policies have been, to save innumerable Muslim lives by planting free and stable societies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
....................
Yes--and the entire orgy of sectarian murder and suicide bombings of Iraqi civilians have been laid at the Americans' door, rather than with the Muslims--both "Iraqi" and foreign, who actually carry out the violence.
And this, from al-Zeidi's family:
"I swear to Allah, he is a hero," said his sister, who goes by the nickname Umm Firas (mother of Firas, her oldest son), as she watched a replay of her brother's attack on an Arabic satellite station. "May Allah protect him."
Of course, Umm Firas is not a "nickname" in the Western sense, but the usual Muslim view of women, which defines them only in relation to their fathers, husbands, or sons--or in this case, to her newly famous shoe-throwing brother.
Wellington wrote:
The odds are this intrepid shoe thrower is not a Christian, not an agnostic, not anything but a practicing Muslim.
......................
You are right, Wellington--al-Zeidi is a Shi'ite Muslim.
"Shoe-thrower inspires Bush-bashing Web game"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081217/od_nm/us_bush_game_odd_1
You won't be able to buy any video games that insult Islam, though.
Muntadhar al-Zeidi, I assume, is a Shi'a Arab. And after the Kurds, it was the Shi'a who suffered the most under the disguised Sunni Arab despotism of Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein had hundreds of thousands of Shi'a killed. It was only the American overthrow of Saddam Hussein that rescued the Shi'a and, what's more, ensured a permanent transfer of power to the majority Shi'a from the Sunni Arabs who constitute less than 20% of the population of Iraq.
It will be fascinating to see what happens to Muntadhar al-Zeidi after the Americans leave, and when intra-Shi'a fights, and Shi'a-Sunni hostilities, are renewed without the American peacekeepers to prevent such fighting. What will become of this shoe-flinging "hero of the Arab world"? One thing should be clear: he's not to be given asylum in any Western country. Let him be forced to permanently endure the solitary civilizational confinement, mental and moral, of an Arab and Muslim land.
This is why I cannot wait until the last of the Western Forces have left Iraq, including the military forces of the US.
When this finally happens, Ultimately the Iraq population will only have..................Themselves.
Who will they have to blame then?
The odds of changing a Mohammedan minded population into a modern Democracy is about the same of changing a brothel into a convent. The only means of controlling the Islamic inspired violence and supremacism is with a dictator like Saddam or an army like in Turkey. Democracy is practiced by civilized people and not barbarians.
The big, brave shoe-chucker is now begging for leniency:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,469307,00.html
gravenimage: Thanks for confirming what I suspected was the case. You know, whatever one thinks of President Bush's venture into Iraq, how can one not conclude that Muslims should conclude that Iraqis had zero chance of freedom under Saddam Hussein and his sons but have been given a shot at it precisely because of what Bush did. Actually, in one way I'm encouraged by this dismal and dense awareness by the Muslim world in that it makes me more confident that we'll never be taken over by Muslims, even through stealth jihad, because Islam dulls the mind inordinately. It's a prescription for terminal stupidity and when your opponent is stupid, well, that's a great advantage for your side, no? What the hell, better to think optimistically most of the time.
Everything a Muzlim does is about Islam.
Poor Mohammedan "Doubting David," defending the Islamic Jihadist using his stupid shoes as weapons against the U.S. President who saved many Mohammedans from mass-murdering psychopath Saddam.
What a Barbarian.
"Next Spencer will be telling us that Cindy Sheehan is a jihadi because she doesn't buy the democracy-at-the-end-of-a-rifle- barrel philosophy."
Posted by: Doubting David
"In April 2005 Sheehan spoke at a San Francisco State University (SFSU) rally in support of Lynne Stewart, the self-described “radical activist attorney” who had been convicted two months earlier of illegally providing material aid to her incarcerated client, Omar Abdel Rahman, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing."http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2031
"In Sheehan’s calculus, Islamic terrorism was not something that drew its inspiration from Muslim doctrine or tradition, but rather could best be understood as a reaction to all manner of American and Israeli transgressions. "You get America out of Iraq, and Israel out of Palestine, and you'll stop the terrorism," Sheehan said. "
"In Iraq, Sheehan and her fellow delegates met with Sheikh Ahmad al-Kubaysi, a Baghdad-based cleric who is likely affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the ideological forebear of Hamas and al Qaeda. Al-Kubaysi was known to have said that the “young men who came ... from other Muslim countries to defend Iraq" against the Americans were "very brave" warriors whose participation in "the most important form of Jihad" undoubtedly "guaranteed" them a permanent reward in "Paradise.” Al-Kubaysi also is believed to have given $50 million to the terrorist leader Muqtada Al-Sadr. Al-Kubaysi’s organization, the Association for Muslim Studies in Iraq, explicitly condones armed “resistance” against U.S. forces and advocates the murder of civilian hostages who have collaborated with the Americans.
The prime sponsor of the Sheehan delegation’s trip to Iraq was the Iraq National Dialogue Front (INDF), a coalition led by Saleh al-Mutlaq, the Sunni who led the charge against the new Iraqi constitution when it guaranteed an autonomous geographical region for the Shi’ites. Like al-Kubaysi, the INDF leader called for armed “resistance” against coalition forces, offering even to join the “insurgency” himself.
"
"Cindy Sheehan in Egypt for Islamists" http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=4285985
"Spencer" doesn't have to say anything. On this topic Cindy Sheehan has been perfectly clear.
Interesting read
http://muslimlawprof.org/2008/12/16/what-muntadhar-the-shoe-thrower-reveals-about-the-mistakes-of-the-iraq-invasion.aspx
It led to their, actually our, failure to see that so much of Iraq now had descended into this barbaric madness, where our old parlor room politics and backroom business dealings had no place. It is now a place where a youthful and semi retarded gangster thug with a turban wrapped poorly around his head actually has one of the largest followings in Parliament and where a village can hang the charred bodies of American security contractors over a bridge and dance in the street to celebrate to the delight of many.
Interesting post, Larry. Thanks for posting it.
The bravery of those knowing they won't get killed by their juvenile behavior just astounds me. If Obama gets his way - he will be wallowing in more of the same type of violence that we stopped, for the most part.
I think it is about time they started paying their own way in life too. That is not due to this moron throwing his shoes - I hope they didn't give them back - but because it is about time they started taking care of themselves like adults.
Take note that no muslim country got their behinds out of the violence and while they say we are the ones doing the most violence - the facts are that the muslims kill and have killed, more muslims than anyone else. They can deflect that fact all they want, along with the lefties' mantra, the muslims are the ones who are the worst of the thugs over there.
Some more on Cindy Sheehan -
From Lee Kaplan:
"In this context, it is instructive to consider the groups that have pledged their support for Sheehan’s publicity stunt. Among those of her comrades less remarked upon is the Crawford Peace House of Crawford, Texas. Aside from being one of Sheehan’s most vocal backers, Crawford Peace House is a front group for several radical causes, among them the support of Palestinian terrorism and Ba’ath Party insurgents under the guise of promoting “peace” activism. The group’s homepage features . . . a tired rant by one Hadi Jawad, in which all the problems of the Palestinians are blamed on Israel." http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.aspx?GUID={2042C24E-4388-42D2-8E9B-CFEEF08FC7B4}
And, here is Hadi Jawad protesting the innocence of the now convicted defendants in the Holy Land Foundation trial - http://sweetness-light.com/archive/cindy-sheehan-and-the-holy-land-verdict
Without a doubt, she is a jihadi.
To our little brothers in Iraq. I am so proud of George Bush for carrying the white man's burden and freeing our oppressed little brothers in Iraq. I am so proud of our armed forces and the wisdom of all those intelligent far sighted internationalist cons who committed the US to free all the little people around the world so they can hate us true liberty.
Wow, is there no end to the different kinds of Jihad among Muhammadens?
Let’s see now. We have Killing-jihad, Babyboom-jihad, Finance-jihad, Spiritual-jihad, Stealth-jihad and now (gasp) Shoe-jihad. What next from these fanatics?
I've been thinking about this, in conjuction with Chatillon's post on DW a few days ago under the Egyptian mayor story and DDA's re-post of Dominic's story about the Paki children lobbing rocks at him. Watching that video, one can only come to the conclusion that he had practice, just like that Muslim kid who threw rocks at Chatillon, just like Edward Said lobbing rocks into Israel. They don't have baseball in the Msulim world, so you know where that experience came from. What it is with Muslims throwing things at people? It's like violence is the only way they know how to express themselves. It's part retardation and it's part psychopathy. They're just addicted to it. Anything that annoys them they throw something at it. This guy was a reporter. He should know how to use words to express himself and we gave him the right to do so, but what does he do? He acts like a retarded psychopath. There is no hope for the Muslim world or for any non-Muslim in it.
I also thought that the President handled it very classily. I would have said that it was a size 4 shoe and made a remark about the perils of inbreeding.
"...the Flying Florsheims of Baghdad..." - Robert
Nice alliteration, but not likely - Milton Florsheim, founder of the Florsheim shoe company was Jewish, and the son of a wine merchant.
Maybe Mr. al-Zeidi, the well-heeled shoe-ter, was just trying to demonstrate how happy he is that Iraq is free at last.