When Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw his shoes (yes he managed to remove and hurl both before being pounced upon), President Bush responded by joking they were, “size ten”.
He told the people in the room “don't worry about it. Calm down” and even chuckled as Mr. al-Zaidi was tacked, beaten, and dragged from the room.
Bush didn't appear to give the incident much thought. He gave a short speech then quickly circled back to the conversation at hand. “In terms of the agreements, this is a major achievement...”
Mr. al-Zaidi was whisked away to jail and charged with assaulting a foreign president, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
Apparently he later wrote a (secret and confidential and therefore unable to be disclosed) letter of apology to Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki stating that a known (un-named) militant had induced him to throw the shoes.
His trial has recently been postponed for appeal, his lawyer Mr. Dhiya'a al-Sa'adi asking that the charges be shifted from “assault” to “insult”, which carries a lesser maximum of two years in prison and could quite likely result in al-Zaidi being released on bail.
Mr. al-Sa'adi claims it was someone “exercising their freedom of expression”.
According to his aforementioned speech, it seems Bush agrees.
“It's one way to gain attention. It's like going to a political rally and have people yell at you. It's like driving down the street and have people not gesturing with all five fingers. It's a way for people to draw attenti... I don't know what the guy's cause is. But one thing is for certain, he caused you to ask me a question about him.”
“... that's what happens in free societies when people try to draw attention to themselves. So, I guess he was affected 'cause he caused you to say something about it now.”
So Bush can't guess what al-Zaidi's cause was. Knowing what we know about Bush, that's not entirely unbelievable. But even a clued out, pretentious, fear mongering, nut-ball has a built in fight or flight response, so if Bush can calmly state “I didn't feel the least bit threatened by it” shouldn't we at least hear him out and give al-Zaidi a break? Surely the “bag 'o hammers” thingy doesn't apply to animal instinct, after all, he did duck.
Besides, like al-Sa'adi says “has anyone ever died from a shoe?”
... I guess we'll find out
moot or hooey?
All claims from al-Zaidi's family and lawyer that he's been tortured, resulting in a missing tooth, stitches on his nose, injury to his jaw, cigarette burns on his ears, and has been beaten with metal instruments have been denied.
No comments:
Post a Comment