Shoes hurled at Bush in the last memorable event of a disgraceful presidency.
By James Buchanan — EURO
George Bush was nearly hit by a shoe in the ridiculous last chapter of an immature, unqualified puppet president. One pundit made the observation that “Everything about this president is pathetic… even his assassination attempts.” Bush carried out the whims of the Israeli Lobby, which stuck us with the Iraq War, and Big Oil, which stuck us with sky high gas prices for much of 2008. Eight years ago, patriotic Americans on the far right voted for Pat Buchanan, but once again gutless moderates and a huge pile of corporate money propelled a worthless candidate, this time the bungling Bush Junior, to the highest office in the land.
Bush no doubt thought his “crowning achievement” was the conquest of Iraq. This inspired him to make his last overseas road trip to the one place where he thought he had a shred of credibility. Then came the shoe. What says “failure in Iraq” better than a carefully-screened room full of Iraqi reporters in the Green Zone, in which one reporter is willing to go to jail to show how much the Iraqi people hates the murderous idiot-president of the US?
A majority of Americans (and most of the civilized world) see the Iraq War as an illegal war of aggression. The Abu Ghraib torture scandal and Bush’s attempted “legalization” of torture in violation of the Geneva Convention and the 1996 War Crimes Act and the US Constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment is a horrible legacy which has done irreparable harm to the reputation of the United States.
Over 4,000 Americans have died in Iraq for no valid reason whatsoever. The bogus rationale for the war, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction has been thoroughly exposed as a blatant lie by Bush, Cheney and the neocons. The Iraq War has resulted in the Republicans losing control of Congress in 2006 and then losing even more seats and the presidency in 2008. Ron Paul wisely warned the Republicans to drop the Iraq War and admit it was a mistake, but the mainstream media refused to give Ron Paul any publicity. John McCain was selected by Diebold machines to be the GOP candidate and predictably lost the 2008 election against an anti-war Democrat.
The arrogance and hubris of George W. Bush and his unwillingness to admit the war was wrong caused the deaths of these young Americans. The number of Iraqi deaths may run into the hundreds of thousands. The shoe-thrower is an Iraqi reporter, Muntadar al-Zaidi. A BBC news article notes “With his second shoe, which the president also managed to dodge, Mr Zaidi said: ‘This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq.’ ”
George Bush no doubt believed all the neocon spin about how the “surge had worked” in Iraq. The truth is that the Iraqis still hate us and want us out. The US casualties have only fallen because the Iraqis get CNN and they knew that the half-crazy, senile warmonger, John McCain would be defeated by Barack Hussein Obama. Why wage battle with the heavily-armed US forces when the war is already won?? There was also an attempt made to bribe Iraqi rebels into not fighting. So once again, a president named Bush has gone out of office in disgrace, and someone named Hussein has prevailed!
Read more articles by James Buchanan at WhiteCivilRights.com
