Iraqi shoe thrower Muntazer al-Zaidi inundated with offers and gifts
"Getty Images
As his size 10s spun through the air towards George W Bush, Muntazer al-Zaidi - the man the world now knows as the shoe-thrower - was bracing for an American bullet. "He thought the secret service was going to shoot him," says Zaidi's younger brother, Maitham. "He expected that, and he was not afraid to die." Zaidi's actions during the former US president's swansong visit to Iraq last December have not stopped reverberating in the nine months since. Next Monday, when the journalist walks out of prison, his 10 raging seconds, which came to define his country's last six miserable years, are set to take on a new life even more dramatic than the opening act. Across Iraq and in every corner of the Arab world, Zaidi is being feted. The 20 words or so he spat at Bush - "This is your farewell kiss, you dog. This is for the widows and orphans of Iraq" - have been immortalized, and in many cases memorized. Pictures of the president ducking have been etched onto walls across Baghdad, made into T-shirts in Egypt, and appeared in children's games in Turkey. Zaidi has won the adulation of millions, who believe his act of defiance did what their leaders had been too cowed to do. Iraq has been short of heroes since the dark days of Saddam Hussein, and many civilians are bestowing greatness on the figure that finally took the fight to an overlord. "He is a David and Goliath figure," said Salah al-Janabi, a white goods salesman in downtown Baghdad. "When the history books are written, they will look back on this episode with great acclaim. Al-Zaidi's shoes were his slingshot." - Guardian
Dominant Social Theme: Unusual heroes.
Free-Market Analysis: One wonders what exactly America won in Iraq at the cost of approximately (combined with Afghanistan) about US$1 trillion and counting. It is not the undying gratitude of a free peoples apparently. It is not even a definitive strategic military advantage as the region remains in flux and Iran and Syria have both gained power, if anything, in the past decade - and neither are friends of the United States.
True, Saddam Hussein was a thug, but he was at least initially America's thug, someone America counted on to keep Iraq stable given there were so many other unfolding problems to deal with. There was in fact plenty of controversy over Hussein's first land grab of Yemen - one supposedly "green-lighted" sotto voce by the administration of Bush Senior as part of a baited trap. Hussein's tanks rolled and Bush senior pulled the trigger. Hussein's reign was essentially over then, though it took another decade to topple.
Anyway, it is not clear why America invaded Iraq a second time. The Afghanistan invasion had as its purpose the goal of finding Osama bin Laden hiding in a cave somewhere. Not finding bin Laden, American forces wiped out the Taliban and then settled in for a long occupation that has apparently included democratizing Afghanistan. American forces, having dumped Hussein, have attempted to democratize Iraq as Afghanistan and thus there are two ongoing efforts in the Middle East to change sociopolitical textures.
But we ask again, what has American gained by these wars? Obviously, based on the reporting of the above article (from the Guardian to be sure) there is no great love in Iraq for America right now, and we know that there are not many warm sentiments for America in Afghanistan either, if the American military brass is to be believed. America is now rethinking strategies for winning the hearts and minds of the long-suffering Afghanistan peoples, but war is a clumsy murderous business. The idea that one can tread lightly in a war is not really feasible, in our opinion. It will surely be a hard sell.
So let's try to summarize a little. These wars, mostly American-driven, have not apparently flattened those behind 9/11. Osama bin Laden himself, may still sit in a cave in Pakistan according to some of America's top military leaders (though we don't see how this is possible given his kidney ailments). They have alienated the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq from America, if not the West, and have drained considerable blood and treasure from the United States. In fact, one may one day trace America's precipitous decline to the tremendous amounts of money spent pursuing these latest foreign conflicts.
Finally, when one looks at where much of the action lies now, it would seem, as we have pointed out before, that the war on the Afghanistan side, being pursued in Pakistan as well, is being waged against the ancient Pashtuns, some 40 million strong and as febrile a culture as one can find in the region. Add the Persians, the Shias and the Sunnis to the mix, and one begins to wonder if there is any single entity in the Middle East (outside of the Jews) that the United States and its allies hasn't picked a fight with recently.
So what was the real reason that the US went to war in the Middle East? We are on record as believing the stakes are much bigger than oil, military superiority or even revenge for 9/11. We think the Anglo-American strategy of consolidating the world economy calls for an increasing show of force against the worldwide Muslim community. Those Muslims in Afghanistan and Iran, especially are not in any sense headed toward participation in Western-style democracy, and one could make the argument that the entire Muslim community has been fairly resistant to Western influence."
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."
- Plato
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