Bush attacked by Iraqi shoe throwing 'bomber'

[truthseeker john]

What on earth is Bush talking about?


Link

[kbo234]

He's talking about this:

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/iraq-had-shoes-all-al ong%2c-claims-vindicated-bush-200812151458/

[fish5133]

Journalist hurls shoes as a jesture of highest Iraqi insult at G W Bush

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=paVFvYFDwo0&NR=1

[TonyGosling]

Great to see demos today in Iraq with demonstrators brandishing shoes on poles.

It's a brilliant peaceful insult.
Almost Biblical in its simplicity.

And you can play the game here
http://www.t-enterprise.co.uk/flashgame/playgame.aspx?id=bushbootcamp

Shoes for all!
When Muntazer al-Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist, shouted, "It is the farewell kiss, you dog" to Bush and threw him his shoes during a news conference in Baghdad, the curtain of hypocrisy fell and the ugly emperor stood naked in front of the world.
Those shoes however were not aimed only to a man who should be - by his own standards - hanged, together with his entire junta of mass murderers; the Iraqi hero hit to the face all those responsible for the Iraq genocide and its ongoing denial; an endless army of politicians, diplomats, generals, businessmen, journalists, intellectuals and pimps who've helped to carry out the crime of the century. Shoes for all!..........
http://www.thecatsdream.com/blog/2008/12/shoes-for-all.htm

[Linda]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jlhvyJGGJNKc83Kvyr0 PaQdSEk2Q

Bush's shoe attacker has broken arm, ribs: brother

3 hours ago

BAGHDAD (AFP) — The Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at US President George W. Bush has a broken arm and ribs after being struck by Iraqi security agents, his brother told AFP on Tuesday.

Durgham Zaidi was unable to say whether his brother Muntazer had sustained the injuries while being overpowered during Sunday's protest against Bush's visit to Baghdad or while in custody later.

He said he had been told that his brother was being held by Iraqi forces in the heavily fortified Green Zone compound in central Baghdad where the US embassy and most government offices are housed.

"He has got a broken arm and ribs, and cuts to his eye and arm," said Durgham.

"He is being held by forces under the command of Muwaffaq al-Rubaie," Iraq's national security adviser, he added.

Zaidi, 29, a journalist for private Iraqi television channel Al-Baghdadia, was swiftly overpowered by Iraqi security forces after he threw the shoes at Bush in a gesture seen as the supreme mark of disrespect in the Muslim world.

An AFP journalist said that blood was visible on the ground as he was led away into custody although it was unclear if it was his.

Bush, who was on a swansong visit to the battleground that came to dominate his eight-year presidency, ducked when the shoes were thrown and later made light of the incident.

But Zaidi's action won him widespread plaudits in the Arab world where Bush's policies have drawn broad hostility.

The Lebanese television channel NTV, known for its opposition to Washington, went as far as offering a job to the journalist.

In its evening news bulletin on Monday, it said that if he takes the job, he will be paid "from the moment the first shoe was thrown".

A manager at the channel told AFP that it had made its offer known to Zaidi and was ready to post bail on his behalf.

An Iraqi lawyer said Zaidi risks a minimum of two years in prison if he is successfully prosecuted for insulting a visiting head of state.

In Gaza, around 20 Palestinian gunmen from the Popular Resistance Committees, a hardline militant group that has been behind a spate of rocket attacks on Israel in recent weeks, staged a demonstration in support of Zaidi.

Wearing fatigues and brandishing Kalashnikov assault rifles, they stamped on photographs of the US president and held banners in support of the journalist.

Egyptian independent daily Al-Badeel carried a frontpage caricature of the US flag with the sole of a shoe replacing the stars in the top corner.

Even government-owned newspapers in Cairo praised Zaidi's actions. "Pelting the American president with shoes was the best way for expressing what Iraqis and Arabs feel toward Bush," wrote Al-Gomhuria editor Mohammad Ali Ibrahim.

In Iraq, press comment was divided.

The pro-government Al-Sabah newspaper expressed concern about the potential impact on press freedom of what it called Zaidi's "abnormal individual behaviour."

But the independent Al-Dustur newspaper hailed the journalist as the "only Iraqi whose patriotic feelings made him express his opinion in this way."

"It is not a declaration by the Iraqi media only, but for all Iraqis who have suffered over the years and we demand that he not be handed over to US forces," the paper said.
Hosted by Google

[Disco_Destroyer]

[Disco_Destroyer]

Iraqi who threw shoes covered U.S. bombing of Shiite area 14 Dec 2008 George W. Bush made his last visit to Iraq as president [sic] on Sunday. But instead of highlighting progress from the "surge," it became a reminder that many Iraqis see him not as a liberator who freed them from Saddam Hussein but as an occupier who pushed their country into chaos. As Bush finished remarks... an Iraqi television journalist leapt from his seat, pulled off his shoes and threw them at the pResident. Striking someone with a shoe is a grave insult in Islam. "This is a goodbye kiss, you dog," the journalist, Muntathar al Zaidi, 29, shouted.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/57803.html

Iraq rally for Bush shoe attacker 15 Dec 2008 Thousands of Iraqis have demanded the release of a local TV reporter who threw his shoes at US President [sic] George W Bush at a Baghdad news conference. Crowds gathered in Baghdad's Sadr City district, calling for "hero" Muntadar al-Zaidi to be freed from custody. The Cairo-based al-Baghdadiya TV channel said Mr Zaidi should be freed because he had been exercising freedom of expression - something which the Americans had promised to Iraqis on the ousting of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. "Any measures against Muntadar will be considered the acts of a dictatorial regime," the firm said in a statement. He said he was afraid for Mr Zaidi's safety, adding that the reporter had been arrested by US officials twice before. "We fear that our correspondents in Iraq will be arrested. We have 200 correspondents there," he added.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7783608.stm

Iraq TV demands release of Bush shoe attacker 15 Dec 2008 An Iraqi television station on Monday demanded the immediate release of one of its journalists who caused a furore when he hurled shoes at visiting US President [sic] George W. Bush. Muntazer al-Zaidi jumped up as Bush was holding a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Sunday, shouted "It is the farewell kiss, you dog" and threw two shoes at the US leader. Bush ducked and the first shoe hit the American and Iraqi flags behind the two leaders, while the second was off target.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iSKIyDz7A8HYTY9S6Gi DvQ9eykKQ

200 lawyers offer to defend Bush shoe attacker --Detained journalist's employer calls for his 'immediate release' 16 Dec 2008 Saddam Hussein’s former lawyer said on Monday he was forming a team to defend the Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at US President [sic] George W Bush during his farewell visit to Baghdad. "So far around 200 Iraqi and other lawyers, including Americans, have expressed willingness to defend the journalist for free," the Amman-based Khalil al-Dulaimi told AFP. "I took the decision on Sunday night to defend the man after the incident. I am currently contacting Arab bar associations to form a defence committee."
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C12%5C16%5Cstory_1 6-12-2008_pg4_5

[Stefan]

I think this should spur a global campaign of throwing shoes at Bush -

Join the facebook group, spread the word, and if you ever see Bush - throw a shoe or two!

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=56322915195&ref=nf

[Disco_Destroyer]

here have a Flickr site too
http://www.flickr.com/groups/a_goodbye_kiss_you_dog/

[fish5133]

Looks like this shoe thing is catching on in the middle east


http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uywIYQEHZLs

[Stefan]

Here is another facebook group well worth a look:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=39418553660&ref=mf

Send your dirty old shoes to the Whitehouse!

I'm going to post some tomorrow.

A very creative protest, also one which will be noticed.

[Disco_Destroyer]

CLG Action: Send Bush Your Shoes http://www.legitgov.org/price_send_bush_shoes_161208.html ! 17 Dec 2008 America: We were unable to give President [sic] Bush the boot, but we *can* give him the shoe! Please spread this action far and wide.
Send virtual shoes, too! A CLG reader wrote, 'I urge everyone around the world who thinks it appropriate to email George Bush at president@whitehouse.gov a picture of a shoe.'

[Disco_Destroyer]

http://www.legitgov.org/
Bush shoe-thrower in hospital after beating: brother 16 Dec 2008 The Iraqi journalist who hurled shoes at US President [sic] George W. Bush is in hospital after being beaten up by security guards, his brother charged on Tuesday, as judicial authorities launched a probe into the incident. "He has been taken to Ibn Sina hospital because he has a broken arm and ribs and is also suffering injuries to his eye and leg," Durgham al-Zaidi said of his brother Muntazer.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iks-dGSaJhN4cELNz4- -uCwIaNFA

Shoe thrower 'beaten in custody' 16 Dec 2008 The brother of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at US President [sic] George W Bush has said that the reporter has been beaten in custody. Muntadar al-Zaidi has allegedly suffered a broken arm, broken ribs and internal bleeding, his older brother, Dargham, told the BBC. Mr Zaidi threw his shoes at Mr Bush at a news conference, calling him "a dog".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7785338.stm

Official: Shoe-thrower in Iraqi military custody 16 Dec 2008 The journalist who threw his shoes at U.S. President [sic] George W. Bush was handed over to the Iraqi military, an Iraqi official said, as hundreds thousands took to the streets Tuesday for a second day demanding his release. Muntadhar al-Zeidi was turned over by the prime minister's security guards to face further investigation by the military command in charge of enforcing security in Baghdad, the official told The Associated Press.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hwK_CSpBxsNuVUEaDuOw mSSCiqGwD953NQI03

George W Bush fends off shoes in new viral computer game 15 Dec 2008 An Iraqi journalist's shoe-throwing attack on US President [sic] George W Bush has been immortalised in an online video game. Players of Bush's Boot Camp take on the role of a gun-toting security agent, and must shoot shoes out of the air before they can hit the hapless president. Television reporter Muntadar al-Zaidi was tackled to the ground by Secret Service personnel yesterday after he started to throw his shoes at Geroge W Bush during a press conference in Iraq.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/technologyn ews/3777388/George-W-Bush-fends-off-shoes-in-new-viral-computer-game.h tml

[Linda]

Lets go get him

BRING IT ON

[Disco_Destroyer]

Bush shoe thrower Muntazer al-Zaidi 'too injured' for court 18 Dec 2008 The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at United States President [sic] George W. Bush has appeared before a judge in his jail cell because he is too injured to appear in a courtroom, his brother says. The al-Zaidi family went to Baghdad's Central Criminal Court expecting to attend a hearing, his brother, Dhargham, said. He said the family was told that the investigative judge went to see al-Zaidi in jail, and to return in eight days, Associated Press has reported. "That means my brother was severely beaten and they fear that his appearance could trigger anger at the court,'' Dhargham said.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24815225-12335,00.h tml

[Disco_Destroyer]

Link


Film covers the swift counter attack by security!!

[Disco_Destroyer]

little late as the site was down but:

[TonyGosling]

Shoe-chucking journo Muntadar al-Zaidi is already an icon of Iraq's anti-American opposition. But ladies, did you know he's also single? Some Middle Eastern dads apparently see him as marriage material as well.



An Egyptian man called Zaidi's brother earlier this week to offer his daughter as a wife for the imprisoned celebrity. The daughter, a 20-year-old university student, was apparently receptive to the idea, saying:

"This is something that would honor me. I would like to live in Iraq, especially if I were attached to this hero."

There may be some competition though. The AP reports today that the father of a large family in the West Bank is also offering Zaidi one of his daughters, plus dowry.

When he gets out of jail, I see a reality show in this guy's future.

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/10604

[TonyGosling]

an extra article
Guardian: Terry Jones and the Shoe Throwing Journalist.
I beg your pardon, Mr President
Bush will probably have to pardon Rumsfeld and Cheney – so how about adding shoe-thrower Muntazar al-Zaidi to the list?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/19/george-bush-shoe-t hrower-zaidi

but this has to be the best so far by far
The shoes we longed for
The young journalist who took on Bush has become a unifying Iraqi symbol, a national hero

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/17/bush-shoes-iraqi-j ournalist-hero

Within a few unlikely seconds, a pair of size 10 shoes have become the most destructive weapon the people of Iraq have managed to throw at the occupying powers, after nearly six years of occupation and formidable resistance. One Iraqi writer called the shoes, hurled by a journalist at George Bush, "Iraq's weapon of comprehensive destruction".

While the uprisings of Falluja, Najaf, Basra and Baghdad against the occupation will always remain as landmarks of a people resisting occupation, these incredible seconds have united Iraqis in the most dramatic fashion.

Contrary to most media coverage, the 28-year-old TV reporter Muntadhar al-Zaidi made history not by merely throwing a pair of shoes, the highest expression of insult in Iraqi culture, at the US president, but by what he said while doing so and as he was smothered by US and Iraqi security men. He groaned as they dragged him out of the press conference. They succeeded in silencing him - and according to his brother he was beaten in custody - but he had already said enough to shake the occupation and Nouri al-Maliki's Green Zone regime to their foundations.

Strip the words away, and his and the Iraqi people's cry of deep pain, anger and defiance would amount to no more than a shoe-throwing insult. But the words were heard. "This is the farewell kiss, you dog," he shouted as he threw the first shoe. The crucial line followed the second shoe: "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq." Once those words were heard, the impact of a pair of shoes became electrifying. A young journalist has put aside the demands of his profession, preferring to act as the loudest cry of his long-suffering people. If one considers the torture and killings in Iraqi and US jails that Muntadhar often mentioned in his reports for al-Baghdadia satellite TV station, he was certainly aware he risked being badly hurt.

As the Iraqi and Arab satellite stations switched from the live press conference to reporting reaction to the event, the stunned presenters and reporters were swept away by popular expressions of joy in the streets, from Baghdad to Gaza to Casablanca. TV stations and media websites were inundated with messages of adulation. The instant reply to any criticism of "insulting a guest" was: "Bush is a mass murderer and a war criminal who sneaked into Baghdad. He killed a million Iraqis. He burned the country down."

Expressions of support and demands for Muntadhar's immediate release have spread from Najaf and Falluja to Baghdad, and from Mosul in the north to Basra in the south. An impressive show of anti-occupation unity is developing fast, after being weakened by the sectarian forces that the occupation itself has strengthened and nourished, as Muntadhar himself used to stress.

No one asked after Muntadhar's religion or sect, but they all loved his message. Indeed, I have yet to come across an Iraqi media outlet or website that pronounced on his religion, sect or ethnicity. The first I heard of his "sect" was through US and British media.

The reality is that Muntadhar is a secular socialist whose hero happens to be Che Guevara. He became a prominent leftwing student leader immediately after the occupation, while at Baghdad University's media college. He reported for al-Baghdadia on the poor and downtrodden victims of the US war. He was first on the scene in Sadr City and wherever people suffered violence or severe deprivation. He not only followed US Apache helicopters' trails of death and destruction, but he was also among the first to report every "sectarian" atrocity and the bombing of popular market places. He let the victims talk first.

It was effective journalism, reporting that the victims of violence themselves accused the US-led occupation of being behind all the carnage. He was a voice that could not be silenced, despite being kidnapped by a gang and arrested by US and regime forces.

His passion for the war's victims and his staunchly anti-occupation message endeared him to al-Baghdadia viewers. And after sending Bush out of Iraq in ignominy he has become a formidable national hero. The orphan who was brought up by his aunt, and whose name means the longed or awaited for, has become a powerful unifying symbol of defiance, and is being adopted by countless Iraqis as "our dearest son".

• Sami Ramadani, a political exile from Saddam's regime, is a senior lecturer at London Metropolitan University sami.ramadani@londonmet.ac.uk

[Disco_Destroyer]

Iraqi Journalist Who Threw Shoes at Bush Was Tortured in Jail, His Brother Says 22 Dec 2008 The television reporter who threw his shoes at President [sic] Bush was burned by a cigarette in the hours after his arrest on Dec. 14 and was beaten so badly by Iraqi security personnel that one of his teeth was knocked out, the reporter's brother said Sunday after a visit to the jail. The reporter, Muntader al-Zaidi has been jailed since hurling his shoes at Mr. Bush during a news conference here last week.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/22/world/middleeast/22iraq.html

Bush shoe-thrower tells of ordeal 23 Dec 2008 Muntadar al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President [sic] George W. Bush of the US during a Baghdad press conference last week, spent his first days behind bars believing his family and colleagues would shun him, the man's brother said yesterday. Al Baghdadia TV, his employer, his relatives and people across the Middle East have praised him. Oday al-Zaidi said his brother was gaunt, devastated and bruised - but unrepentant. His brother had told him: "If I had the same opportunity again, I would throw my shoes [at President Bush]." Oday al-Zaidi said his brother claimed the guards had beaten him with a metal pipe after the incident. He had a bruised eye, was missing an upper canine tooth and had cigarette burn marks on the back of his ears.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9f306c1a-d090-11dd-ae00-000077b07658.html

Stampede for 'Bush shoe' creates 100 new jobs 22 Dec 2008 Their deployment as a makeshift missile robbed President [sic] George Bush of his dignity and landed their owner in jail. But the world's most notorious pair of shoes have yielded an unexpected bonanza for a Turkish shoemaker. Ramazan Baydan, owner of the Istanbul-based Baydan Shoe Company, has been swamped with orders from across the world, after insisting that his company produced the black leather shoes which the Iraqi journalist Muntazar al-Zaidi threw at Bush during a press conference in Baghdad last Sunday. Baydan has recruited an extra 100 staff to meet orders for 300,000 pairs of Model 271 - more than four times the shoe's normal annual sale - following an outpouring of support for Zaidi's act, which was intended as a protest, but led to his arrest by Iraqi security forces.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/22/turkey-george-bush-shoe

[simplesimon]

Stefan wrote:

[Disco_Destroyer]

SHOES AGAINST BUSH and HARPER, MONTREAL RALLY, DEC. 20, 2008


Link

[Disco_Destroyer]

Iraqi guards said to throw party for shoe-thrower 16 Jan 2009 The Iraqi journalist jailed since throwing his shoes at President [sic] George W. Bush got a visit from his brother Friday and a birthday party from his guards as he turned 30. Muntadhar al-Zeidi, who has gained cult status for his protest, is in good shape but has been denied access to his lawyer, relatives said after his brother Maitham visited him for two hours in his detention cell in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. Al-Zeidi has been in custody since the Dec. 14 outburst at Bush's joint news conference with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jVLyMfz24UHwB7RZrnMi wnTkD6HQD95OEC2G0

[TonyGosling]

'Shoe-throwing' Iraqi journalist seeks asylum in Switzerland
http://en.rian.ru/world/20090119/119681962.html

Video: Dispute Over Iraqi Shoe-thrower's Future Plans

Link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLqw7XEfqVM

[fish5133]

Good Stuff

[TonyGosling]

a nice looking bit of, ahem, sculpture

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20090129/img/ppl-a-statue-built-for-iraq-5 f7f1dd4d6a7.html

[TonyGosling]

Shoe throwers awaiting Bush in Canada
Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:22:07 GMT
Canadian protestors have organized a shoe-throwing rally to hail George W. Bush's first post-presidential address in oil-rich Calgary.

Hundreds of footwear has been amassed outside a Calgary conference center to be thrown at Bush's effigy in protest to the wrongdoings committed by the former US President, said Colette Lemieux of the Canadian Peace Alliance, AFP reported.

"We had shoes sent in (to us) from across the country," said Lemieux, saying Bush is a "war criminal" who must be prosecuted for his former administration's policies in the US "war on terror."

"It doesn't matter that he is no longer president," she added. "A bank robber who stops holding up banks can and must still be prosecuted for his crimes." The same applies for Bush, she said.

Bush, due to speak to some 1,500 people at a luncheon ceremony on Tuesday, has come to the North American country with a dismal approval rating and the lion's share of the blame for his country's collapsing economy.

More than 200 protestors from across Canada are expected to launch a rally and throw shoes at Bush's effigy to show their protest against his invasion of Iraq and rendition of terror suspects, the Alliance said.

The move is inspired by the action of Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi, who threw his shoes at Bush calling the unpopular then US president a 'dog'.

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail.aspx?id=88907&sectionid=3510203

[Thermate911]

It didn't stay front page for long but:-

[outsider]

[outsider]

Shoe-thrower speaks out:

My Flower to Bush, the Occupier
The Story of My Shoe
By MUTADHAR al-ZAIDI
Mutadhar al-Zaidi, the Iraqi who threw his shoe at George Bush gave this speech on his recent release.
In the name of God, the most gracious and most merciful.

Here I am, free. But my country is still a prisoner of war.

Firstly, I give my thanks and my regards to everyone who stood beside me, whether inside my country, in the Islamic world, in the free world. There has been a lot of talk about the action and about the person who took it, and about the hero and the heroic act, and the symbol and the symbolic act.
But, simply, I answer: What compelled me to confront is the injustice that befell my people, and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by putting it under its boot.

And how it wanted to crush the skulls of (the homeland's) sons under its boots, whether sheikhs, women, children or men. And during the past few years, more than a million martyrs fell by the bullets of the occupation and the country is now filled with more than 5 million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. And many millions of homeless because of displacement inside and outside the country.

We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shiite would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ, may peace be upon him.

And despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than 10 years, for more than a decade.

Our patience and our solidarity did not make us forget the oppression. Until we were invaded by the illusion of liberation that some had. (The occupation) divided one brother from another, one neighbor from another, and the son from his uncle. It turned our homes into never-ending funeral tents. And our graveyards spread into parks and roadsides. It is a plague. It is the occupation that is killing us, that is violating the houses of worship and the sanctity of our homes and that is throwing thousands daily into makeshift prisons.

I am not a hero, and I admit that. But I have a point of view and I have a stance. It humiliated me to see my country humiliated. And to see my Baghdad burned. And my people being killed. Thousands of tragic pictures remained in my head, and this weighs on me every day and pushes me toward the righteous path, the path of confrontation, the path of rejecting injustice, deceit and duplicity. It deprived me of a good night's sleep.

Dozens, no, hundreds, of images of massacres that would turn the hair of a newborn white used to bring tears to my eyes and wound me. The scandal of Abu Ghraib. The massacre of Fallujah, Najaf, Haditha, Sadr City, Basra, Diyala, Mosul, Tal Afar, and every inch of our wounded land. In the past years, I traveled through my burning land and saw with my own eyes the pain of the victims, and hear with my own ears the screams of the bereaved and the orphans. And a feeling of shame haunted me like an ugly name because I was powerless.

And as soon as I finished my professional duties in reporting the daily tragedies of the Iraqis, and while I washed away the remains of the debris of the ruined Iraqi houses, or the traces of the blood of victims that stained my clothes, I would clench my teeth and make a pledge to our victims, a pledge of vengeance.

The opportunity came, and I took it.

I took it out of loyalty to every drop of innocent blood that has been shed through the occupation or because of it, every scream of a bereaved mother, every moan of an orphan, the sorrow of a rape victim, the teardrop of an orphan.

I say to those who reproach me: Do you know how many broken homes that shoe that I threw had entered because of the occupation? How many times it had trodden over the blood of innocent victims? And how many times it had entered homes in which free Iraqi women and their sanctity had been violated? Maybe that shoe was the appropriate response when all values were violated.

When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, Bush, I wanted to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out its sons into a diaspora.
After six years of humiliation, of indignity, of killing and violations of sanctity, and desecration of houses of worship, the killer comes, boasting, bragging about victory and democracy. He came to say goodbye to his victims and wanted flowers in response.

Put simply, that was my flower to the occupier, and to all who are in league with him, whether by spreading lies or taking action, before the occupation or after.

I wanted to defend the honor of my profession and suppressed patriotism on the day the country was violated and its high honor lost. Some say: Why didn't he ask Bush an embarrassing question at the press conference, to shame him? And now I will answer you, journalists. How can I ask Bush when we were ordered to ask no questions before the press conference began, but only to cover the event. It was prohibited for any person to question Bush.
And in regard to professionalism: The professionalism mourned by some under the auspices of the occupation should not have a voice louder than the voice of patriotism. And if patriotism were to speak out, then professionalism should be allied with it.

I take this opportunity: If I have wronged journalism without intention, because of the professional embarrassment I caused the establishment, I wish to apologize to you for any embarrassment I may have caused those establishments. All that I meant to do was express with a living conscience the feelings of a citizen who sees his homeland desecrated every day.

History mentions many stories where professionalism was also compromised at the hands of American policymakers, whether in the assassination attempt against Fidel Castro by booby-trapping a TV camera that CIA agents posing as journalists from Cuban TV were carrying, or what they did in the Iraqi war by deceiving the general public about what was happening. And there are many other examples that I won't get into here.

But what I would like to call your attention to is that these suspicious agencies -- the American intelligence and its other agencies and those that follow them -- will not spare any effort to track me down (because I am) a rebel opposed to their occupation. They will try to kill me or neutralize me, and I call the attention of those who are close to me to the traps that these agencies will set up to capture or kill me in various ways, physically, socially or professionally.

And at the time that the Iraqi prime minister came out on satellite channels to say that he didn't sleep until he had checked in on my safety, and that I had found a bed and a blanket, even as he spoke I was being tortured with the most horrific methods: electric shocks, getting hit with cables, getting hit with metal rods, and all this in the backyard of the place where the press conference was held. And the conference was still going on and I could hear the voices of the people in it. And maybe they, too, could hear my screams and moans.

In the morning, I was left in the cold of winter, tied up after they soaked me in water at dawn. And I apologize for Mr. Maliki for keeping the truth from the people. I will speak later, giving names of the people who were involved in torturing me, and some of them were high-ranking officials in the government and in the army.

I didn't do this so my name would enter history or for material gains. All I wanted was to defend my country, and that is a legitimate cause confirmed by international laws and divine rights. I wanted to defend a country, an ancient civilization that has been desecrated, and I am sure that history -- especially in America -- will state how the American occupation was able to subjugate Iraq and Iraqis, until its submission.

They will boast about the deceit and the means they used in order to gain their objective. It is not strange, not much different from what happened to the Native Americans at the hands of colonialists. Here I say to them (the occupiers) and to all who follow their steps, and all those who support them and spoke up for their cause: Never.

Because we are a people who would rather die than face humiliation.
And, lastly, I say that I am independent. I am not a member of any politicalparty, something that was said during torture -- one time that I'm far-right, another that I'm a leftist. I am independent of any political party, and my future efforts will be in civil service to my people and to any who need it, without waging any political wars, as some said that I would.

My efforts will be toward providing care for widows and orphans, and all those whose lives were damaged by the occupation. I pray for mercy upon the souls of the martyrs who fell in wounded Iraq, and for shame upon those who occupied Iraq and everyone who assisted them in their abominable acts. And I pray for peace upon those who are in their graves, and those who are oppressed with the chains of imprisonment. And peace be upon you who are patient and looking to God for release.

And to my beloved country I say: If the night of injustice is prolonged, it will not stop the rising of a sun and it will be the sun of freedom.

One last word. I say to the government: It is a trust that I carry from my fellow detainees. They said, 'Muntadhar, if you get out, tell of our plight to the omnipotent powers' -- I know that only God is omnipotent and I pray to Him -- 'remind them that there are dozens, hundreds, of victims rotting in prisons because of an informant's word.'

They have been there for years, they have not been charged or tried.
They've only been snatched up from the streets and put into these prisons. And now, in front of you, and in the presence of God, I hope they can hear me or see me. I have now made good on my promise of reminding the government and the officials and the politicians to look into what's happening inside the prisons. The injustice that's caused by the delay in the judicial system.

Thank you. And may God's peace be upon you

The translation is by McClatchy’s special correspondent, Sahar Issa.