Talk:Muntadhar al-Zaidi/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Iraqi torture victims

Based on recent reports, I've added Category:Iraqi torture victims. If anyone feels strongly that this category is not appropriate, please remove it. Viriditas (talk) 03:23, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I've also removed Category:Victims of human rights abuses, as the torture victims category is a subset. If anyone feels one or the other, or both categories should apply, please revert my changes. Viriditas (talk) 03:26, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

2007 kidnapping

I just thought it was of note that the State Department noted al-Zaidi's 2007 disappearance: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/95643.pdf. It says

Reporter Kidnapped in Baghdad: •Muntadhar al-Zaidi, a reporter with the Iraqi satellite TV channel al-Baghdadiyah, was kidnapped November 16. Al-Zaidi disappeared on his way to work in central Baghdad.

Not sure if this could add much to the article, but it might be another source to include.--75.2.37.86 (talk) 04:13, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Next move

Hm. Maliki's bodyguards tried to physically coerce al-Zaidi in to saying he was manipulated in to the attack, and then Maliki makes the same claim without providing any evidence. Curious.

The government of Maliki seems to have three options: pressure al-Baghdadia and al-Zaidi further, pressure the judiciary or others for a release, or do nothing. The last seems to be ignoring an elephant, and while the first seems in the government's nature, it also seems highly counterproductive..--75.2.37.86 (talk) 05:37, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

POV issues

Lots if problems with the current version. For example, in the biography section, an op/ed/blog commentary is sourced to The Guardian making it look like a news piece. This kind of thing can be found throughout the article. For example:

According to The Guardian al-Zaidi "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".[1]

Please do not keep adding op/ed pieces as sources. I've added the POV tag until this is resolved. I think there is some good information here, and I would like to use it, but this needs to be done in accordance with NPOV and RS. Viriditas (talk) 08:04, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I think everyone would like to improve the sourcing of the article. Could we tag the individual source(s) so that it is easier to identify and improve? In this individual case, I think it might be better to just remove the source since there are three other paragraphs which cover much of the same material.--75.2.37.86 (talk) 08:20, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

One thing you can do to speed the process up is to help flesh out the reference fields. Always add the authors name, and if possible, the work, such as the section the news article appears in, in this case, Comment_is_free. This will flag the reference for further action. I would prefer to just leave the article tagged for right now, to let other editors know we are aware of the problem and are working to resolve it. Viriditas (talk) 08:24, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I tagged one other as well. I think the "Verify credibility" tag is good for this.--75.2.37.86 (talk) 08:30, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps in some situations, sure, but when a paragraph is attributed to the Guardian, we would expect it to be a news source, however, when it turns out to be an opinion piece, there's a bit of POV going on here, as the opinion belongs to an unnamed author. So, there's a POV issue, not a credibility problem. See WP:ASF for further explanation. Viriditas (talk) 08:34, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I wish you had not changed the tag. It's best to help solve the problem under discussion, rather than changing tags. There are POV issues throughout the article, and keeping the article tagged until these are solved is the best approach. Viriditas (talk) 08:36, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

It's also best for editors who feel their material is being questioned to not try changing the dispute tags. Viriditas (talk) 08:42, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

First step to address the problem under discussion is to attribute opinions directly to authors. For example, this should be done with the IslamOnline source (I think it already is but the wording could possibly be improved with paraphrasing) and with the Guardian (Comment is free). After opinions are attributed, the discussion moves to the next stage. Viriditas (talk) 08:46, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I didn't add the Guardian material so I have no emotional stake in whether it stays in the article or not, and I'm having trouble seeing what more could be done to attribute the IslamOnline material. I agree with what you are saying, and I think everyone wants a better article. I've tried adding more attribution and I hope this helps.

I think if you provide an example of what this would look like remedied, similar improvements could probably be made throughout the article. For example, adding author information to the articles is on my to-do list when I have time. On the other hand, if you could add {{Verify credibiliy}} to op-eds, and {{Verify source}} to things which aren't supported this would help.--75.2.37.86 (talk) 17:29, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

i'm not the person who added the section either. On the other hand, Sami Ramadani has a red entry on the List of British Iraqis, which means that people working on that page consider him notable enough that he should have a wikipedia entry. Given that he's apparently one of the 6 most notable "British Iraqi" academics compared to 20-30 artists, politicians, businesspeople and sports stars, IMHO it seems realistic. As someone of Iraqi background/identity, chances are he has more direct knowledge of al-Zaidi's journalistic work than many other Western sources, e.g. people who had never heard of him until a week ago. The present version seems to make it clear that it's a quote by Ramadani, so as a reliable source for his opinion/judgment, i'm not sure i see the problem. There is a problem with quotation marks, which i'll fix up in a moment if noone else does. Boud (talk) 20:51, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Regarding POV in general, i also agree/think that it would be best to have individual {{verify credibility}} etc labels on the individual suspected references. It would motivate more people to do individual bits of the work... Boud (talk) 20:51, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Missing topics

1. Sock and Awe: popular internet game based on the incident
2. Shoe intifada: one of the names for the incident and the reaction in Iraq

Viriditas (talk) 11:38, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

• You should include properly formated references. Geo8rge (talk) 20:30, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposed Humor addition to the responses section

The shoe throwing incident resulted in a barage of editorial cartoons and online games such as Sock and Awe (from the US military term Shock and Awe), . Many stories refering to Mr. al-Zaidi attempted humorous shoe references such as labeling him the The Clogger (from the shoe known as a clog), The Shoe-ter, or other more indirect references to the incident like The Thud Heard Round the World (from the Shot Heard Round the World). Please use my wording of just my referencesGeo8rge (talk) 20:28, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

This could go with the flash games and late night jokes. I just haven't been willing to have too much humor until there is a conclusion with his case, but others can add as they want.--75.2.37.86 (talk) 01:18, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Tehran Times / systemic bias

In this edit, Viriditas started to remove a reference to a Tehran Times article and gave the edit summary Remove "Tehran Times". This may one day be considered a reliable source, when the people of Iran are free and democratic, but today is not the day. There are several problems with this.

1. "Free and democratic" is not the same thing as "reliable" or "lack of bias". Please read about Herman and Chomsky's empirical propaganda model, which has measured the degree of bias in US newspapers and shown that it is consistent with the predictions of their five filter model. This is strong empirical evidence to reject about 95%(?) or so of the references presently used in many wikipedia articles, such as those to the New York Times, Associated Press, Washington Post, Agence France Presse, etc. if we really wanted to stick to extremely high standards. TV sources of news are much worse based on the same model: they have to make a much stronger selection of a tiny amount of information from all that is available.
2. Please read Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias about the systemic bias present in the English language wikipedia. If "average" en.wikipedians choose to ignore newspapers in non-majority-Christian, not-so-rich ("not-so-developed") countries based on our assessment of the degree of political freedoms there, then we are reinforcing the expected bias instead of trying to overcome it.
3. Suggesting that Iran is less democratic than the USA(?) at a national level is rather arguable. Neither Khatami nor Ahmadinejad were the favoured candidates of the dominant political elite in Iran, but they were elected with mass popular support. In the USA, it is presently impossible in practice to elect a (national) president who is not strongly sponsored by the military-industrial-congressional complex. The present president signed about 130 signing statements which "challenge" the contents of about 1100 different statutes - essentially saying that the president can do whatever he likes independently of those statutes. Isn't that pretty close to the definition of an "elected dictator"? In some ways, there is more freedom and democracy in the USA than Iran, but not in all ways.
4. If your point is about independence from the government, then see above. The BBC is in many ways a governmental mouthpiece, as much as US newspapers are governmental mouthpieces for the US government/corporate complex. See above for the references or look around yourself for objective analyses. Self-claimed announcements that "the press is free" by the press itself and "vigorous" debate between two minor variations of support for certain sociopolitical options are not evidence of press freedom.
5. A newspaper closely linked to the State is IMHO a reasonable source for announcements by the State. This Tehran Times article is used to quote what a Deputy Minister says about al-Zaidi. It's not intended as a factual statement about whether or not that ministry is respecting international human rights standards.
6. It would actually be an interesting (but huge) project to add "independent assessments of known biases" on each of the wikipedia entries for all Western and non-Western news sources. Probably at the moment this sort of info is hard to find - it's partly a circular problem. Big research institutions don't want to invest funding in independent research which can show that mainstream newspapers are much less independent than they are thought to be, since the research institutions are also linked into the system and require funding. However, some info is available. Info on which Iranian newspapers are more independent and which are less independent would be useful, if it came from reasonably reliable, third-party sources. The same would be useful on pages like CNN, BBC, New York Times etc, but i admit being cynical and expecting lots of resistance to documenting their known biases on their wikipedia entries, even though i haven't actually checked this (yet).

Boud (talk) 20:18, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Boud, thanks for your edits. I want to tell you how much I appreciate the time you spend on this article. Frankly, I don't know what we would do without you. I will be the first to admit that my edit summary was confusing, and as it was very late here when I wrote it, I was being deliberately playful due to the absurdity of the source. If you checked it out you would discover it doesn't meet the criteria for inclusion, and when I referred to "free and democratic", I was referring to the Iranian press, although I didn't make that clear. So, I apologize, as my edit summary didn't help. In any case, we don't need the Tehran Times article for any reason that I can think of, and we can easily replace it with a better source, as the policy encourages us to do. Viriditas (talk) 06:48, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

hi Viriditas. Thanks for the compliments. :) i'm not sure what you mean by the absurdity of "the source" - do you mean Tehran Times as a newspaper or rather the content of this particular article? i know very little about the Iranian press. Tehran Times doesn't have much info. Category:Iranian media and Category:Newspapers_published_in_Iran could help develop en.wikipedia knowledge of the reliability of individual Iranian newspapers/media. But lack of info on a major newspaper from a country of 70 million people is not an argument for judging it to be unreliable. i haven't really seen many discussions on trying to categorise individual news sources as unreliable, but i would imagine that tabloids in rich English-speaking countries can generally be identified reasonably uncontroversially and considered unreliable for serious subjects. As for the article itself, it seems to me quite credible that the deputy Minister of Culture etc. released a press statement something like that quoted.

Maybe what you're saying is that it's unreasonable to summarise the content based on the actual title of the article? In other words, saying that "Iran" called for al-Zaidi's release is in the title, but not really supported by the text. On re-reading this carefully, i just realised that the deputy Minister of Culture et al. didn't even call directly for al-Zaidi's release, according to the text. He only called for "journalists' associations and international media outlets" to campaign to liberate al-Zaidi. Reading between the lines, that suggests that it might not be so easy for a deputy Culture Minister to convince the president and the head-of-state that they should call for this directly or else ask the Foreign Minister to do this. Given that they probably have mixed feelings about it (they're happy for shoe-throwing at Bush, but they're scared stiff that throwing shoes at unpopular elected political leaders might start to become fashionable), it probably wouldn't be that easy to convince them. In any case, the article is titled somewhat inaccurately, but the Tehran Times is probably not the only journal to do that. More accurate might be "a deputer minister of culture etc. with the editorial support of the Tehran Times called for...".

i have no idea how close the Tehran Times is to the government, but even supposing it's run from Khamenei's office, here's a quote from WP:CSB#Why_it_matters_and_what_to_do: [In order to try countering systemic bias, ...] Don't overlook the official news outlets of a country. Certainly they will be more one sided than wikipedians may like, but they may provide a different way of thinking about an article. They may also be useful as a source of information about why the government of that particular country has its opinion on a subject and why it acts the way it does. The readers of Wikipedia could benefit from this, regardless of whether they agree with that view or not (if they don't, they may use it to find errors in its logic or thinking). For example, official news outlets may be useful indicators of how Mainland China thinks about Tibet or Taiwan. And official news outlets of the PRC are certainly neither free nor democratic. IMHO that would be reasonably NPOV, since i'm sure every they don't claim it about themselves. :) Boud (talk) 20:39, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

The reporting was carried in other parts of the Iranian press as well, and it seemed to be noted as the official policy of Iran.

• "Hossein Noushabadi, the foreign minister’s advisor on Asian affairs, told Fars News Agency that if the Iraqi occupiers claim to want to establish democracy in the country they must interpret the action of the journalist a consequence of “democracy” ... He reiterated that Tehran’s stance on the journalist is his immediate release from custody"[2]
• ""The shoe Intifadha in Iraq should not be overlooked easily. Well done to Iraqi journalist for throwing the shoes at the US President. His shoes should be kept in Iraq's political museum. The pair of shoes are more valuable than crowns, medals and signs," Ayatollah Jannati told large groups of Tehrani Friday prayers worshipers on Tehran University campus."-Friday Prayers Leader Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati[3]

This being said, I just think this is useful information to include and I don't feel the article would be lacking if it weren't mentioned. I think the attribution as it stands is fine, or would be okay if other editors feel strongly about removing it. I'm trying to more clearly attribute so that this won't be an issue in the future.--75.2.37.86 (talk) 21:42, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Removed quotes

"The famous shoes should be exhibited in a museum, as they resembled a rocket that talks on behalf of all Iraqis," a user named Zahraa wrote on another website.

I removed this because it isn't encyclopedic and wasn't supported by the source that appeared. It was added back in with the correct source, but I still don't think it belongs. I think it is encyclopedic to discuss the response on the internet in general terms, but quoting a non-notable person isn't necessary. Viriditas (talk) 06:52, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

The idea was that many Arabs feel they are a national treasure which belong in a museum. There were similar ideas expressed:

• "Hussein al-Bassoumi .. urged the Arab masses to name streets and public squares after the journalist. He also urged the Iraqis to place the shoes that were used in the attacks in a museum in Baghdad."[4]
• "A Saudi reportedly offered $10 million for just one of the shoes, and an Iranian cleric suggested they belong in a museum"[5]
• "A Saudi businessman has offered 10 million dollars to buy the pair of shoes the Iraqi journalist threw. They would be displayed in a so-called 'museum for liberty'".[6]

It seemed like a popular enough sentiment in the Arab world, so we could also attribute it to the Saudi businessman or the Iranian cleric if you think this would be more appropriate.--75.2.37.86 (talk) 11:22, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

For the purposes of the encyclopedia, just summarize the popular sentiment in the best way you can, highlighting the most important points (as you describe above), staying true to the sources, but avoiding quoting non-notable people or strangers. Then, add it back in. Viriditas (talk) 11:47, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

I just tend to try to stick with quotes since no one can argue about what was being meant or said, but I understand your point about using non-notable individuals.--75.2.37.86 (talk) 17:02, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

That's not a bad idea for a first draft, but many of the quotes you are using can be paraphrased, condensed, and merged into prose. Right now, there are too many quotes in this biographical article. FYI... it might help to review MOS:BIO, and look at how articles are written here and here to get a feel for the standard style. Viriditas (talk) 12:13, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Opinion poll removed

Muntadhar al-Zaidi deserves a medal for his actions, according to the overwhelming majority of respondents to the latest spot. Just over 43 percent of respondents agreed Muntazer al-Zaidi should be given "a medal. A further 17.5 percent of respondents agreed Zaidi should be released immediately and no further action taken. Just over 20 percent of respondents to the poll agreed Zaidi should be released from detention, but fired from his job, while 18.5 percent thought he should be jailed.[7]

This opinion poll lacks information on methodology and does not seem notable. I've removed it to the talk page for discussion. Viriditas (talk) 11:47, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

A spot poll lacks any scientific methodology, and in this case a third-party source isn't even picking up the poll, so I would agree this doesn't have any place in the article.--76.251.244.66 (talk) 21:44, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

The New York Times

Hello. To the anon IP who keeps adding "New York Times" to the refs, the correct title is The New York Times. Also, the work, "Middle East" is a subsection of "World", so it should read Middle East not World. Viriditas (talk) 11:53, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Al-Zaidi's quotes on Caption of picture - irrelevant

Al-Zaidi's (undoubtedly important) remarks and swears at President Bush already appear below the image at the opening of the 'shoe incident' section. Unless anyone gives a good reason why his remarks and swears should be highlighted twice (and a caption the size of the picture itself) , I recommend for it to be removed.--Bob1969 (talk) 17:57, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I condensed the caption as you were recommending.. --76.251.244.66 (talk) 21:42, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Threaded discussions from user talk

Mr. al-Zaidi gained fame when he threw his shoes at President George W. Bush during a press conference in Baghdad, Iraq.

Not true. Did you bother to do any research before you wrote this article or did you just wing it? This is an encyclopedia, you know. Zaidi gained international fame when he was kidnapped in Iraq in November 2007.[8][9] Please fix your errors. Viriditas (talk) 07:54, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Pretty aggressive and arrogant, aren't you? Since this is an open encyclopedia, feel free to make any necessary corrections yourself and spare me your cheap lectures dude. Your comment about the cause of Zaidi's fame is totally subjective: Throwing a shoe on a sitting U.S. president makes the attacker famous; kidnapping an obscure Iraqi reporter with al-Baghdadiyah in Iraq does not make the victim famous -- something I have known prior to creating the article. Now that this guy has thrown his shoes on President Bush, his name is known in every household in the Middle East, where many are hailing him as hero. His action has generated tons of comments on the Internet. He made it to the front cover of numerous newspapers, magazines, and websites, including CNN. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fastabbas (talk • contribs) 09:39, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Wrong. Mr. al-Zaidi's kidnapping was covered by Reuters when he was kidnapped on Friday, November 16, 2007, as his ordeal was newsworthy due to the plight of journalists in Iraq. He did not game fame when he threw his shoes at the President as you claim. Since you cannot be bothered to fix your own errors, I suggest that you should not be editing here. Viriditas (talk) 10:28, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Your suggestions are meaningless, as this is a public place not owned by you or your father. However, it does seem obvious that you are so full of repressed anger, which you attempt to vent out here. You are only exposing your frustrations while belittling yourself. Know this: A man is hidden under the movements of his tongue and beneath your tongue, as is expressed in your passive aggressive writings, is only such a small person. Keep your sense of shame for yourself. Fastabbas (talk)

Learn to separate your own thoughts from those of others. The only anger on this page has been expressed by you. Those are your thoughts that I have linked, not mine. The more you write, the more you reveal about yourself. You're not here to write encyclopedia articles. You're here to push an agenda. In case anyone has any doubt of that fact, here's the evidence. Viriditas (talk) 12:59, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Great, so now you have made it clear and explicit that your issue is not about a simple new article on a reporter named Muntazer al-Zaidi but instead is about myself, for you are tracking and investigating my contributions and you evidently do not like them. You in fact present them as "evidence!" Wow, it seems that you have assigned yourself as a judge and my contributions are a crime. Are you a Nazi, boy? What is the agenda in al-Zaidi article? It is a statement of facts picked up from news reports. Where is the anger in that dude? But perhaps my former contributions have upset you. Can you be specific about my "agenda," which has offended you? Perhaps you don't appreciate my opposition to terror entities such as 'Hezbollah' and the Velayat-e Faqih Regime of Iran?! Fastabbas (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 13:24, 15 December 2008 (UTC).

I've already been specific, several times. Why haven't you added the kidnapping to the article? Did you create this article? Are you still working on this article? I made the request on your talk page. You refused. I moved the request here. Again, you refused. Any particular reason for your refusal, or have you given up working on this article? If that's the case, then I will accept your departure and look foward to working with other editors who actually care about improving it. Viriditas (talk) 13:27, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

And, why haven't you added information about his background, about his family that was arrested by Saddam Hussein, his graduation from Baghdad University, his two prior arrests by U.S. forces, etc? Or are you only interested in shoes? Viriditas (talk) 13:53, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Dude, everyone contributes as they can, If you find errors or omissions then either correct them yourself or ask others to do so instead of mounting idiotic attacks against the author.Enemyunknown (talk) 12:46, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Being a victim of a crime is usually not notable in and of itself. In this case, Muntazer is in the news because he threw a shoe, not because he was kidnapped, and as WP:ONEEVENT says, "Cover the event, not the person". But let's hang on a few days and see how this pans out. Jpatokal (talk) 11:47, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

See below. He was notable before the shoes were thrown, and his kidnapping in 2007 has served to raise attention to the plight of journalists in Iraq, more than 100 of whom have been killed in the recent conflict. This story has legs, and the incident has become a cause célèbre in Iraq. Viriditas (talk) 11:54, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

This fellow's symbolic action against the head of an invading and occupying military force is noteworthy. The fact that he wasn't killed immediately is probably noteworthy, too. That the Secret Service hadn't anticipated this type of incident (didn't just about everyone else in the whole world see the Iraqis beating the fallen Saddam statue with their shoes?) and are completely STUCK in their airport/metal detector constructs is noteworthy as well. This story (of Iraqi hatred for the occupying military) has been out there for a very long time--there are many, many Iraqis (who we don't hear about from the GOP press) who want us out now and NEVER wanted our "help." Homebuilding 70.130.40.54 (talk) 03:55, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Syria and the Incident

It is very important to note that in Syria, where al-Zaidi was celebrated as a hero, the regime is an authoritarian military dictatorship. Throwing a shoe on president Bashar al-Assad and calling him a dog is something unimaginable there. Fastabbas (talk) 22:21, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

the fact that the regime is an authoritarian military dictatorship is not relevant —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.81.127.38 (talk) 22:47, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Fastabbas: i can understand that the possible precedent of "throwing shoes at a national president being considered as a legitimate political action" would be dangerous to the leadership of any authoritarian military dictatorship. However, i'm sure that most leaders of relatively democratic countries would also not like this to become a precedent - in those countries where citizens or non-citizens (or members of the country occupied by the president's military forces) would become angry enough to do this.

If you want to include something like this in the article, i'm afraid you're going to have to find an external reliable source. In principle you might want to consider citing something from another language, e.g. Arabic, if there's no good source in English and if you yourself understand that language and use a reasonably structured reference (see above), since this makes it easier for other bilingual Arabic-English people to double check your citation. In fact, it would be good to invite bilingual people working on the Arabic version of this article to add stuff to the English page that is mising from it and not available from English sources. They could come over to the talk page and help explain for monolingualists who are worried about the quotes.

Another point is that what could be notable would be something like "the fact that Zaidi's action was popular in Syria, despite the authoritarian nature of the governmental system, was stated to be surprising by the editors of the newspaper al-Whatever"(reference), where al-Whatever is a reasonably well recognised newspaper. Boud (talk) 23:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

U.S.-Iraq_Status_of_Forces_Agreement#December_14th_Press_Conference_Incident mentions Syria, but I don't know if the sources used there will help this article. It might. Viriditas (talk) 23:48, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

A few other sources were recently added there as well.--70.224.16.81 (talk) 00:35, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, for the sake of discussion only, those who are hailing al-Zaidi as a hero do not yet realize that he was able to put his act only because his country is now relatively more democratic than other Middle Eastern countries. If someone throws his shoes on President Bush, they surely expect to live -- they won't be summarily executed or beaten to death on the spot. However, should an Iranian throw his shoes on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or his boss, Ali Khamenei, they would not expect to survive the incident. The al-Zaidi "operation" was a one-way street. And I expect that it will set a precedent in the West, where we might start seeing the shoes of copycats flying around, but not in the Middle East. Anyway, if al-Zaidi incident has proven anything, it is that Iraq today is not the same as Iraq under Saddam: The concept of freedom of expression has been successfully introduced to Iraq and demonstrated to the whole world in deeds and words in the presence of a U.S. president. Fastabbas (talk) 16:21, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

So what you're saying is that we should be proud that he was only beaten? And that the man who joked about having no idea of what he said is a hero? What of "the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq" that won't get to be beaten in their new found freedom?--70.224.16.81 (talk) 16:23, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Surely there is a good joke to tell about them as well.--70.224.16.81 (talk) 16:36, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

That he was beaten and injured is another story -- it is beyond the point I am trying to make. Anyway, it appears he was not harmed by President Bush's bodyguard but rather by offended Iraqi security personnel. Indeed, the Secret Service had apparently intervened to stop the Iraqis from continuing to injure al-Zaidi. Having said that, imagine if the flying business shoes did indeed hit the head of President Bush, this would have certainly badly injured him and perhaps sent him to a hospital. As he is the president and representative of my country, it is not something acceptable to me and most Americans. Besides, Mr. al-Zaidi has broken two major rules here: 1) Arab hospitality; and 2) Breach of Contract: The agreement to enter the conference room to be a reporter -- not a violent protester. Fastabbas (talk) 16:44, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

So you are more troubled by a shoe almost hitting your commander in chief than you are troubled by the manhandling of a journalist or the slaughtering of innocent civilians?

You fail to see the rules broken by the American and Iraqi governments. What of the lack of "Arab" hospitality shown to the journalist? Where is the President's hospitality to "the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq"? He couldn't even tell a joke about them.--70.224.16.81 (talk) 16:51, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

The United States of America does not have a policy of slaughtering innocent civilians. On the other hand, Saddam Hussein did have such policy, which he exercised against his people throughout his country. Where Iraq is today is a function of not only America but Ayatollah Khomeini and Saddam Hussein as well. One could argue that had Khomeini not initiated his revolution and established his Velayat-e Faqih regime, the Middle East would have been more peaceful. The suffering of the widows and orphans is a sin attached to the necks of Khomeini and Saddam more than anybody else. Fastabbas (talk) 17:13, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

The United States had a policy of supporting Saddam Hussein and supporting the autocratic and murderous Shah of Iran. The decision to invade Iraq was actually launched by the United States if you would read your history book. The war has killed atleast 90,000 civilians and upwards of a million Iraqis (many more than were killed under Saddam). It left 4.5 million Iraqis internally and externally displaced. Many more Iraqis are without access to basic necessities such as electricity and water, and a majority of them approve of attacks on U.S. troops.

The only positive thing about the United States you have pointed out is that people are allowed to express the view that they are more troubled by a shoe almost hitting their commander in chief than they are troubled by the manhandling of a journalist or the slaughtering of innocent civilians. What a right it is! Is that the joke? I think I got it.--70.224.16.81 (talk) 17:20, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

What does Syria have to do with this shoe-throwing guy? 70.227.30.19 (talk) 23:53, 28 December 2008 (UTC)