Shoe-Attack

A lot has gone wrong in Iraq in the past 6 years.

An American president possibly defined by his lack of curiosity, likely overwhelmed by a mentor and a mentor's mentor (Cheney and Rumsfeld), rushed a 9/11-scarred nation to invading this sovereign nation over flimsy UN resolutions and shameful lies. What a shameful scar on the history of America and what a horrible tragedy for the people of Iraq and humanity! Some experts estimate nearly 1 million Iraqi civilians may have been killed. That's the count of innocent Iraqis, not soldiers, not militia folks, just your average men, women and children.

An uninstigated ought to be sufficient reason for Americans to be ashamed of what their country was doing...but for the thick-skinned, God sent images of Abu Ghraib and reports of rapes by American soldiers. We have yet to figure out how we ensure something like this never happens again.

All of this is so jarring that I shouldn't be able to see any humor in anything associated with Iraq.

Yet, yesterday's shoe-attack on President Bush made me laugh and cry, both simultaneously.

Many things went through my mind all at once:

1. For all that Iraq endured, and I can't even begin to appreciate it, at least the country has gotten to the point where you can hurl your shoes at a VVIP and not immediately face a firing squad. That seems like progress.
2. Then again, maybe he will rot in a dungeon somewhere? So there may not have been much progress after all?
3. You can always count on Muslims doing the most high-risk and stupid thing when charged with emotions. For some reason, we lack the ability to carefully lay out constructive plans with long-term strategies and remain steady on them. I suspect we have the steady-types, it's just that the shoe-attackers and suicide bombers keep making headlines?
4. Does this mean all future presidential press events will require journalists to leave their shoes behind?
5. That was one fast shoe-pitch, if I ever saw one...I mean he didn't merely toss his shoes, he surely meant to hit W!
6. That was some fast ducking and evading by Bush. Then again, as this lady on TV said, he's been practicing evasion and ducking through much of his presidency!
7. On a serious note, there is something wrong about attacking any political leader or head of state like the journalist did. An act like this is all despots need to usurp more freedoms of press. The journalist got to get his frustration out of his system but the cause to which he claims allegiance was not advanced, I would argue it suffered.