Category Archives: War

Update III: Take This, Mr. President, For Ramos And Compean

Bush, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, IMMIGRATION, Iraq, Justice, Law, Middle East, War

The excerpt is from my new WND column, “Take This, Mr. President, For Ramos And Compean“:

“Their names are nowhere on the list of pardons and commutations George W. Bush has issued before saying adieu. They are the brave Border-Patrol agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean.” …

“There was no justice, poetic or other, in the convictions of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean.”

“Had Ramos and Compean been shooting up Iraqis while defending that occupied country’s borders, Bush would be pinning purple hearts to their lapels.”

“As luck would have it, a brave Baghdadi journalist stood up to the bully. In what will go down as the high-water mark of his career, journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi lobbed a loafer at Bush for invading his country, during the president’s last official trip to that country.”

Iraqis, tens of thousands of whom were killed and millions displaced, have every reason to throw boots, baklava and even bombs at Bush. But they’ve come a long way. Shoe tossing is much better than bomb throwing.

“Speaking of significant progress, the Muslim world responded to the melee in a thoroughly American way. The man—Muntadhar—and the moment became iconic, immortalized on YouTube, and replayed over and over again around the world.”

“Even better: the shoe became a best-selling brand. …”

Read the complete column, “Take This, Mr. President, For Ramos And Compean,” on WND.

Update II (Jan. 2): “withered little cretin” aka George (Bush), according to W. Grigg. That’s about right.

Update III (Jan. 3): “The trial of the Iraqi man who threw his shoes at US President George W Bush earlier this month has been postponed. … A spokesman for Iraq’s Central Criminal Court said the decision to postpone the trial was made following an appeal by Mr Zaidi’s lawyers. A new trial date would be set later, Abdel Sattar Beyraqdar told the AFP news agency. The lesser charge would incur a maximum sentence of two years.”

Bush Shoed In Baghdad

Bush, Democrats, Iraq, Just War, War

As CNN reports, Bush traveled to Iraq

To celebrate the conclusion of the security pact, called the Strategic Framework Agreement and the Status of Forces Agreement, the White House said.
The pact will replace a U.N. mandate for the U.S. presence in Iraq that expires at the end of this year. The agreement, reached after months of negotiations, sets June 30, 2009, as the deadline for U.S. combat troops to withdraw from all Iraqi cities and towns. The date for all U.S. troops to leave Iraq is December 31, 2011.

During a news conference, “an angry Iraqi man jumped up and threw shoes at Bush… President Bush … ducked … as Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki tries to protect him Sunday. …Throwing shoes at someone, or sitting so that the bottom of a shoe faces another person, is considered an insult among Muslims.”

If only Muslims confined themselves to shoe tossing. It’s far preferable to bomb throwing.

“The man was dragged out screaming after throwing the shoes.”

Of course, Iraqis, of whom millions have been displaced and tens of thousands killed due to Bush’s war, have every reason in the world to throw boots, baklava, or even bombs at Bush.

Bush responded fast and well: He joked about the incident and asserted that protest was the hallmark of a free society, blah, blah.

As I have observed before, “the Bush administration might just have taken the wind out of the war as an issue for Barack Obama. As it is, Obama had grown weaker on that front, his position increasingly converging with McCain’s. But if Bush finalizes the withdrawal, he will have taken the issue and the decision away from Obama. Strategically, it’s a smart move.”

As for the shoeing Iraqi, I’ve said it again and again: impeachment and war-crimes prosecutions is what this administration deserves for launching an unjust war, an obligation the opportunistic Democrats would never fulfill.

How Did The US Become ‘A Proto-Soviet Surveillance State?’

America, Communism, Socialism, The Military, The State, War

Fred Reed demands to know “What Have the Bastards Done to My Country?”:

“This is the country that produced Peggy Lee and Tampa Red and the ‘fitty-sedden Chevy, the country that spits techno-whizz golf carts onto Mars just like it was even possible, that brought the hamburger to gorgeous bejuiced perfection and invented most of the modern world. It’s the home of sand-lot baseball and Little Peggy March and BB guns and Tasty Freeze. It is, in a phrase, one fine place.”

“How did it sink to being a proto-Soviet surveillance state that builds vast awful Visitor Centers in the style of a Hitlerian mauseoleum [sic]? You can’t go to the john without a photo ID anymore. Something ain’t right.”

Reeds’ “Thoughts in an Insurrectionist Vein” are “here.