Shoe Incident Round-Up

The guy who threw 'em may represent those in the Nation of Iraq who've got something resembling a clue as to what be up there. (Obviously we can deem him such because our superior intellect enables us to know what must be known in Mesopotamia by sheer reasoning ability, based on what we glean from the liberal elite bias mainstream media.) 

Al-Zeidi's act of defiance Sunday transformed an obscure reporter from a minor TV station into a national hero to many Iraqis fed up with the nearly six-year U.S. presence here, but also fearful that their country will fall under Iran's influence once the Americans leave. [...] Bush was not hit or injured in the attack, and Iraqi security guards wrestled al-Zeidi to the ground immediately after he tossed his shoes. White House press secretary Dana Perino suffered an eye injury when she was hit in the face with a microphone during the melee.

Which leads to a bit of controversy over Secret Service action (or non-action) in the melee.

"No one should read anything more into it than what it was, which was an individual throwing a shoe," Zahren said.

We're going to read more into it right here: It was an individual, but he threw two shoes. Uh-oh. Premeditation? 

On the air, Zaidi referred to the U.S. military presence as "the occupation" and was known to call Bush "the devil." Saif al-Deen al-Kaisi, an editor at al-Baghdadia, recalled a conversation a year and half ago in which Zaidi said, "I hope to meet Bush and hit him with my shoes." [...] "The flying shoe speaks more for Arab public opinion than all the despots/puppets that Bush meets with during his travels in the Middle East," Asad Abu Khalil, a Lebanese American college professor, wrote in his blog, The Angry Arab News Service.

We like angry, so we looked at the angry Arab. This seemed interesting, until we clicked again. It's in Arabic. Now we're really angry. Is there anything else going on in this Iraq place? What could it be? Oh, they're re-constructinng something? What happened? A natural disaster? No? A pointless invasion & occupation by a "civilized" democracy? That continues until this day? How could that happen in the 21st Century? 

Nonmilitary federal staffing for the program was woefully inadequate in numbers and expertise, the report said. Oversight and central control, in Baghdad and in Washington, were deemed nearly nonexistent. Massive infrastructure projects were undertaken -- usually by private contractors with cost-plus contracts -- with little coordination or input from Iraqis and were sometimes abandoned because of bad planning or security concerns. The cost of some major projects increased by more than 50 percent as the growing insurgency prompted the hiring of security contractors to protect private reconstruction workers, the report said.

Other troubles in this area of the world? We got 'em! And if you have anything to do w/ AmeriKKKa, America, or the United Snakes, you got 'em too!! And so do your children, & their children, &tc.

That would bring the cost for both wars to between $1.3 trillion and $1.72 trillion for 2001 through 2018, and even higher when federal borrowing costs are included, CSBA said. [...]

One reason for the ballooning costs is the Bush administration's habit of funding the wars through supplemental budget requests, a practice that CSBA said has eroded congressional oversight and weakened the Pentagon's long-term planning and budgeting processes.

The Bush administration and Congress have also pursued significant tax cuts since 2001 and robust spending increases, rather than following the established approach of funding war costs by combining tax increases with curbs on domestic spending and borrowing.

Boy Howdy, if we hadn't completely embraced nihilism & didn't give a shit about ourself, let alone "others," we'd be holding our head thinking how screwed we are. But instead we laugh gleefully at the agonies of others.