The Journalist Who Lifted Iraq’s New Years Spirits: Iraqi News Agency

While it’s true that some Iraqi journalists took umbrage at the behavior of their colleague, who recently threw his shoes at the president of the United States [Shoe Attack a Throwback to the Era of Saddam Hussein], it’s clear that most Iraqis – including reporters – thought his act of defiance was quite a grand gesture.

The pride of fellow Iraqi reporter Talat Shannaa, which he reveals in this op-ed from the Iraqi News Agency – shows that his journalistic sensibilities were hardly disturbed by the event.

Shannaa writes in part:

Our colleague Muntadhar al-Zaidi wanted to lift our end of the year spirits – and he confirmed to the president of the most powerful country in the world that Iraq possesses ’shoes’ of mass destruction. … Muntadhar is a hero by any standard. On a personal and professional level, I felt great joy. In my book, anyone who can humiliate “criminal Bush” is a colleague, journalist and professional in good standing. I feel like ‘a bald woman who finds personal pride because of the hair of her cousin.’”

By Talat Shannaa

Translated By Nicolas Dagher

December 19, 2008

Iraq – Iraqi News Agency – Original Article (Arabic)

If any President other than George Bush was the target of a shoe attack, he might have vanished from public view until the end of his mandate (and a cursed mandate it was, full of blood, death and slaughter). I say this because Bush isn’t much liked by the majority of Americans, either, many of whom I have met under a variety of circumstances, and he surely attracts the hatred of all the world’s noble Arabs and Muslims – except for his “clique” of mercenaries and followers of petty interests.

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