Zaidi's conduct, the shoe throwing incident, causes one to wonder about his stability and/or potential attention seeking.

Considering the stack of dead bodies the US is leaving behind in Iraq, throwing a shoe at Bush is perfectly understandable. (Throwing one at Clinton & Albright would also be understandable)

Madeleine Albright on CBS news in 1996

Lesley Stahl: We have heard that half a million children have died in Iraq. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price? We think the price is worth it.

I agree with everything you say, especially with your observation that “culture is always slow to change.”

If, and that's a big IF, bringing about justice, democracy, true freedom to the Iraqis (through the power of a gun) was one of our objectives, then we failed miserably and a priori by thinking that we would change a culture (and one so intricately tied witrh religion—especially their justice system) in two years, or four years or eight years or twenty years.

Similarly with, as you so correctly point out, the re-cobbling of “the old British colonial artificial country without the sectarian hatreds, violence and oppression re-emerging, or that generations of 'control' through brutality could be replaced with ethical 'government' overnight.”

My concern is that even the little progress we may have made in these areas (with the sacrifice of over 4,000 of our brave ones) will be for nought upon our departure.

What an unforgivable loss, what a shame, what a mistake of enormous proportions.

Thank you

The UN report carries much more credibility, but, unfortunately, does not come as a surprise. Culture is always slow to change, and much of this is cultural. Iraq is a country that has not been “governed” in more than a generation; instead it has been “controlled” by brute force. That this culture of control should change merely because a democratic superpower invaded and attempted to impose western democratic principles was always wishful thinking.

It is important to remember that Iraq is, and always has been, an artificial country, cobbled together under British colonial rule without regard to the inherent hatreds, distrusts and desires to dominate and destroy one another among Sunni, Shiite and Kurd. This is why the invasion was folly from the beginning The autonomous division of Iraq prior to the invasion, with no-fly zones north and south, rendered Saddam little more than the governor of the Sunni Triangle. Bush 41 had it right to separate the country into quasi-autonomous regions.

The great mistake of US post-invasion strategy, under Bush 43, was a belief that the we could re-cobble the old British colonial artificial country without the sectarian hatreds, violence and oppression re-emerging, or that generations of “control” through brutality could be replaced with ethical “government” overnight.

Torture, lack of due process, brutality toward women. I would expect nothing less. No matter how sincerely or how hard our men and women work to produce a functioning, fair and equitable democracy, Iraq will remain an artificial country that relies on brute force to maintain whatever semblance of order it can produce.