I wonder why he never threw his shoes at Saddam!

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...a mile in the shoes of the average Iraqi citizen. Bush totally destroyed their country. Last I heard, there STILL wasn't water or electricity in parts of the country that we demolished. As bad as Saddam Hussein was, at least he kept Iran out of Iraq because they were mortal enemies.

They didn't do anything to us. Bush invented fiction about WMD and AL Qaeda and started a war based on lies. He said way back in 1999 that if he ever had the chance to invade Iraq, he would.

Where I come from, that's called "premeditation." We went in and demolished their country. Bush knew IEDs would be a threat to our troops, yet he REFUSED to supply them with vehicles that would protect our soldiers from them.

If we remained concentrated on Afghanistan, we'd have caught Osama bin Laden by now. This just begs the question of WHY bin Laden suddenly lost his "importance" to Bush and Iraq suddenly became the focus after 9/11. Perhaps bin Laden is worth more to Bush politically if he is alive.

Bush gave a presidential coin to the grieving mother of a dead soldier and told her, "Don't go sell it on eBay." http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2007/05/bush_to_mother_dont_sell_on_eb.html

Bush used Pat Tillman as a recruiting poster boy while he was alive, and after he was killed under suspicious circumstances (http://www.house.gov/list/press/ca15_honda/SEPT06CORPTILLMAN.html), Tillman's family was told that Tillman was nothing but "worm dirt" because they weren't Christian. http://crooksandliars.com/2007/04/24/pats-worm-dirt/

KBR (Cheney's Halliburton subsidiary) provided WASTEWATER for bathing and drinking, etc. to our troops for almost TWO YEARS. Does that fall under Rumsfeld's assertion that, "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want?" or does it simply display complete contempt and disrespect for our soldiers? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/10/AR2008031002487.html

There are just so many bad things and questions surrounding the war itself. When you add Bush's contempt for our troops, his cockiness and that smirk, it's a wonder that ALL he got thrown in his face was a shoe.

In fact, he was interviewed after the "shoe" attack. A portion of it is copied and pasted below. He used the same old "al Qaeda in Iraq" excuse, and when it was pointed out that al Qaeda wasn't IN Iraq until WE got there, his answer was, "So what?"

You can see the interview at http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Bush_Im_not_insulted_by_thrown_1215.html

During the interview, Bush says his legacy will "take time," but includes No Child Left Behind and "52 months of uninterrupted job growth," then speaks about his role in "protecting" America after 9/11. He mentions that al Qaeda has turned out to be a problem in Iraq.

Raddatz points out that al Qaeda didn't choose to make Iraq a base to fight from until after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Bush's response? "Yeah, that's right. So what?"

I still fear the extent of the damage this man can do before Obama is sworn in -- assuming Obama IS sworn in -- (http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Parowan_Prophet_Obama_wont_make_it_1214.html) (and if he isn't, it won't have anything to do with God; rather someone who is GodLESS; don't need to be a "prophet" to predict THAT).

That shoe was thrown at Bush because he has created such destruction, disdain distrust and disrespect in Iraq, as he has done in America, as well.

I agree with your statement; I have a son who just came back from there (he's been in the military for 19 years), and he states it is far worse than we know. He told me 'mom, I have seen a lot of things in my service to this country, but to see what I have seen there"..and he can't talk about it further because he breaks down in tears, especially when he talks about the children and friends he has lost because of this so-called war..it's heartbreaking.. He is home now, he has one more year left and after that he says he will retire. War through a soldier's eyes and heart go beyond devastation; that is why so many of our husbands, sisters, fathers and even mothers who serve our country who come back from war broken because through their eyes and hearts - they know things that they can never and will never discuss with anyone.

You don't have one iota of a clue what I've been through in my life. So, your trying to portray me as some mean spirited soul who doesn't have a clue what tough times are is very presumptious of you. I have walked some very difficult roads. I could write a book about what has happened to me that was not my fault, but I dealt with it. I received help and was grateful, and once I had a leg up I took it from there. I never once complained about what the government wasn't doing for me.

I'm not saying that the situation in Lebanon is easy or fair. However, at some point people have to take the consequences of their choices and live with them and not criticize the help they are given. If these people weren't whining while being evacuated from their country on a luxury cruisde ship with all the amenties I would have kept my mouth shut, but the audacity of people to complain about THEIR RESCUERS goes beyond being ungrateful. Now, if I was standing on a corner telling a mentally challenged homeless person to suck it up and get a job then your sermons would have been called for, but these are people who went to Lebanon with the money out of their pocket knowing full well the dangers there. I really can't believe you are comparing the dangers of Beirut, Lebanon to any American city, but then again I don't choose to walk through the worst neighbohoods in my city at night either. Anyway, there is no comparison.

I just saw a story on Headline News Network about the shoe-throwing incident, and they said the people of Iraq are divided on how they feel about it, but nobody feels it was wrong, half of them think it was the right thing to do and half think it was an embarrassment but not necessarily the wrong thing to do.

so if they feel that way, let's bring our precious sons and daughters home, and never go back. Our finances are in crisis, we can't afford to be spending billions where we're not wanted. What's the point of being there and spending all this money we could be using in much better ways. Why keep risking the lives of our troops for people who don't appreciate it at all? I'm no political genius, far from it, but plain old common sense says this is just wrong!

Six months after the gassing of Kurds in 1988, the White House lent Saddam a billion dollars. In 1991, at the end of the Gulf War, US troops stood idly by while Saddam's presidential guards ruthlessly suppressed the uprising by the Kurds that Poppy Bush encouraged and had called for. In 1980, Saddam was made an honorary citizen of Detroit, Michigan. He was our friend back then, even though we knew his blood thirsty ways. We even supplied him with WMD, which we then destroyed with fly over bombing through the 1990's with sanctions placed on the country to weaken it even more. We also were friends with Osama in the 1970's when we had him and Afghan freedom fighters fight against Russia as we did not want Russia to have control of Afghanistan. In essence, Osama was trained by our CIA for war.

We all know how terrible Saddam is. It almost hurts to write that an American president could be worse. He obviously doesn't personally care how many Americans and Iraqis he's killing over there. He doesn't care that he's created a huge deficit that didn't exist before he showed up. I thought Republicans were supposed to be in favor of no deficits and less government. He cares more about stem cells that are about to be thrown in the garbage than he does about living, breathing human Americans who are already here.

He's abrasive and arrogant, and I actually feel sorry for Tony Blair, who I think has stayed with Bush out of a sense of intense loyalty to America. Bush has put Blair's career on shaky ground.

As far as war crimes, it isn't over yet. This whole war might be deemed to be illegal. Wouldn't surprise me one bit. That is, if we all live long enough to see it and aren't killed first by terrorists as a result of his neglect in securing his own country.

Seems to me if there's a WMD anywhere, it's in Crawford, and it's George W. Bush.

Aaron Glantz, OneWorld USFri Aug 25, 8:57 AM ET

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 25 (OneWorld) - A chief prosecutor of Nazi war crimes at Nuremberg has said George W. Bush should be tried for war crimes along with Saddam Hussein. Benjamin Ferenccz, who secured convictions for 22 Nazi officers for their work in orchestrating the death squads that killed more than 1 million people, told OneWorld both Bush and Saddam should be tried for starting aggressive wars--Saddam for his 1990 attack on Kuwait and Bush for his 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Nuremberg declared that aggressive war is the supreme international crime, the 87-year-old Ferenccz told OneWorld from his home in New York. He said the United Nations charter, which was written after the carnage of World War II, contains a provision that no nation can use armed force without the permission of the UN Security Council.

Ferenccz said that after Nuremberg the international community realized that every war results in violations by both sides, meaning the primary objective should be preventing any war from occurring in the first place.

He said the atrocities of the Iraq war--from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of dozens of civilians by U.S. forces in Haditha to the high number of civilian casualties caused by insurgent car bombs--were highly predictable at the start of the war.

Which wars should be prosecuted? Every war will lead to attacks on civilians, he said. Crimes against humanity, destruction beyond the needs of military necessity, rape of civilians, plunder--that always happens in wartime. So my answer personally, after working for 60 years on this problem and [as someone] who hates to see all these young people get killed no matter what their nationality, is that you've got to stop using warfare as a means of settling your disputes.

Ferenccz believes the most important development toward that end would be the effective implementation of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is located in the Hague, Netherlands.

The court was established in 2002 and has been ratified by more than 100 countries. It is currently being used to adjudicate cases stemming from conflict in Darfur, Sudan and civil wars in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

But on May 6, 2002--less than a year before the invasion of Iraq--the Bush administration withdrew the United States' signature on the treaty and began pressuring other countries to approve bilateral agreements requiring them not to surrender U.S. nationals to the ICC.

Three months later, George W. Bush signed a new law prohibiting any U.S. cooperation with the International Criminal Court. The law went so far as to include a provision authorizing the president to use all means necessary and appropriate, including a military invasion of the Netherlands, to free U.S. personnel detained or imprisoned by the ICC.

That's too bad, according to Ferenccz. If the United States showed more of an interest in building an international justice system, they could have put Saddam Hussein on trial for his 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The United Nations authorized the first Gulf War and authorized all nations to take whatever steps necessary to keep peace in the area, he said. They could have stretched that a bit by seizing the person for causing the harm. Of course, they didn't do that and ever since then I've been bemoaning the fact that we didn't have an International Criminal Court at that time.

Ferenccz is glad that Saddam Hussein is now on trial.

Saddam Hussein. � Radio Netherlands Wereldomroep This week, the Iraqi government began to try the former dictator for crimes connected to his ethnic cleansing campaign against the Kurds. According to Human Rights Watch, which has done extensive on-the-ground documentation, Saddam's Ba'athist regime deliberately and systematically killed at least 50,000 and possibly as many as 100,000 Kurds over a six-month period in 1988.

Kurdish authorities put the number even higher, saying 182,000 Kurdish civilians were killed in a matter of months.

Everyone agrees innumerable villages were bombed and some were gassed. The surviving residents were rounded up, taken to detention centers, and eventually executed at remote sites, sometimes by being stripped and shot in the back so they would fall naked into trenches.

In his defense, Saddam Hussein has disputed the extent of the killings and maintained they were justified because he was fighting a counter-insurgency operation against Kurdish separatists allied with Iran. When asked to enter a plea, the former president said that would require volumes of books.

Ferenccz said whatever Saddam's reasons, nothing can justify the mass killing of innocents.

The offenses attributable to ex-President Hussein since he came to power range from the supreme international crime of aggression to a wide variety of crimes against humanity, he wrote after Saddam was ousted in 2003. A fair trial will achieve many goals. The victims would find some satisfaction in knowing that their victimizer was called to account and could no longer be immune from punishment for his evil deeds. Wounds can begin to heal. The historical facts can be confirmed beyond doubt. Similar crimes by other dictators might be discouraged or deterred in future. The process of justice through law, on which the safety of humankind depends, would be reinforced.

In addition, how many people DIE of starvation every single day in Africa (mostly children)? We don't even have to invade a country to save them.

Below is a report on Abu Ghraib prison. Some Iraquis might not agree with how much more moral the Americans are:

"[B]etween October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility (BCCF), numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force. � The allegations of abuse were substantiated by detailed witness statements (ANNEX 26) and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence. � I find that the intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts:

c. Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing;

d. Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time;

f. Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;

h. Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture; �

j. Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee's neck and having a female soldier pose for a picture;

l. Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee �

These findings are amply supported by written confessions provided by several of the suspects, written statements provided by detainees, and witness statements. �

In addition, several detainees also described the following acts of abuse, which under the circumstances, I find credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses (ANNEX 26):

�Executive summary of Taguba report, finalized Feb. 29, 2004, briefed to superiors on March 3, 2004, and submitted in final form on March 9, 2004

Rumsfeld is full of history (among other substances), but he neglected to share this piece of history with the American majority he criticized.