There are a couple threads about this now.

As I said in another thread I do not find this funny. What if a Bush supporter threw a shoe at Obama?

If it had just been mere words, I could have accepted it.

BUT what people dont understand is that that reporter may be charged with a Blasphemy Law. It is illegal under their current law to insult "HE DIDNT EVEN HAVE TO THROW THE SHOE TO GET ARRESTED" it is illegal to insult the guest of the state in Iraq.

I can't tell you how many threads here where people have Blasphemed the Pope, but if he were at a press conference here, should we be throwing shoes at him?

If Obama asked Hitchens to speak at a press conference, should Christians be throwing shoes at Hitchens?

This guy should be charged, not with Blasphemy, but with attempted assault, something we should all be charged with if we attempt to harm someone. It is one thing to bitch, it is another to harm someone.

Should Christians knock your teeth out because you dont buy their myth? Where does it stop then? We both beat the shit out of each other because it feels good?

I am not defending their claims, I am saying that violence leads to more violence and the more mature thing to do is leave it at words. There is always someone who wants you dead for what you say. If we all act out on our emotions we'd all kill someone, then they in turn would want to kill us, once it gets to that point, where does it stop?

Isn't that the same immature fighting that has gone on for 1,700 years or so between Muslims and Jews? Do we want to become what we say we hate?

"not buying" an ideology doesn't compare with ordering troops in to rape and kill and pillage, surely you can see that????

this isn't just a difference opinion here, brian!

he's already been violently assaulted by your definition, there already IS a civil war (and probably will be for years to come, whether we pull out or not), and how many heartfelt supporters do you think bush has in iraq?  he has US troops and paid lackeys, that's all, and do you really think we would turn our troops loose on iraq for one man's crime upon one other man, even if it was the president?  it would be an embarrassment even the US would never stand.  as for any "supporters" among the iraqis, how big a splash would they make?  when's the last time you saw footage of the average iraqi showing love for bush?  maybe 2003.  tell me exactly how bush's assassination would provoke a war, unless the iraqi government protected the assassin, which they never would?

or are you implying there would be an american civil war if an iraqi killed bush?  that's even more ridiculous.

what???  that's preposterous!  ok, just for the sake of argument, give me a scenario here, a hypothetical timeline from the assassination of clinton to a national conflagration.  has there EVER been a civil war after a president was shot?  lincoln was shot in part BECAUSE there had been a civil war.  garfield?  mckinley?  kennedy?  reagan?  no civil wars there and the country was DEFINITELY more on edge in kennedy's time than in clinton's, and perhaps even than in bush's.

look, i'm not proposing an american kill bush.  i'm saying an iraqi might be justified in doing it, and was CERTAINLY justified in throwing a fucking shoe.  i mean, living in baghdad, that reporter was probably personally affected by the war, or at least knew scores of people who were.  what chance do you ever think the iraqi people have of paying him back?  really, give me the fucking PROBABILITY that nice, legal means will ever lead to nuremberg for bush.  that reporter, in any reasonable moral sense, is JUSTIFIED in his anger and his action and i applaud his courage.

what "road" am i accusing bush of taking again?  the senseless war road?  he's already taken it and the majority of the world's population, in every poll i've ever seen, have already condemned him for it.  i think we've moved past the realm of accusation.

and if obama starts such a war, yes, he'll deserve a shoe in the teeth too, at the very least.

fair enough, brian, but i'm asking you to flesh this out.  who are these "supporters" who would be so offended? 

american civilians?  what could they do to an iraqi?

the US military?  i doubt they would take action with a new, democratic commander-in-chief on the way in.  maybe a few scattered soldiers would commit a few atrocities, but that already happens anyway.

iraqi supporters?  i don't think they exist in any significant number, certainly not enough to start a "civil war" in iraq (once again, as if there wasn't one already), but if you have evidence to the contrary, please furnish it.

your threats of doom and gloom for an iraqi bullet hitting bush, much less a shoe, are pretty vague.  i'm asking you--and this is ALL i'm asking you, so please either address it or not but don't sidetrack--to tell me who you mean exactly by "supporters" and how they could possibly make things worse for the iraqi people than they already are.

You are confusing issues. You are making it about Iraq, and I am talking about human phycology.

"One man's hero is another man's terrorist".

If instead of a shoe he had a gun, what would Bush supporters demand? MORE VIOLENCE!

"Hero's" must die as a concept if we expect humans to effectively get along.

His emotions as to why he did what he did were understandable. But what if he had, instead of merely throwing a shoe, migrated to America and blew himself up in a movie theatre? Would you still call him a hero?

Muslims blow up busses and their supporters call them heros. Jews blow up Muslim houses and their supporters call them heros. All I see is the body count rising.

i never even used the word "hero."  i said he was justified, which isn't even remotely the same, and that he had courage, which he clearly did since he made such a bold statement in a place where i'm sure he knew he would face immediate, serious repercussions.

look, i'm interested in concrete history and events.  if you want to have a philosophical argument, i'm out.

This is a situation where both of you are right. Brian, because he's advocating rational action rather than emotional action, and iwbiek, because he's supporting the only kind of retribution Bush is likely to see: having a shoe thrown at him by someone who has lost much, much more than most of us can even imagine.

Brian's right, in that, if Bush were shot by an Iraqi, we'd have Americans ready to turn Iraq into a glass field. Hell, even a lot of people who don't support Bush right now would be all for it. It would justify a lot of Americans' false views of Iraqis.

But we're never going to see any kind of true discovery of the crimes in which Bush is, at the least, complicit. He's going to get away scott-free for telling lies to lead us to a bad war that resulted in the deaths of almost a hundred thousand Iraqi civilians (three times the number killed by Saddam Hussein) and resulting in the collapse of their society, for allowing the suspension of habeus corpus and allowing torture of prisoners, and for shredding the US Constition by declaring unary Presidential power and ignoring basic liberties. Oh, and for other things.

I suspect it's the first item that has that reporter a wee bit peeved.

I certainly do not advocate nor condone violence. As Brian said, it leads almost invariably to more violence.

Personal violence is usually the result of frustration. It's a show of power when you feel impotent. That one act of violence (the throwing of the shoe) will lead to more violence against the hurler of footwear.

But I can almost guarantee that one act probably gives many Iraqis a feeling of power, however fleeting, that was not there before. And in that, I can't help but think it might've been worth it.

And I bet even some reading this had loved ones either die or injured in 9/11. On top of killing the terrorists in Afganistan, I am quite sure people who had nothing to do with Bin Laden were killed by our troops. Now those people are more likely to Support Bin Ladin, than understand why we did what we did.

Once again, where does it stop?

His emotions were justified, but that doesn't mean his actions will solve anything. If anything it will merely esculate things.