The post you are reporting:
Many of you will have seen the ungodly sight of President George Bush ducking from the flight of a pair of well worn brown shoes yesterday. It was at a safely secured press conference but one journalist, Im assuming he was a journalist, took careful aim with one of his shoes then let fly. George saw it coming and was able to duck, as a shoe travels less faster than a bullet. But no sooner had George ducked then the same individual took aim with his second shoe and the President had to carefully duck again. The security guys must have been outside having a fag!
This took place in central Baghdad and really just about sums up the Wests whole incursion into Iraq. WE are hated far and wide, and even in secured and virtually trouble free Baghdad they hate the foreign intruders even more. A BBC News crew went out onto the streets of Baghdad to talk to the people about the incident and everybody, like everybody, was with the shoe thrower...
"Get the Americans out of here!!"
was the cry.
Once again it draws my attention to the baloney of hearts and minds. I saw all this oul cobblers in Ireland....
'Bringing the soldiers in for a cuppa tea'
'Catholics and Protestants play together'
all heartwarming hearts and minds type stories, loved by the media and the government of the day, but utter baloney on the ground. People reading it or seeing it here in the UK in Hudersfield or Halifax might think its true for a while but.....
I can see this same thing with Iraq. No hearts and minds are ever won. The propped up government doesnt carry the people with it and when we all pull out after too many of our own dead the whole place will almost certainly resort to misery on a grand scale.
So a departing George Bush, perhaps believing in all this media hogwash, and on his farewell goodwill tour too, might well have expected to be greeted with flowers and chocolates, but no all he got was a pair of smelly shoes delivered without the help of UPS.