Iraqi Who Threw Shoes at Bush Released, Tells World He Was Tortured in Prison

The man that the New York Times describes as Mutader al Zaidi, who is Sunni, had his sentence reduced to 1 year and received time off for good behavior.

The New York Times has a good report on Mr. Zaidi. See "Iraqi Who Threw Shoes at Bush Is Released" which has been updated in the last few hours to "Iraqi Shoe Thrower Says He Was Tortured in Jail " for details his release and claims of torture including what the NY Times says is being"soaked in water".  The Times Online, Murdoch's London Times' says he claims "simulated drowning" in "Iraqi shoe-thrower Muntazer al-Zaidi 'was waterboarded'".  I'm not implying that I don't believe Mr. Zaidi.  Maybe the NY Times was exercising a great deal of caution before they passed on his claim, or maybe they know something they aren't really explaining.  The refusal of mainstream news sources to explain why they downplay or ignore news other sources are highlighting, when they essentially have the same information is one of the really annoying things they do. I can see why he wants to leave ASAP after those revelations, even discounting the danger for Sunnis in the now Shia dominated Iraq. 

Still there are other concerns too

Mr. Zaidi's flight from his own nation makes a brighter point of what has happened to Iraq since we decided to ignore the nation we invaded and caused widespread ethnic cleansing within.

We hear nearly nothing about the sectarian divide that appears to be growing permanent.  Also as Iraq may have become more dangerous for Sunnis as American troops left the cities, but we're not hearing much about that, only about big explosions.

Who wants to look at a house they burned down, or a car they totaled while on a drunken binge?

There is another reason we are not examining the problems we caused in Iraq, war is bad for consumerism.   People get in a funk when the threat or the reality of war is prominent in the news.  

I started my second business in the summer of 1990 just a month before Iraq invaded Kuwait.  Before the invasion the new business phone rang at least once a day (since the new phone books hadn't come out and Internet phone searches were not very good that was good).  But, the day that Iraq rolled into Kuwait the phone turned to stone.  It wasn't that bad for me, as I had the first business and that was a continuing service business that was not affected by the war scare.  I was just amused and learned the lesson well. 

I think I got a phone call a month until we invaded Kuwait driving the Iraqis out.  After a few weeks with the news reports glorifying our non victory (well we didn't make it to Baghdad, but that was alright with us) and covering the attrocities committed by our troops everyone was feeling better and business as judged by cars in parking lots where I shop and the telephone ringing, recovered quickly.

The main point is to make things look as normal as possible.  

Knowing what I do about how war and other massive upsets affect business, I suspect that big business financed Mainstream News doesn't want too much discussion of the effects of our war to oust Saddam Hussein and install a government that would allow American oil companies to receive up to 75% of profits from the extraction of Iraqi oil.  (The actual bill to allow the massive pay outs has not been passed,yet.)

I'm sure that mainstream will let the tide of news wash the painful inferences of Mr. Zaidi's inprisonment and the fate of the Sunnis of Iraq fade away quickly so America can get back to shopping.   

tags: al zaidi  iraqi shoe thrower  george w bush  waterboarding  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit