Gabriele Zamparini

Jonathan Steele from the Guardian wrote yesterday an article (*) on Muntazer al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at Bush. I had sent him an e-mail earlier yesterday, asking to write about it (**) but that was of course not the reason Steele wrote his piece, or at least so I hope; I wouldn't like to be the one responsible for this other charade of journalism.

Jonathan Steele writes:

"The Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, has condemned Zaidi's action as an insult to a foreign guest, but Maliki - who, of course, has no influence over Iraqi's [sic] independent prosecution service - must know that a harsh sentence will only damage his own new-found reputation as the nationalist who managed to get Bush to agree to a withdrawal timetable."

We all know Iraq's "independent prosecution service", we have seen it on TV two years ago when the last president of Iraq was lynched, of course, independently. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the United Nations have all written long reports on Iraq's "independent prosecution service" but Steele seems to be on the Moon. And Maliki's "new-found reputation"? But this is nothing.

Steele writes at the end of his Guardian's piece:

"The protest that day in 2004 was over the shooting of a reporter and his cameraman from the Al-Arabiya TV station. (...) They were not the first reporters to be killed by the Americans in the year after the invasion, so their colleagues' indignation was not a sudden flare-up; it was more like a slow burn. Presumably, that was the case with Zaidi. Several dozen more journalists have died in the line of duty in Iraq since 2004. You can see why any journalist would be angry."

The entire world knows by now Muntazer al-Zaidi's words: "This is the farewell kiss you dog... this is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq".

Those words and those shoes were for the 1.2 million people slaughtered by the US-led war of aggression against Iraq and for all those left in a devastated country. Jonathan Steele, presumably, is just deceiving his readers by writing about the "journalists who have died in the line of duty". Muntazer al-Zaidi's was a J'accuse! for the Iraq genocide, a J'accuse! of an entire People against an ongoing genocide and the silence and hypocrisy around it. The entire world could understand those words, those shoes and their meaning; the entire world but Jonathan Steele, who seems to be on the Moon.

From the beginning all through the end, Steele's article is the perfect example of the condescending attitude of Western liberal intellectuals, a class totally isolated in its comfortable Ivory Tower to have completely lost the meaning of decency.

References

(*) Precedent for the shoe-throwing protest, Jonathan Steele, guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 16 December 2008 16.41 GMT

(**)

From: The Cat's Dream
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:28:38
To: j.steele@guardian.co.uk
Cc: Media Lens editor
Subject: RE: Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi

Dear Jonathan Steele,

A few weeks ago you wrote in the Guardian:

"The deal gives Iraq's national resistance almost everything it fought for (...) From the American point of view, the main thing the pact does is to allow the US to withdraw with dignity. No hasty Vietnam-style humiliation, but an orderly retreat from an adventure which was illegal, unnecessary, and a disaster from the moment of conception. Like most Iraqis, I am content with that." [link]

As you certainly know a few days ago Ali al-Dabbagh, spokesman for the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said some U.S. forces could be needed for 10 years: "We do understand that the Iraqi military is not going to get built out in the three years. We do need many more years. It might be 10 years," Dabbagh said at a Pentagon press briefing. [link]

Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi has shown the world how content most of Iraqis are. The Iraqi Resistance group "Jihad and Reform" reacted on the Iraqi journalist act saying: "This is the referendum [on the Security Agreement] you asked for, you saw it with your own eyes". Iraqis are demonstrating all over the country to ask the Green Zone puppets to free Muntazer.

Please, I'd like to kindly invite you to write as soon as possible in the Guardian about your fellow journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi.

He's been tortured by the Quisling Iraqi government and I believe he deserves all our support, especially by Western journalists.

Thank you very much for your attention and all the time you will dedicate to this urgent matter.

Best wishes,
Gabriele Zamparini

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Free Muntather al-Zaidi
Please Sign the Petition Now!

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Source:
http://www.thecatsdream.com/blog/2008/12/steele-on-moon.htm

Illustration:
http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/images/2008/12/15/image4668690.jpg