You're Welcome, Iraq

NY Times' international paper has a story on the the Arab reaction to the Bush shoe-throwing incident.

Thousands have demonstrated in Iraq in support of this, which implies that many more support this absurd and otherwise irrelevant act.

I wonder what the reaction would've been if the brave journalist had decided to throw his shoes and call a dog Saddam Hussein. Saddam just might have reacted a little differently. Say, cutting the guy into little pieces using a pocket knife, and maybe eliminating his family, maybe even his whole village. Who knows, but maybe Saddam's sons could have had their own brand of fun with the man's female relatives. That was the Hussein way.

Indeed, the only reason he could do this in the first place is that a free and open society was having a press conference with a freely elected leader of a free country.

It's hard not to get steaming angry at these mobs of ignorant protesters.
But they are just that - ignorant.

Who in their right mind, after being freed from Saddam Hussein and given a chance at freedom and prosperity, would insult the leader of the nation that brought you this chance? And, that after the nation had sacrificed thousands of its sons and daughters to do so?
Even if you no longer desired to have that nation have a say in your national affairs, you wouldn't dare treat it with the worst insult your culture can come up with (aside from all that rape and torture and mass-grave kind of stuff).

No, you wouldn't do that unless you are supremely ignorant. A violent tribal culture doesn't help either.

Perhaps these ingrates would prefer to have been treated like Japan and Germany towards the end of WWII - carpet-bombed and ruled by martial law. Maybe that's more their language.